In Phil Steele's magazine, he has a section summarizing 2017 recruiting.

I believe that the overall impression of BYU fans about recruiting is that it's improving, and that the 2017 is better than 2016 and some previous years. But Steele list's BYU's 2017 recruiting class as only the 73rd best in the country.

Here are some interesting points that can be made based on the information in the magazine:

1. All teams in all P5 conferences are ranked higher than BYU except for 1. Kansas. And the Jayhawks are ranked 74, right after BYU. So in terms of recruiting class rankings (at least by Phil Steele) BYU is among the P5 schools, but just barely.

2. There are 8 schools that are NOT from P5 conferences whose recruiting classes were ranked higher than BYU. From the AAC: UCF (42), Cincinnati (60), Memphis (64), Houston (67), USF (70), and East Carolina (71). From CUSA: Florida Atlantic (69). From the MWC: Boise State (51). A couple of thoughts come to mind when reading this list. First, during the B12 fake beauty contest, BYU was considered by many to be the top candidate for inclusion, which makes it very interesting that virtually all of their top competition for a P5 slot were ranked higher than BYU in terms of recruiting. Second, Florida Atlantic? If I hadn't read the list myself I would have thought they were an FCS school.

3. Six schools on BYU's schedule this year have higher recruiting rankings than BYU: LSU (7), Mississippi State (25), Utah (37), Wisconsin (41), Boise State (51), and East Carolina (71).

So after considering all of this information several questions come to mind:

1. Is BYU really doing better in recruiting than they were before? There's certainly lots of anecdotal information that they are, but the numbers, at least by Steele, don't seem to support that notion.

2. How much of the positive feelings that BYU fans currently have about the state of recruiting is more about talented athletes transferring from other schools? Most of those don't show up in the recruiting numbers, so maybe BYU is doing better, overall, in attracting new talent than the raw numbers suggest.

3. In addition to transfers, BYU has commitments from a number of very talented athletes for the next 2 or 3 years. Those commitments have raised the level of excitement among fans, but the results, in terms of recruiting rankings won't be know until months or years in the future. However, these commitments give fans hope that next year will be better than 73, and that rankings for future classes will continue to improve.

Personally, I trust the current coaching staff. The transfers and commitments for next year and beyond do show a trend of improvement. I'm hopeful that we'll see much improved results in terms of recruiting rankings in the years to come. More importantly, I'm confident that with the players BYU is getting from all sources, and the coaching those players are receiving, BYU will be able to put a very competitive product on the field this year and in the years to come.