How will recruiting be affected by Big 12 rejection?

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It’s a bye week for the University of Memphis football team, but the mailbag is pushing on into Week 2. There were lots of questions after the Tigers’ 35-17 win over Southeast Missouri State last weekend.

Thanks, as always, to those of you who sent in questions. Remember you can submit those any time by email (tom. schad@commercialappeal. com) or on Twitter (@Tom_ Schad). And please include #TigerMail when tweeting your questions.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in. (Note: This is an abbreviated version. For the full mailbag, go to commercialappeal.com and our digital apps.)

From @JTPitner47 via Twitter: “Should we be worried that some recruits will decommit now that the Big 12 is out of the picture?”

This was the most popular question in the mailbag this week, so we’ll start here. The short answer: No, I don’t think the Big 12 snub will significantly affect Memphis’ 2017 recruiting class. The much longer explanation: Obviously it depends on what was said as part of the coaching staff’s pitch, right? If Mike Norvell told Obinna Eze, for example, that Memphis was definitely in the Big 12 and if he came here he would definitely get to play Texas and Oklahoma and TCU in conference play, then sure — last week’s news might change Eze’s thinking a bit. But I don’t think Norvell made those promises. I can’t see him openly lying to a recruit like that. So then, it comes down to each individual recruit: Did Recruit X commit to Memphis because — and only because — he wanted a chance to play in the Big 12? I would be surprised if that was a deciding factor for any of these guys, especially the highly rated ones. Eze, for example, has spoken eloquently and at length about Memphis’ business program