As you watch the progression - or the lack thereof - of the players who signed last week to play football at Marshall, keep the class of 2011 in mind.
By my count, 15 of the players announced on that first Wednesday in February never made it to senior day in Huntington.
That's a bunch. Too many.
Still, this class was still one of the Thundering Herd's best, a class that fueled two division titles and the 2014 Conference USA championship.
All you need to know are these names:
Rakeem Cato.
Tommy Shuler.
Evan McKelvey.
Cato was a C-USA MVP and two-time offensive player of the year and Shuler became the MU and C-USA leader in receptions with 322. McKelvey overcame two major knee surgeries and won the 2015 defensive player of the year honor.
For the six players who played four years without a redshirt, their record was 35-18, 23-9 in C-USA play. For the seven who were in the program up to last fall, the mark was 45-21, 29-11.
There will be better marks - the class of 2012 has a four-year record of 48-16 - but you have to take it. Remember, the Doc Holliday regime had just finished its first season, and a losing one at that.
I've always thought that going with Cato as a true freshman was gutsy, but then again the other choices were true freshman Blake Frohnapfel and A.J. Graham, the latter a Mark Snyder recruit who appeared to have nagging issues. (Graham was eventually dismissed.) The erratic Mark Cann had taken his degree and bailed out a year early.
Shuler and Cato always had that chemistry they brought from Miami, but Shuler also was the perfect slot receiver to launch the Herd's super-tempo offense in 2012. Remember, Shuler only caught 14 passes as a freshman, meaning he averaged more than 100 the next three years.
McKelvey came here to join his older brother, senior Omar Brown, giving him a comfort level few recruits enjoy. When he suffered his second torn anterior cruciate ligament in 2014, he was honored by teammates who took turns wearing his No. 31.
All three played as true freshmen, because that's what you did in 2011. Others who did and put in four seasons were:
n Cortez Carter: He played second and third fiddle to several linebackers, but had 72 tackles in 51 games. He was valuable on special teams.
n Eric Frohnapfel: He caught 66 passes for 712 yards and 10 touchdowns in 53 games, and he probably should have gotten some more passes. He got in a preseason game with the San Diego Chargers last August.
n Jermaine Holmes: With 296 tackles, 35.5 for loss in 53 games, he was a machine. He and Neville Hewitt made up one of the Herd's most devastating linebacker duos.
I will always remember his fourth-and-1, game-saving tackle of big Jordan Howard on the 17th play of Alabama-Birmingham's late drive. It was one of the manliest hits I have seen at such a critical time.
n Craig Wilkins: He had 65 catches for 766 yards and five touchdowns, mostly working at the "Z" wide receiver position.
McKelvey stayed at MU five seasons, allowed an extra year by the NCAA for all his injuries. Other five-year players, whether by redshirting or by injury:
n Davonte Allen: As upbeat a person as you'll find, he caught 101 passes for 1,612 yards and 13 touchdowns. He struggled to separate from cornerbacks last year, but was the team's leading receiver.
n Keith Baxter: Injuries dealt him a bad hand, but he broke up 14 passes, picked off two and had 66 tackles in 42 games.
n Armonze Daniel: Whether at linebacker or defensive end, he did nothing to merit the four-star rating he carried to Huntington. He had 62 tackles, five for loss, and a sack in 42 games.
n Jarquez Samuel: A hit here. He developed from an above-average tackle to a manhandling beast in his senior year. He even broke up five passes in his 51 games.
n Remi Watson: He was never a marquee back, but he was dependable. He rushed for 1,444 yards and 18 touchdowns, and got more physical with each season.
n Deandre Reaves: I saved this guy for last, because he's the best story. He battled long odds to get on the field at receiver, carrying eight career catches into 2015. He seized the starting slot position as a senior, catching 56 passes for 705 yards and four touchdowns.
His kickoff return abilities were not an issue, as he averaged 27.7 yards and scored three touchdowns. It says here his 93-yard kickoff return stopped the Herd from suffering a horrendous loss at Kent State.
And now, those who didn't make it to the end. There were unusual cases.
We start with Blake Frohnapfel, who couldn't beat out Cato and transferred to Massachusetts. He took a finance degree with him, threw for 6,264 yards and 39 TDs for the Minutemen and will leave with a master's degree as a souvenir.
And he's going to get into an NFL camp, at the very least. Some Herd fans are wondering, "What if?"
My two memories of him come from the defensively doomed 2012 season. Against Tulsa, he had to come in for one play and completed a pass to convert a third-and-11. At East Carolina, he nearly stole the game and a bowl bid after Cato went down.
Steward Butler rushed for 2,063 yards and 18 touchdowns in three seasons, though he was overshadowed by the rise of Devon Johnson in 2014. He could have starred last year in relief of "Rockhead," but his arrest for allegedly assaulting a gay couple in May put an end to that.
Travon Van had some bad injury luck and eventually transferred to Montana, where he rushed for about 1,000 yards in two seasons.
There's there's the odd case of receiver Levern Jacobs. Marshall asked him to grayshirt and play in the fall of 2011 at a prep school, Milford Academy in New York state. But that made him a recruitable athlete again, and he went to Maryland in January 2012.
He was suspended by the university for the 2014 season for an assault charge of which he was eventually found not guilty. In 2013 and 2015, he led the Terrapins in receptions with 47 and 35, respectively. He has one more year.
I'm not a big fan of grayshirting, and this is a prime example.
Then there was Terry Franklin, touted to be a big-time junior-college find who could join Vinny Curry to make a fearsome defensive end duo. He played at Hinds Community College in Mississippi but was trying to finish his two-year degree at Tyler College, closer to his Texas home.
He never showed.
I'm running out of gas, so here's the rest. Others who at least showed up on an autumn Herd roster but did not finish: Chris Alston Jr., Josue Joseph, Deon Meadows, Anthony Spano, Robert Way and Deontae West.
I'll add Conelius Jones, the former Michigan signee who participated in spring drills in 2011 but left in the summer.
Other names you (and I) may have forgotten: Jamar Lewter, Robert Mincey and Colin Munro.
And that's the long and twisted but successful story of Marshall's football signing-day class of 2011. Pshew!