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Bearcats June Recruiting Run Puts Them In A New Position

There was a time a few months ago where the denizens of message boards throughout Bearcatland where doubting if this staff had the ability to recruit at a high level. The reasoning behind the doubt ranged from "its impossible to recruit at UC" to "Tommy Tuberville plays too much golf to be an effective recruiter." After a scintillating run through June that saw the Bearcats ranks swell from 4 commits to 16 this shaping up to be a banner year for Tuberville, with the obvious caveat being that it is a long time until the first Wednesday in February

By Matt Opper
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

As things currently stand the Bearcats class is ranked 35th out of 128 FBS schools according to the 24/7 sports composite which aggregates the outcomes of the four major recruiting services, 24/7 (obviously), rivals, scout and ESPN. Right now the Bearcats class is more highly regarded than 29 power 5 schools. It is by far the best class among group of 5 schools, Rice is a distant second ranked 47th by the 24/7 composite.

There are two reason the Bearcats class has risen so high so fast. The Bearcats have 16 commitments in the class, one of only 20 or so schools who have 15 or more commitments at this point. For school that has traditionally started slow in recruiting before filling up in December and January. Even when Brian Kelly changed the Bearcats recruiting model to fill up most of the class before the season started he wasn't this active this early, July was always the big month for that staff.

Where Tuberville is differentiating himself from the coaches that came before him is in the quality of recruits. 14 of the 16 recruits in this class are considered consensus three star recruits by the 24/7 composite. In the class of 2014 which numbered 24 there were 15 consensus three stars. It is clear that Tuberville and Co. have an eye for talent, the recruiting services agree with that. More to the point their peers do.

It has become something of a habit for there to be a rush of interest in a player after he becomes a Bearcat. The case in point for that is Antonio Howard who committed to the Bearcats in May and saw the market for his services explode. Since committing to the Bearcats Howard has been offered by Penn State, Pitt, West Virginia, Mississippi State, Clemson and most worryingly of all Miami. Howard is still a Bearcat, infact he helped recruit James Gardner to UC, but the staff is going to have to fight to the end to keep Speedy in the fold. The same could be said for many members of this class right now.

Tommy Tuberville and co have assembled a great class to this point, one that could be the backbone for even more success on the football field. If they can hold it together this class would wind up being by far the highest rated in program history. But it is a long way to the first Wednesday in February.

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