College football offseason thread

[dew1679666265]

so ummm....Vandy has a better recruiting class than Arkansas.

 

Bobby Johnson is a good coach and recruiter. He was a really good hire by Vandy.

[dew1679666265]

so ummm....Vandy has a better recruiting class than Arkansas.

Well, 24 commits to 20.

 

 

To me, team rankings are incredibly useless. When you're trying to combine a bunch of kids who are ranked based on a faulty star system using an even worse team scoring system, you get a bunch of crappy numbers that don't mean anything. There's no decent way to compare recruiting classes so I don't even bother trying. It's hard enough trying to compare recruiting classes within the same program that you're quite familiar with.

 

While I agree the star system and team scoring system are faulty, I still think it's worth considering. Taking either as gospel isn't the best idea, but using it as sort of a guide isn't bad. It comes down to a coaching staff's ability to evaluate talent and develop it, though.

[OleMissCub]

so ummm....Vandy has a better recruiting class than Arkansas.

Well, 24 commits to 20.

 

To me, team rankings are incredibly useless. When you're trying to combine a bunch of kids who are ranked based on a faulty star system using an even worse team scoring system, you get a bunch of crappy numbers that don't mean anything. There's no decent way to compare recruiting classes so I don't even bother trying.

 

I agree with you there. The star system is definitely faulty because it really all depends upon who attends what camps and has such and such amount of exposure, etc. I think the differences in a 3 and 4 star are minimal. However, when you start getting to 5 stars, then those guys are mostly for real. If you look at all the 5 stars over the past 10 years, a great many are names that you know or were guys drafted in the 1st round.

 

On the same topic, there was an article recently on SEC guys who were mostly 2 stars who were hugely successful.

 

http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/8547/recruiting-nobodies-who-made-it-big-offense

 

They included:

 

Jay Cutler, Vanderbilt

Dexter McCluster, Ole Miss

Jacob Hester, LSU

Sidney Rice, South Carolina

Earl Bennett, Vanderbilt

 

Jamaal Anderson, Arkansas

Dan Williams, Tennessee

DeMeco Ryans, Alabama

Patrick Willis, Ole Miss

Eric Norwood, South Carolina

Javier Arenas, Alabama

D.J. Moore, Vanderbilt

[SouthSideRyan]

I don't know how you guys can keep up with football recruiting. I keep tabs on basketball, but you're talking 5 committs at most in a given year. It also helps that I can watch a lot of Illinois's recruits in person when they're in my area. I'll check my teams' ranking after signing day and that's about all I can handle.

[Jon]

so ummm....Vandy has a better recruiting class than Arkansas.

Well, 24 commits to 20.

 

 

To me, team rankings are incredibly useless. When you're trying to combine a bunch of kids who are ranked based on a faulty star system using an even worse team scoring system, you get a bunch of crappy numbers that don't mean anything. There's no decent way to compare recruiting classes so I don't even bother trying. It's hard enough trying to compare recruiting classes within the same program that you're quite familiar with.

 

While I agree the star system and team scoring system are faulty, I still think it's worth considering. Taking either as gospel isn't the best idea, but using it as sort of a guide isn't bad. It comes down to a coaching staff's ability to evaluate talent and develop it, though.

There are simply too many players to evaluate. You can take a look at the top 100 talent in the country and see how each team did recruiting those guys, but the biggest programs with the biggest subscribers tend to get the most focus when it comes to talent evaluation. Neither rivals nor scout has enough people to evaluate everyone, let alone re-evaluate them when new offers start coming in that catch people's attention.

 

But it's not impossible to evaluate an individual player. You can look at highlight film, offer list, numbers, etc. The problem comes when those sites apply a secret formula to come up with a team ranking that relies almost as much on quantity as it does quality. It's impossible to compare a program that brings in nearly 30 kids every year to one that redshirts most of its freshman and signs less than 20. The difference between 25 and 30 is pretty significant, too.

 

I just can't put any faith in the team rankings to even use as a guide as to how schools are doing. I know we all want to compare our program's recruiting to the rest of the conference, but it just can't be done right now. Personally, the best I can hope for is to compare this year's recruiting class for Northwestern to that of the last few years in order to get a sense as to how things are going. Part of that is which schools we beat out for each kid against our biggest recruiting competitors, but beyond that, the numbers are pretty meaningless to me.

 

 

By the way, I found this list of rivals star rankings for this year's All Big Ten team:

 

Defense: 5 stars (2), 4 stars (4), 3 stars, (6), 2 stars (1)

Offense: 5 stars (0), 4 stars (4), 3 stars, (3), 2 stars (5)

[Guest]

You have to also consider need in recruiting class. Just because you get a bunch of flashy 5-star skill players doesn't mean squat if you whiffed on your need on the offensive line.

