Three-Point Stance: Big 12 grades, future award winners, Florida

Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell’s Three-Point Stance is here with grades for the Big 12 coaches, potential award winners in the 2017 class and a reality check on the Florida recruiting landscape.

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Professor Farrell is back and it’s time to grade the job the Power Five coaches did this season, continuing today with the Big 12. Here are my SEC and ACC grades.

West Virginia: B+ – Dana Holgorsen and his program were expected to finish seventh in the Big 12, so a 10-2 season is a big deal.

Oklahoma: B+ – Picked to win the Big 12, Bob Stoops did so and finished undefeated in the league. If not for the loss to Houston, this would be an A grade even with the Ohio State blowout.

Oklahoma State: B – Mike Gundy got robbed of a win against Central Michigan and lost to a bad Baylor team, but overall it was a good season with nine wins.

Kansas State: B – Bill Snyder is consistently good as a coach. There's nothing spectacular here with losses to Stanford, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State – all good teams – and a solid season overall.

TCU: C – The Horned Frogs were supposed to finish second in the Big 12 and had two first-place votes, but Gary Patterson's team finished at .500 overall and under .500 in conference play.

Baylor: C – Jim Grobe jumped into a bad situation but from 6-0 to 6-6 isn’t great and losing to both Texas and Texas Tech in 2016 isn’t easy to do.

Texas Tech: C- – Watching Texas Tech was fun this season for sure, at least on offense, but Kliff Kingsbury’s defense was horrible and needs to be addressed moving forward. The Red Raiders gave up 40 or more points in 8 of 12 games.

Iowa State: C- – Expectations were low so 3-9 wasn’t unexpected, but wins over San Jose State, Kansas and Texas Tech isn’t impressive enough for a better grade for Matt Campbell even though his team hung with a few better teams.

Texas: D – The Notre Dame win turned out to be nothing special for Charlie Strong and a losing record at Texas is not pretty and ultimately got him fired.

Kansas: D – Yes, David Beaty had a historic win over Texas, but the rest of the results weren’t pretty. It's tough to win just two games as a Power Five team these days.

This might be a tad bit ridiculous but, with the college football awards season all done, I thought it would be fun to take a shot at guessing which 2017 recruits could be future award winners.

Heisman – Kellen Mond, Texas A&M – I’m the biggest Mond supporter among our group of analysts and I see a great future with the Aggies. Five of the last seven Heisman winners have been dual-threat quarterbacks and he will have a strong supporting group on offense. If he can improve his accuracy, watch out.

Others: Tate Martell, Ohio State; Najee Harris, Alabama; Cam Akers, undecided

Doak Walker – Najee Harris, Alabama – Harris has rare ability, which makes this an easy projection. Oddly enough, some of the other great running backs I’ve seen in my career (e.g. Adrian Peterson, Leonard Fournette and others) never won this award.

Others: Cam Akers, undecided; Khalan Laborn, Florida State; D’Andre Swift, Georgia

Davey O’Brien – Davis Mills, Stanford -- This isn’t always the Heisman winner, so I’ll go with our top pro-style quarterback here.

Others: Hunter Johnson, Clemson; Jake Fromm, Georgia; Dylan McCaffrey, Michigan

Bilentnikoff – Cedarian Lamb, Oklahoma – I’ll take the best wide receiver committed to a Big 12 school, since the conference has had the winner in six out of the last 10 years.

Others: Jerry Jeudy, Alabama; Tee Higgins, Clemson; Donovan Peoples-Jones, undecided

Mackey – Brock Wright, Notre Dame – In a down year at tight end, I can see Wright being the best pass-catching threat down the road in this class.

Others: Colby Parkinson, Stanford; Hunter Bryant, Washington; Matt Dotson, Michigan State

Outland – Jedrick Wills, Alabama - Offensive linemen get the nod more often here, so I’ll go with Wills knowing that an Alabama player has won this three times since 2008.

Others: Marvin Wilson, undecided; Wyatt Davis, Ohio State; Isaiah Wilson, undecided

Butkus – Baron Browning, Ohio State – Browning should be a tackling machine in Columbus.

Others: Dylan Moses, Alabama; Jaden Hunter, Georgia; Jordan Anthony; undecided

Thorpe – Jacoby Stevens, LSU – This usually goes to a cornerback, but how can you bet against LSU which had Morris Claiborne and Patrick Peterson win it recently.

Others: Lamont Wade, undecided; Darnay Holmes, undecided; AJ Terrell, Clemson

Hendricks – Jaelan Phillips, UCLA – Yes, UCLA isn’t very good right now and the Bruins are certainly not known for their defense, but if Phillips could put up freaky numbers in a pass-happy conference is he improves his consistency.

Others: Josh Kaindoh, undecided; Chase Young, Ohio State; A.J. Epenesa, Iowa

Hornung – Lamont Wade, undecided – I think Wade ends up at Penn State, where James Franklin will use him on special teams and possibly offense in addition to his duties on defense. Just a hunch.

Others: Darnay Holmes, undecided; Jaylon Redd, Oregon

Following the hiring of Charlie Strong at USF and Lane Kiffin at FAU, I’ve seen a lot of stuff out there about how competitive the recruiting landscape will be in the Sunshine State over the next many years.

Hogwash.

Strong is a great hire for the Bulls, but they won’t be stealing recruits away from Florida, Florida State or Miami much at all. Not with Jimbo Fisher leading the way for the Seminoles, Jim McElwain selling the SEC and two Eastern Division titles and Mark Richt and his recruiting prowess in Coral Gables.

And Kiffin? Even his marquee name won’t bring top kids to FAU.

The pecking order in the state of Florida, to me, remains the same. Florida State has a large lead followed by Florida and then Miami. None of those coaches are on the hot seat for the foreseeable future and I don’t think any of them are overly concerned that Strong or Kiffin will pull a Gary Patterson, Art Briles or Tom Herman in Texas and steal away big-time recruits from the power programs.