Country Roads Confidential

Now that we've passed signing day for the 2013 class, I wanted to give you guys an update on how things are going around here and what to expect for the foreseeable future.

- First off, I wanted to thank you all for being members of the site. We wouldn't be what we are today without you and I can't express that enough. Your support is what is helping this site grow and what gives myself - and the bosses at 247Sports - the confidence that it will continue to shine.

- Speaking of said growth, I thought I'd share with you just how far along we've come in the past year or so. Since National Signing Day of 2012, the number of subscribers has doubled, while pageviews and visitors are equally as impressive. Numerous times this "busy season," we have finished in the Top 10 on the network in new subscribers and showed an excellent retention rate - meaning people like what they see when they try us out. As for activity, for the entire year of 2011, there were roughly 3.3 million people on the site. In 2012, that number increased to 6.1 million. And even though we're only five weeks into the new year, we have already passed 1.2 million mark (and that doesn't count yesterday's Signing Day influx). In fact, just yesterday alone, we had more people on the site than we did for the site's first entire month with the network back in November of 2010. By the way, my goal for this year? 10 million.

- Another aspect of our growth that has helped out tremendously is the ratio of annual members has increased dramatically in the past year. As of the end of January, almost exactly half of our members were "multi-month" subscribers (once upon a time there was a bi-annual option and, while not available here, those people got grandfathered in). It sounds trivial, but that kind of commitment from our subscribers allows us to budget and plan more adequately for the future.

- Speaking of, in 2011, there was no on-site coverage for EerSports. In 2012, I personally attended the Spring Game, each of the prospect and 7-on-7 camps in the summer, we hired a photographer and even added a more traditional game/practice beat writer. This year, I plan on attending those same "recruiting-centric" events again and we are in the process of finding a second writer for the traditional "beat" coverage. Not only that, but in the coming weeks, I will be looking for a volunteer to help as a third writer and cover a little bit of everything - football and basketball beats plus some recruiting. And we expect to keep our photographer for the coming year as well. That in no way means my coverage will slow down. I will continue to provide as many updates as I do now, but these will be additions onto that.

- Continuing the theme of "upcoming events," you may have noticed that there is no plan to slow things down here. The insider rewind pieces will continue for the next week, and shortly after that we will take a look at "What's Coming In and What's Going Out" at each position, giving a preview of spring practice. I still intend to have three to four articles (if not more) on the site every single day including Daily Stock Reports, Morning Mashups, weekly Recruiting Trails, monthly Where Things Stand pieces and regular Mountaineers Most Wanted articles. Soon, I will have a new Visitor List Thread up for spring visitors. When spring practice starts, we will have coverage of that leading up to the spring game, where we hope to knock it out of the park with coverage again. Not only that, but I will be traveling to recruiting events around the region for 247Sports where I will be scouting prospects and talking with WVU targets - something unique to our site.

- And don't forget how important this stretch of recruiting has become in today's college football scene. Kids like Quinton Spain, Scooter Berry and Jarrod Harper have committed this early, while guys like Pat Lazear, Will Clarke and Dorrell Jalloh have been added late. Furthermore, thinking of the 2013 class alone, 13 of the 19 high school commits visited Morgantown during the spring, while 17 of the 19 were not only visited by the WVU coaches, but were interviewed here on the site back in the spring.

- Obviously with being a member of this site, part of what comes with it is the benefits of the network as a whole. Over the past year, 247Sports has hired some of the top names in the business from competing networks - Chris Nee, Tom Loy, Brian Perroni and more. If you haven't noticed their benefit to the WVU recruiting scene, well, quite frankly, you've been living under a rock. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple more names are added in the future, either.

- Not only that, but the tech guys have wholly upgraded the mobile site, the 247Composite, Twitter feeds, Timeline Events and text alerts in the past 12 months. That's going to continue with the newest wave of upgrades set for this spring and summer that were detailed HERE.

... That about wraps things up. I just wanted to be sure to thank everyone and keep you in the loop since you are what keeps this engine running. I look forward to another year with you guys and if you have any questions or suggestions, by all means, let me know!