[dew1679666265]

You have to also consider need in recruiting class. Just because you get a bunch of flashy 5-star skill players doesn't mean squat if you whiffed on your need on the offensive line.

 

This is very true. Last year's Tennessee class was very good, but didn't address the lack of depth on either line or at QB. It was still a good class, but not as good as many thought because we primarily only got "skill" position guys.

[dew1679666265]

There are simply too many players to evaluate. You can take a look at the top 100 talent in the country and see how each team did recruiting those guys, but the biggest programs with the biggest subscribers tend to get the most focus when it comes to talent evaluation. Neither rivals nor scout has enough people to evaluate everyone, let alone re-evaluate them when new offers start coming in that catch people's attention.

 

But it's not impossible to evaluate an individual player. You can look at highlight film, offer list, numbers, etc. The problem comes when those sites apply a secret formula to come up with a team ranking that relies almost as much on quantity as it does quality. It's impossible to compare a program that brings in nearly 30 kids every year to one that redshirts most of its freshman and signs less than 20. The difference between 25 and 30 is pretty significant, too.

 

I just can't put any faith in the team rankings to even use as a guide as to how schools are doing. I know we all want to compare our program's recruiting to the rest of the conference, but it just can't be done right now. Personally, the best I can hope for is to compare this year's recruiting class for Northwestern to that of the last few years in order to get a sense as to how things are going. Part of that is which schools we beat out for each kid against our biggest recruiting competitors, but beyond that, the numbers are pretty meaningless to me.

 

 

By the way, I found this list of rivals star rankings for this year's All Big Ten team:

 

Defense: 5 stars (2), 4 stars (4), 3 stars, (6), 2 stars (1)

Offense: 5 stars (0), 4 stars (4), 3 stars, (3), 2 stars (5)

 

Much of what you say is well-founded. Individual rankings are far more accurate, in general, than the team rankings, but there is something to the team rankings. As with many things, however, it's important to look at more than just which teams are ranked 1-5 or whatever. It's important to look deeper at why the team is ranked where it is.

 

Like you point out with the quantity vs quality discussion, purely where a team is ranked can be misleading. If you look at why a team is ranked there, you can make more sense of the team rankings and decide whether they're useful or not. In all honesty, looking at ranges is better. There's little difference in the top 10 teams in recruiting, but there is a pretty clear deliniation between the 10th team and the 50th team. That's where team rankings are more useful - grouping together the "top" recruiting classes vs the mediocre ones and on and on.

[ConstableRabbit]

Also, most of the people who work for rivals (if not all) are not professional scouts, or even retired scouts.

[Old Style]

Looks like Le$ Mile$ is on his way to stealing two top recruits from Texas A&M at the last minute.

 

:banghead:

[shnsajax]

There are simply too many players to evaluate. You can take a look at the top 100 talent in the country and see how each team did recruiting those guys, but the biggest programs with the biggest subscribers tend to get the most focus when it comes to talent evaluation. Neither rivals nor scout has enough people to evaluate everyone, let alone re-evaluate them when new offers start coming in that catch people's attention.

 

But it's not impossible to evaluate an individual player. You can look at highlight film, offer list, numbers, etc. The problem comes when those sites apply a secret formula to come up with a team ranking that relies almost as much on quantity as it does quality. It's impossible to compare a program that brings in nearly 30 kids every year to one that redshirts most of its freshman and signs less than 20. The difference between 25 and 30 is pretty significant, too.

 

I just can't put any faith in the team rankings to even use as a guide as to how schools are doing. I know we all want to compare our program's recruiting to the rest of the conference, but it just can't be done right now. Personally, the best I can hope for is to compare this year's recruiting class for Northwestern to that of the last few years in order to get a sense as to how things are going. Part of that is which schools we beat out for each kid against our biggest recruiting competitors, but beyond that, the numbers are pretty meaningless to me.

 

 

By the way, I found this list of rivals star rankings for this year's All Big Ten team:

 

Defense: 5 stars (2), 4 stars (4), 3 stars, (6), 2 stars (1)

Offense: 5 stars (0), 4 stars (4), 3 stars, (3), 2 stars (5)

 

Much of what you say is well-founded. Individual rankings are far more accurate, in general, than the team rankings, but there is something to the team rankings. As with many things, however, it's important to look at more than just which teams are ranked 1-5 or whatever. It's important to look deeper at why the team is ranked where it is.

 

Like you point out with the quantity vs quality discussion, purely where a team is ranked can be misleading. If you look at why a team is ranked there, you can make more sense of the team rankings and decide whether they're useful or not. In all honesty, looking at ranges is better. There's little difference in the top 10 teams in recruiting, but there is a pretty clear deliniation between the 10th team and the 50th team. That's where team rankings are more useful - grouping together the "top" recruiting classes vs the mediocre ones and on and on.

