After the Bama game, Pete referenced the bar has been raised, and we're seeing it being played out in recruiting as well.
Here's the skinny: In 2018 our roster will be 50% 4 star (and hopefully one day 5) recruits. These are anywhere in America kids, meaning they can pick up the phone and at 55(+) of the 60 Power 5 schools have a scholarship available at any point including signing day. This puts us in the deep end of the pool swimming with the really big sharks of CFB, so the Ty Jones/Ohio State and Marlon/USC saga's are going to be part of this going forward.
Here's how the last 7 player's kids "transactions" have/are going to play out as I see it
Weddington (Plan A/Plan

gone, Marlon (Plan A) gone, Tryon (Plan

, Norgaard (Plan

, Ford (Plan

, Gaye (Plan

, and I think we take one more but don't know who.
Obviously we are going out on a whimper. As the saying goes "coffee is for closers", Two months ago here were our final 5-7 targets. Guys we would all call Plan A types: Foster/AVT/IPM/Johnson/Chaz/missing last couple (Coker/DDY could add the other names I'm sure), and it looks like we will miss on all of them.
The day our classes FINISH with guys like that, is the day we don't have to play perfect versus anyone in America to beat them which was the case versus Alabama.
And to those that say we can't do that up here, look at the class allready. Of the current 15, 10 are 4 stars, and one is a punter so it's really 10 of 14 which is Awesome and Amazing so yes it can be done.
Once this class is in the books, I believe Pete and his coaching staff will self-evaluate like they always do, and see what/where they have to make changes in philosophy/approach/style/etc in their recruiting so they do finish strong.
As he said, the bar has been raised. You always have to have Plan B, just in case, but to get over the new height on the bar, you can't miss on the Plan A kids.