Army announces 60 signees today for football team.

Maplerock

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Really? 5% of the incoming class are identified and pursued footballers? This doesn't count basketball, track, etc. Women's sports, etc. Cadets and Midshipmen have always been good athletes, but I can't remember any academy loading up Like this on signing day.

Navy and AF announced recruit numbers in the 20's today. Full stats are available at rivals.com along with names of the recruited players.

Why the huge numbers differential? Has Army begun an all out blitz to solve recent lean years on the gridiron?

Has the mission shifted from creating the best officers to creating the best sports program? or maybe 60 of the best qualified applicants also happen to be division 1 football players.
 
Hard to say. At every brief this past year, the Supt has reiterated his biggest concerns besides creating the best officers for the country are beating Navy in football and combating sexual harassment/assault at West Point. As you can tell, the latter is going pretty well, at least from an entire organizational perspective, yet the former remains illusive.

Also, understand that all 60 of these will not directly enter the academy. Maybe 20 or whatever number is allotted will, and 40 or so will enter the prep school. Do not quote me on those ratios, but from my interacting with classmates here, it seems a large percentage of football players enter the prep school, in addition to the large number who use the football team to gain acceptance and then quit the team. I know at least two in my company who quit football after only 1 season.
 
25 is the limit on "entering Freshmen" each season.

To EagleScout's point, prepsters do not count, but that number will not be 40 incoming Freshmen at West Point unless there is some exception for the SAs.
 
Remember at a SA, no one signs an official letter of intent, so "incoming classes" aren't what normal universities have. Probably 15-20 of these guys are blue chip recruits, with another 20 being guys they are interested in and probably got in without much help and 20 going to the prep school. Each year at a SA there will be 60-80 plebes who start playing football. They will get rid of 20 of those pretty quick. By the time they are seniors... might be 25 of them left. The rest move on to rubgy, lightweight football, or regular members of the Corps.
 
plus some of them will go to USMAPS and may or may not make it
 
There are sports recruits that are competitive enough to win appointments on their own merit. I don't know the number, it could zero, it could 10, it could be 20.
 
There are sports recruits that are competitive enough to win appointments on their own merit. I don't know the number, it could zero, it could 10, it could be 20.

There certainly are...but the prep school is still used as a red shirt factory for football. A kid from our district, that had not been a part of the nomination process, signed to play football with Army sometime after the application deadline. He was/is a smart kid, NHS, top 10%, etc. He probably could have been a direct admit. But, I assume because of football, he went to the prep school first. Academically, he was overqualified for the prep school. But, because size is such a factor in football, an extra year of weight lifting helps immensely.
 
There are sports recruits that are competitive enough to win appointments on their own merit. I don't know the number, it could zero, it could 10, it could be 20.

There certainly are...but the prep school is still used as a red shirt factory for football. A kid from our district, that had not been a part of the nomination process, signed to play football with Army sometime after the application deadline. He was/is a smart kid, NHS, top 10%, etc. He probably could have been a direct admit. But, I assume because of football, he went to the prep school first. Academically, he was overqualified for the prep school. But, because size is such a factor in football, an extra year of weight lifting helps immensely.

Disgree with you - your position "the prep school is still used as a red shirt factory for football." Your supporting argument is "He probably could have been a direct admit." than you make a leap "Academically, he was overqualified for the prep school." I will agree with you if you knew that he had a high SAT/ACT scores. Top 10% at an average high school (based on % of graduates attending 4 year college) and below average SAT/ACT scores usually results in academic disqualification.

I think folks know that I am a FFR. From what I have seen sports recurit that end up at Prep School from MD are academically unqualified. Although not football, there are several sports recurit that are direct admit this year and if you block out their sports status, you can't really distinguished them from other competitive candidates. I cannot definitely say the prep school is not a red shirt factory for football. But there is not enough evidence presented to convince me that the prep school is a red shirt factory for football. On the 2015 Army Footbal roster, it listed 50 freshmen players and of those 21 have USMAP annotation. I don't know what other Div I football program red shirt precentage is.

This is a general comment. There many reasons why the admissions office don't like this forum - one of the reason is opinions becoming facts. Kids will read what they want to read, but not knowing any better or not having all the facts, some kids will get a wrong impression about West Point (i.e West Point will admit unqualified candidates over (insert reason) over qualified candidates). We should be informing and educating kids or not.
 
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