The 2017 Patsy Ratings: No. 6, Bucknell

The smell of aged buffalo meat wafted through his imagination.

It was some prior incarnation of the Patsies, and it was Burger Day.  Flown in from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, they were the best bison burger meat the Big Sky had to offer, along with bonus buffalo milk cheddar slices.  The silky-tasting burgers, with the melted buffalo cheddar on fresh brioche, was a treasured memory.  Even the grilled mushrooms on the top seemed opulent in some way.

He also remembered the Bison's mascot, sitting down on the bench, awaiting the announcement of Bucknell's recruiting classes, Bucknell students waiting with baited breath hearing each name.

(Or perhaps they were in Sojka Pavillion for Midnight Madness, or a midweek game versus Loyola.  It's all a bit hazy.)

Nonetheless, it was still jarring to see a folder with coffee cup rings on it, "BUCKNELL" written on it in Sharpie and some numbers crossed out on it.  What happened?  Where were the burgers?

THE GOOD

This One Comes from Virginia

In 2016, the Buffaloes of the Susquehanna had only three recruits on the roster from prospect-rich (and somewhat nearby) Virginia.  With this Patsy class, Bucknell not only added four junior Bison calves from Virginia but also nabbed some notable (and starred) recruits from Texas and Utah.  Head coach Joe Susan hasn't been reluctant to recruit nationally, but the presence of some of these national recruiting wins has to be seen as something really good in Bisonland.  (There was even a recruit that came from Germany.)

THE BAD

It would have been so simple for Bucknell to make a press release, a tweet - something, anything - to announce their final ** recruit.  Instead, it became a guessing game for the Committee to figure out the entire incoming class for the class of 2017 - waiting for the preseason roster to come out, with an official page for the recruit, to attach to this class their final points.  The inclusion of this player was not without controversy - but in the end, the manila folder had a hand-written note to include him in.

PATSY POINT CALCULATION
 

CLASS SIZE = 4.   2 points for achieving "replacement", or 18, recruits, plus six more makes 4 Patsy Points.  2 points for the first 18 + 1 for the next 3 + 1 for the next 3 after that.

QUALITY = 23.   Only 8/20 recruits yielded Patsy Points, and without the inclusion of the final 20th recruit, the quality point level would have been even lower.

DISTRIBUTION = 9.  Every single position was covered, so they got all the possible points.

Speed Is Good

SPEED = 5.   Only two recruits had speed information posted, but they had the good fortune to be very good speed numbers.

TRIGGER = 1.   One quarterback graced the incoming class list, and he had a page on a couple different recruiting sites.  That's good for one extra "trigger point".

JUMBO = 4.  The Bison offensive linemen in this class didn't just meet the Jumbo Points criteria; they blew by it by a huge margin.  It's not often you see 6'4, 310 lb guys in these classes.

NEEDS = 8 (of 12):  

OL = 2 (of 5).   In years past, I've dinged the Buffaloes severely for their lack of offensive linemen.  This year they got some of the depth that they required; that was a positive.  They got some huge recruits; another positive.  Yet none of them were present on the recruiting websites, which hurts.  It would have been nice to see one more starred guy in this list.

DL = 4 (of 4).   Though it was possible to nit-pick here with the size of the incoming DL, the Committee saw the list of impressive pass rushers, and a huge defensive tackle, and concluded that a full meeting of the need was warranted.  Again that latecomer, the 20th recruit, was the starred guy that put them over the top in this area.

DB = 2 (of 3).   Bucknell got some serious numbers here (5 recruits), and also got a recruit with some very good speed (according to one of the recruiting services)  Had one been starred, it would have likely been the full allotment.

COMMITTEE ADJUSTMENT: 

The debate raged for weeks.  "It's not on an official release," one Committee member said, "and we've denied Patsy points in the past without an official release, in ink."

Another one said, "It's freakin' 2017.  Kids self-announce on Twitter, and if a school's social media forgets to announce their own recruit, so what?  If we become aware of it, wouldn't it be wrong to deny them the points?"

"That's just it.  If the school or the school's social media person doesn't care to draw up the release, or make the tweet confirming their existence, should that be rewarded?  We can't be monitoring Twitter every day.  Between the President's Tweets and Shaq's, who has time to hunt down every commit and almost-commit?"

Ultimately it was deemed that the fair thing to do was to include the very, very late recruit not recognized by the school.  But it was also the just thing to do to adjust the class downwards - just a little - as a penalty for not reporting the recruit.

COMMITTEE ADJUSTMENT: -2

BUCKNELL - 53