Arkansas State concludes 2022 with the Sun Belt’s best football recruiting class

Signing Day Twitter graphics a terrific, even when they’re bad. Take Georgia Southern’s approach, for example. It’s simple and clean and contains a strange hashtag nobody will use. Curiously, it appears they found a Signing Day sponsor (Morris Bank, the official bank of student athletes making bank).

Where the Eagles went Minimalistic, the Red Wolves went Baroque, breaking the bank on photography and design packages, sparing us no level of detail. We get school-of-origin, the hashtag, and some seasonal flare. There’s even a Signing Day logo in the corner. (Credit given to the A-State design team of Ciaran Dooley and Julian Aguilar.)

Overall, the Sun Belt can boast a strong Signing Day graphic game. Sure, James Madison could have put a little more effort, but we can give them a pass as FBS rookies. If I had to declare a loser, I gotta go with Old Dominion – from the headache inducing font to the use of double-images, my advice is that sometimes less is more, fellas.

Of course, it’s the substance of the recruits that matters over the aesthetics of the recruitment process. According to 24/7 Sports, Arkansas State delivered the best recruiting class in the Sun Belt, edging out Appalachian State by a handful of points.

Stud	Class	Pos	Height	Weight	Rating (247)	Transfer
Brian Alston	Fr	DL	6-2	241	0.8585
Jacob Bayer	Jr.	OL	6-3	315	0.78*	Lamar
Micah Bland	Sr.	DL	6-1	321	NA	N. Alabama
Tobias Braun	So.	OL	6-7	315	0.8612*	Ole Miss
Tennel Bryant	Fr.	WR	5-7	149
DeAndra Burns Jr	Fr	WR	5-10	154	0.8558
Chauncy Cobb	Fr	WR	5-6	147	0.817
Will Crowder	So.	QB	6-2	217	0.8726*	West Virginia
Clyde Curry	Fr.	WR	6-2	162	0.8456
Walker Davis	Fr.	OL	6-3	280	0.8163
Wendell Davis Jr.	Sr.	LB	6-3	240	0.8544*	Northwestern
Kevin Diaz	Jr.	TE	6-4	259	NA	NW MS CC
Brandon Greil	Fr	S	5-11	159	0.825
Timothy Gulley	Fr,	DL	6-1	294	0.8237
Hamilton Hall	Sr.	OL	6-5	315	0.8505*	Ole Miss
Cedric Hawkins	Fr.	RB	5-7	173	0.8104
DeAubry Hood	Fr.	CB	5-11	170
Courtney Jackson	Jr.	WR	5-11	179	0.844*	Syracuse
Terrell James	Fr.	DE	6-3	219	0.8475
Ian Jeffries	Fr.	DL	6-4	274	0.8478
Dontay Joyner	Fr.	S	6-0	165	0.8336
RJ Kelly	Fr.	LB	6-1	220	0.8385
Takare Lipscomb	Fr.	WR	6-0	175	0.8433
Tyler Little	Fr	TE	6-4	240
Mason Myers	Fr.	OL	6-4	254	0.8378
Jaylen Raynor	Fr.	QB	6-0	198
Jordan Sample	Fr	LB	6-2	194	0.827
Zak Wallace	Jr.	RB	6-0	220	0.7667*	UT Martin
Jamil Williams	Fr.	LB	5-11	202	0.8244
					*HS

Arkansas State Butch Jones continues to build the program methodically and without shortcuts. While he and his staff did acquire some much needed transfer help, 20 of the 29 players signed are incoming freshman. In addition, the rebuild of the offensive line is an ongoing project, with the staff hauling in five more sides-of-beef – including two very large transfers from Ole Miss.

Lastly, state programs (including Arkansas State) have been criticized for signing too few homegrown talents. On Wednesday, A-State signed five from the state of Arkansas (DeAndra Burns Jr., Walker Davis, Brandon Greil, Cedric Hawkins, and Zak Wallace) more than any FBS program in the state.

IMAGES: Grabbed off Twitter from every Sun Belt program