Lemming: Al Golden One of "Top 10 Recruiters in the Country"
National Signing Day is a wrap but that hasn't stopped the waterfall of opinions from flowing. CBS Sports Network's Tom Lemming, one of the pioneers of recruiting coverage, joined WQAM to talk about Miami's class, Al Golden's recruiting ability, and how the star system can be deceiving.
"It's what have you done for me lately and the players go to whoever is winning at the time," Lemming said of the challenge recruiting coming off a 6-7 season. "That's why a year ago, the 2015 class -- the number one class at the time was Michigan. They had a number of these big-time stars committed to them. Then when they got off to such a slow start this year, everyone jumped ship and immediately jumped to whoever was hot."
The Miami Hurricanes shared a similar experience down the stretch, losing a chunk of verbal commitments, largely to other Florida schools. Still, Lemming feels this is a pretty strong class in Year 4 of Golden's tenure in Miami considering their record last season.
"I had them number 22," Lemming said of Miami's class ranking. "They did a very good job with a 6-7 record. Al Golden is an outstanding recruiter. I've always considered him one of the top 10 recruiters in the country."
Meanwhile the recruiting guru labeled the star system as "pretty bogus," even after admitting he "kind of started that [system]" around 35 years ago.
"Stars mean nothing," Lemming said. "I always tell everybody to take it with a grain of salt. It's fun but don't treat it as gospel because, believe me, the guys that are rating these guys, a lot of them have been doing it for maybe two weeks."
