[SamuelMcF]

No, but I do wonder how many within those 35 possible admits a year are “steak eaters” with above average AIs and marginal football skills who enable the school to admit a player with a below-average AI but much higher football skills.  For someone who might be, say, a half SD below the overall school’s average (so, a half SD above the required football average), that can be a good deal, as they might not get in otherwise.

BC

I think you're overthinking it, or maybe we're saying virtually the same thing. There's no need to recruit steak eaters of marginal talent. These are FCS schools, the former 1-AA, so by definition the talent is more 1-star than 4- and 5-star. There are probably 5x the number of academically qualified football players who can play at the FCS level than at the BCS level. You're talking about All-League players, versus All-State.  Kyle Juszczyk, a 7x pro bowler who graduated from Harvard was probably the best player on Harvard's team. He had a 4.2 g.p.a. in high school and a 30 on the ACT (93rd percentile), equivalent to a 1400 on the SAT. Probably not too hard to find all-league players with those credentials.

Sometimes you're talking about All-State players in non-marquee states too. For instance, incoming PWO Chip Allers was All-State in Oregon, a state that usually doesn't produce more than a handful of P5 recruits a year. Ditto incoming PWO Carter Davis from Idaho, which produces even fewer than Oregon does. Conversely, an All-League player from SoCal, Texas, or Georgia could very feasibly be a 4* recruit.

By the way, I believe preferred walk-ons ARE recruited, hence the term "preferred." They may count towards "offsetting" the rest of the recruits. Although I don't think this is the policy here - we've been talking about the Ivies for so long that I think we lost the plot.

[SamuelMcF]

No, but I do wonder how many within those 35 possible admits a year are “steak eaters” with above average AIs and marginal football skills who enable the school to admit a player with a below-average AI but much higher football skills.  For someone who might be, say, a half SD below the overall school’s average (so, a half SD above the required football average), that can be a good deal, as they might not get in otherwise.

BC

I think you're overthinking it, or maybe we're saying virtually the same thing. There's no need to recruit steak eaters of marginal talent. These are FCS schools, the former 1-AA, so by definition the talent is more 1-star than 4- and 5-star. There are probably 5x the number of academically qualified football players who can play at the FCS level than at the BCS level. You're talking about All-League players, versus All-State.  Kyle Juszczyk, a 7x pro bowler who graduated from Harvard was probably the best player on Harvard's team. He had a 4.2 g.p.a. in high school and a 30 on the ACT (93rd percentile), equivalent to a 1400 on the SAT. Probably not too hard to find all-league players with those credentials.

Sometimes you're talking about All-State players in non-marquee states too. For instance, incoming PWO Chip Allers was All-State in Oregon, a state that usually doesn't produce more than a handful of P5 recruits a year. Ditto incoming PWO Carter Davis from Idaho, which produces even fewer than Oregon does. Conversely, an All-League player from SoCal, Texas, or Georgia could very feasibly be a 4* recruit.

By the way, I believe preferred walk-ons ARE recruited, hence the term "preferred." They may count towards "offsetting" the rest of the recruits. Although I don't think this is the policy here - we've been talking about the Ivies for so long that I think we lost the plot.