 

Thats why I would rather look at the avg. star ranking. If looking at Rivals A&M is ranked 10th where USC is ranked 12th. However A&M has 25 commits to UCS 13. UCS has 3 5-Star Players and 7 4-Star players. Where A&M has 11 4-Star players and the rest are 3-Star or less. Personally I would take the smaller class with a greater ceiling. Obviously the star ratings are no where close to perfect, and it still comes down to coaching and developing.

 

I like ESPN's 150 the best and Rivals would be 2nd. I would not even bother with Scout.

[Guest]

Marcus Lattimore to South Carolina over Auburn.

[shnsajax]

Marcus Lattimore to South Carolina over Auburn.

 

Shouldn't be a real surprise with Dyer already going to Auburn.

[dew1679666265]

It appears Justin Wilcox is the new defensive coordinator at Tennessee. He was the Boise State DC the past four years and is only 32.

 

Interesting hire, not a lot of experience, but the Boise defense has appeared fairly solid the past few years. Top of the WAC, for what that's worth.

[TheVolCub08]

so ummm....Vandy has a better recruiting class than Arkansas.

Well, 24 commits to 20.

 

 

To me, team rankings are incredibly useless. When you're trying to combine a bunch of kids who are ranked based on a faulty star system using an even worse team scoring system, you get a bunch of crappy numbers that don't mean anything. There's no decent way to compare recruiting classes so I don't even bother trying. It's hard enough trying to compare recruiting classes within the same program that you're quite familiar with.

 

While I agree the star system and team scoring system are faulty, I still think it's worth considering. Taking either as gospel isn't the best idea, but using it as sort of a guide isn't bad. It comes down to a coaching staff's ability to evaluate talent and develop it, though.

There are simply too many players to evaluate. You can take a look at the top 100 talent in the country and see how each team did recruiting those guys, but the biggest programs with the biggest subscribers tend to get the most focus when it comes to talent evaluation. Neither rivals nor scout has enough people to evaluate everyone, let alone re-evaluate them when new offers start coming in that catch people's attention.

 

But it's not impossible to evaluate an individual player. You can look at highlight film, offer list, numbers, etc. The problem comes when those sites apply a secret formula to come up with a team ranking that relies almost as much on quantity as it does quality. It's impossible to compare a program that brings in nearly 30 kids every year to one that redshirts most of its freshman and signs less than 20. The difference between 25 and 30 is pretty significant, too.

 

That's not how Rivals ranks their classes. They remove quantity from the equation. I saw the formula recently, and iirc, only about the top 20 or so prospects per class are part of the ranking.

[fiver]

Marcus Lattimore to South Carolina over Auburn.

 

Shouldn't be a real surprise with Dyer already going to Auburn.

 

I could tell from recent comments he made that he was going to South Carolina. The kid was raised as a Gamecock, and Spurrier convinced him to stay in state. We'll see how he does at South Carolina.

 

The kid came up to the podium yesterday holding an Auburn hat, almost put it on, and then put it down and put on a South Carolina hat he had hidden in the podium for dramatic effect. The crowd seemed to enjoy it.

[Jon]

That's not how Rivals ranks their classes. They remove quantity from the equation. I saw the formula recently, and iirc, only about the top 20 or so prospects per class are part of the ranking.

To the best of my knowledge, the actual formula has never been made public.

 

 

12 of the 17 letters of intent are in by 8 AM this morning for Northwestern. I'll have nothing to do to kill time at work at this rate.

[Tracer Bullet]

twitter is a fantastic tool for NSD

[Old Style]

twitter is a fantastic tool for NSD

Who should we be following?

[Butterscup1679666578]

8:42 am, and all 23 Missouri commits signed. Gotta love a drama-free NSD.

[Andy]

Picked up top-100 OT Matt James today, which will cushion the blow of inevitably not getting Seantrel Henderson. This should be a good class.

[fiver]

the internet has ruined recruiting. I wish people would just ignore these kids until NSD. It's obnoxious

 

true that. these are just high school kids and all this attention just turns alot of them into divas.

 

I agree. that can definitely be said for that Shon Coleman kid. Even so, I'll be disappointed if he decommits and heads to Alabama.

 

 

I was surprised to see that Coleman signed with Auburn this morning, and it looks like UT is going to pickup the Stone kid.

[Tracer Bullet]

twitter is a fantastic tool for NSD

Who should we be following?

 

depends on what team(s) you're following. There are 2 great twitter feeds for ND signings. I'm not sure if there's one or more that cover the entirety of CFB. I'd guess that's too much and the ones that have the scoop on the biggest uncommitted players are going to make that premium content.

[dew1679666265]

Nash Nance and Da'Rick Rogers officially to Tennessee. Awesome.

 

However, Ambles went to USC and we lost JC Copeland to LSU.

[Jon]

Twitter is amazing for NSD, but it's even better when you have a head coach who nearly immediately sends out a tweet for each NLI that comes in.