Bigwater, I used to share your beliefs re recruiting ---in hindsight, partly as a rationalization for Ole Miss's poor recruiting. But, if you look at the teams who are ranked the highest in the recruiting rankings, 9 times out of 10, they are the same teams who are finishing every year in the top 10.
Sure, there are going to be "sleepers" every now and then. To add to your list, Deuce McAllister was a sleeper of sorts ---was only rated 3 stars out of high school, and was primarily just recruited by the MS in-state schools. And all of the highly rated recruits are not going to be stars in college, but.... the majority of them will be.
To get to where UM fans want our program to be, we will need to put together several of these type classes in a row ---the upper echelon teams in the SEC have highly rated classes in the top 15 nationally EVERY YEAR. As Rebelyelp so adequately put it, do you want to enter the race with thoroughbreds or shetland ponies? In the past, Ole Miss has not been competing on a level playing field with many of the teams in the SEC as far as talent is concerned, due to poor recruiting. We have tried to "coach up" these "sleepers", "projects" or "underdogs" and compete without much success. I am interested in seeing what we can do after 2-3 really good recruiting classes, with equal or better talent. Its got to work better than what we have been doing.
