Strong Start for McNeese Recruits

By Jim Gazzolo

It wasn’t long ago that National Signing Day for football was a really big event.

As high school kids made the biggest decision of their young lives, television cameras and other media gave them their first taste of celebrity.

Parents and friends cheered as the schools put on big shows. 

College football programs lived and died by every signing. That has all changed.

Last week, the first of several signing periods came and went with not nearly as much excitement or attention. 

Part of that is the transfer portal, which makes recruiting more about winning now and less emphasis on the future. High schoolers are often overlooked in favor of the best 24-year-old, sixth-year senior still available.

But for schools down the food chain, like McNeese, it is still important they ink their share of young players.

“I still believe we are a development-level program,” said McNeese head coach Matt Viator. “We can’t compete with the big schools, so we need to develop players and fill in our needs with the portal.”

Viator has a formula that wants to replace every graduating senior with a high schooler to keep his class sizes level. He then wants to replace those lost in the portal with portal players.

“You have to replace production with production,” Viator said. 

There is also a part of the formula where you are always re-recruiting your current players as well. That, he and his staff try to do every day.

Whether that formula leads to wins and championships will be decided at a later date, but the first part looks to be successful this year for the Cowboys.

Last week, McNeese signed a total of 18 players from either high schools or junior colleges. Their class was ranked No. 1 overall in the Southland Conference and in the Top 10 nationally on the FCS level by 247Sports.

While that guarantees little, it is at least a good starting point and shows that McNeese is once again a place where football players are looking to continue their careers. 

It was just a couple of years ago when McNeese had lost almost the entire senior class and had just four celebrated on Senior Day. 

Numbers don’t always add up to wins, but the lack of them quickly leads to losses.

Viator said he was “excited” about the class he had just signed, which was led by a lot of linemen on both sides of the ball. He also pointed out the Cowboys are not done.

The transfer portal is open for two weeks starting on Jan. 2, followed by another signing day for mostly high schoolers in February. So there is plenty of work still to be done.

At least the Cowboys can say they are off to a good start. 

Jim Gazzolo is a freelance writer who covers sports in Southwest Louisiana. He is also the host of Poke Nation, which airs weekly on CBS-Lake Charles.