Recruiting A Science or Hype...

[rabbitthedawg]

Watching Duke and Central Florida, both of whom I have not seen "ranked" in the recruiting wars, is telling me that all this hype is just that...hype to gen up a fan base. Dawgs seem to be holding their own and things are looking up for next year. Now that Alabama can be beaten, LSU also, per Ole Miss, we have to upset some team next year. Just have too!

[Todd4State]

Recruiting doesn't stop on NSD. All players have to be developed to some degree.

[smootness]

I don't know why message boards continue to debate this topic. The answer is pretty obvious.

There is a correlation with doing well in recruiting rankings and winning games on the field. That said, there are certainly outliers. At the end of the day, the recruiting sites are just the opinions of people. However, when you have a lot of people who form somewhat of a consensus, you can usually be fairly sure that a lot of the most talented players are rated that way on recruiting sites. Obviously college football teams want the most talented players.

But there are some players who haven't reached their potential yet, or haven't played football long, and you can find overlooked guys that become studs on the next level. However, it's difficult to build a consistent winner on this model. Usually you try to get the most talented players you can find, and again, usually most of the most talented players are rated that way on recruiting sites.

So doing well in recruiting rankings does not guarantee a thing; you may end up with a class full of busts, you may take risks on guys with questionable character, or you may not be good at developing and coaching that talent. But over time, doing well in recruiting rankings is usually better than not doing well in them.

So to sum it up, recruiting rankings are not complete hype and they're also not stone-cold guarantees of success. This seems obvious at this point.

[ckDOG]

Short story on recruiting: you need talented players to win. Elevators do a decent job ranking an individual player. When you have a highly ranked class, it generally means you have good talent. When you have a low ranked class it generally means you aren't brining in good talent.

Evaluators do not consider recruiting to needs or signing players to fit the systems and personalities of each program. This is a key part of recruiting that rivals/scout/247 do not and can not consider. Therefore, there are gaps in the overall class assessments as they are missing an important piece to putting together competitive rosters.

[engie]

Do I think we're well-positioned to overcome our 4 year recruiting average of #31 in 2014? Sure I definitely do.

But I never understand the idea of looking at a few outliers to try to discredit a whole process. Every team that has won a national title in the BCS-era recruited on a 4 yr(current) average inside the top 17. Every team but 2 that played for a title in that time period also did this(and those two teams did so before recruiting rankings were around -- so it's impossible to know what their "recruiting average" would have been back then). Outside of the Miami program that has been teetering on the edge of a cliff for the better part of a decade, ALL 10 different national champs in the BCS-era have recruited inside the top 11 on the current 4 year average.

http://my.jetscreenshot.com/12222/m_20140103-cr2y-99kb.jpg (http://my.jetscreenshot.com/12222/20140103-cr2y-99kb)

[FlabLoser]

Recruiting is a science, for coaches and for boosters.

Stars are assigned by a very small group of people with far less resources than the totality of D-1 football schools. The recruiting serviced try, but they overlook people like Custer overlooked a few Indians. They just can't cover it all.

And fans, having even lesser means to follow recruiting, believe what they are sold by the recruiting services.

[BulldogBear]

Wait... elevators do what? Holy Crap! :O

[curmudgeon]

Its a little of both, mainly because the internet has made recruiting a business for super fans. Without the FIVE STARS! #1 PLAYER IN COUNTRY hype that we get every year about this time, there are thousands of people out of a job - so they spew it to the fans.

That UCF QB was legit. He is a first round draft pick. Houston Nutt wouldn't offer him at Ole Miss and he wanted to go.

[HancockCountyDog]

Do I think we're well-positioned to overcome our 4 year recruiting average of #31 in 2014? Sure I definitely do.

But I never understand the idea of looking at a few outliers to try to discredit a whole process. Every team that has won a national title in the BCS-era recruited on a 4 yr(current) average inside the top 17. Every team but 2 that played for a title in that time period also did this(and those two teams did so before recruiting rankings were around -- so it's impossible to know what their "recruiting average" would have been back then). Outside of the Miami program that has been teetering on the edge of a cliff for the better part of a decade, ALL 10 different national champs in the BCS-era have recruited inside the top 11 on the current 4 year average.



Totally agree.

We can't be excited about the 2015 class because of !starz! but then ignore some shortcomings of this year's class.

Bottom line is that you would rather be in the top 10 of the recruiting rankings as opposed to not being in the top 10. The only thing holding us back right now as a program is talent across the board. We have it in spots, but not enough. Hoping for guys like Dillon Day and Treveze Calhoun are nice, but players like Shumpert and Jones are difference makers between a 6-7 win season and a 9-10 win season.