Do we put too much emphasis on highly rated recruits?

B

BiggerRed

Four-Star Recruit
Looking back at the 2002-2005 recruiting classes, I broke down the total number of players in each star grouping that have received post-season all-conference recognition by either the coaches or the AP. I separated the recruits into three groups: those receiving at least one honorable mention during their careers (so this would include 2nd and 1st team award winners as well), those receiving at least one 2nd team award, and those receiving at least one 1st team award. This system certainly isn't perfect, as one could make pretty good cases that neither Dane Todd nor Bo Ruud should have received 1st team recognition. I'm not here to judge the merits of the players or the awards themselves though, and for every player that possibly should not have been included, there are others who probably should have.

During these four years, we received the following number of commits (all information regarding stars and offers is from Rivals):

5 stars - 3

4 stars - 22

3 stars - 43

2 stars - 19

1 star (not rated) - 5

Here are the percentages of each star group receiving at least one all-conference honorable mention award during their careers:

5 stars - 66.7%

4 stars - 36.4%

3 stars - 30.2%

2 stars - 10.5%

1 star - 40%

Here are the percentages of each star group receiving at least one all-conference second team award:

5 stars - 66.7%

4 stars - 13.6%

3 stars - 18.6%

2 stars - 0.0%

1 star - 20.0%

And last but not least, here are the percentages of each star group receiving at least one all-conference first team award:

5 stars - 33.3%

4 stars - 9.1%

3 stars - 11.6%

2 stars - 0.0%

1 star - 0.0%

The sample sizes for both the 5 stars and the 1 stars are pretty small, so keep that in mind when processing the numbers. While the 4 star group had a larger percentage receiving at least all-conference honorable mention, the 3 star group had a higher percentage of impact players (both 2nd and 1st teamers). So who did we beat out for these future all-Big XII'ers? Here are the 2nd and 1st team players and other listed offers:

Adam Carriker - Oregon, Oregon State, Washington State

Matt Herian - Iowa State

Kurt Mann - Iowa State

Jay Moore - Iowa, Iowa State

Dane Todd - Duke

DeMorrio Williams - No listed offers

Bo Ruud - No listed offers

Corey McKeon - Purdue, South Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin

Brandon Jackson - West Virginia, Memphis, Mississippi State

Marlon Lucky - Oregon State, USC, Washington, Florida

Matt Slauson - Oklahoma State, Oregon State

Ndamukong Suh - Oregon State, California, Miami, Mississippi State

Zac Taylor - Marshall, North Texas, Troy, Memphis

IMO, only Suh and Lucky had offers from big-time programs; with McKeon, Slauson, Carriker, and Jackson having offers from second tier programs. Interestingly, almost 40% of these players were from the state of Nebraska. Also, only one player that walked on between 2002 and 2005 received all-conference recognition during his career (Stewart Bradley - not included in calculations).

So take from this what you will. It just reinforces to me that recruiting is an inexact science, and gives me an initial impression that as long as we're pulling in three stars or better, we should be all right. It will be interesting to see how these numbers change in the coming years.

 
This argument can be debated back and forth forever. You have to recruit well and for the most part rivals gets the stars right. If anyone goes by percentages it's going to be skewed bc there is like a 8:1 3 star to 5 star and 4 star ratio. You're always going to hear about guys that weren't highly recruited or ranked very high. Guys like Mortenson from KU or Aaron Curry from Wake Forest who was a top five pick last year was a two star. Aquib Talib was a two star. I get there are guys like that and not every good player has to be a four or five star. However, look at the guys who are dominating the game these days. Tebow, Dez Bryant, Suh, Gerald Mccoy, Greshem, Crabtree, Stafford, Moreno, Eric Berry, Taylor Mays...were all either four or five stars. Like I said you can always find guys who are going to counter that who are 2 stars who did very well. However, look at the overall picture and overall team rankings then for the most part look at who is competing for NC's every year.

09' team ranking:

1. Alabama

2. LSU

3. Ohio State

4. USC

5. Texas

08' team rankings

1. Alabama

2. Notre Dame

3. Florida

4. Ohio State

5. Miami

07' Team rankings

1. Florida

2. USC

3. Tennesse

4. LSU

5. Texas

06' Team Rankings

1. USC

2. Florida

3. FSU

4. Georgia

5. Texas

Aside from FSU, Tennessee, Notre Dame and Miami they are all mentioned in the national title hunt every year. The other teams point to other major factors such as coaching, discipline, will. FYI OU was in the top 15 every year as well.

 
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Corey McKeon had some serious offers. But I do put a lot of emphasis on stars because it gives you an idea about how good they will be. The people who do the ratings have a lot better idea on how some rectruits are going to end up then I do.

 
The teams winning championships lately have all had excellent recruiting classes. Florida, USC, Texas, LSU. Those make up the national champions as well as the top 5 rivals classes. This is not a coincidence. It has a lot to do with coaching and how you develop players, but there's no doubt if you don't have the talent you're not going to win. I hope we can start making big strides in recruiting in the next couple of years.

 
One thing that screws the numbers also is JUCO players. It's great to get a 5 star JUCO but there is more of a chance he will bust (ANDRE JONES) than a 5 star coming out of high school. There will always be a larger number of awards for 3 star players b/c there are way more player rated as 3 stars.

IMO we do put too much emphasis on stars AS FANS. Take what Mark Mangino has done at Kansas. The only 2 All American players he's had at Kansas were both 2 stars (Aquib Talib and Anthony Collins) coming out of high school. If coaches do their homework (unlike Bill Callahan) and are good enough coaches to make their players better (unlike Bill Callahan) then they will do what is best and offer who they want.

 
I think some of you are misinterpreting the statistics. While it is true that we had more 3-star 1st and 2nd teamers partially because we had many more 3-star commits during this time period, the percentage of 3-star 1st and 2nd teamers divided by the total number of 3 star recruits during this period is greater than the percentage of 1st and 2nd team 4-star recruits divided by the total number of 4-star recruits during this period (which is what the statistics represent, sorry if that wasn't clear). The statistics don't lie - the 3-star players from these classes clearly outperformed the 4-stars using all-conference 1st and 2nd team recognition as the measure.

Also, I'm not picking out specific examples as many are apt to do that want to discount stars (which isn't my intention). I am looking at every commit for Nebraska from 2002 to 2005 (from the start of the Rivals database until the year that most players have used up their eligibility). I look forward to seeing how these statistics change over the next several years.

Some like to discount the star system and focus on who else has offered as a measure of a recruit's potential. If the example above isn't good enough, look at all of the recruits from the 2003 class with "major" offers:

Steve Craver - OU

Donald DeFrand - Tennessee

David Dyches - Ohio State

Chris Patrick - Penn State

Ryan Schuler - Oklahoma

Brandon Teamer - Notre Dame

My point is that there is no real yardstick for guaranteeing future success based on recruiting results alone, unless you happen to be USC, Texas, or Florida where you have rosters full of 5-star Parade all-Americans. For every LSU or OU that proves the point of the star-chasers, there is a Florida State or Miami that casts doubt on the whole system. For every underachiever, there are also teams that consistently outperform their recruiting rankings like Virginia Tech or Oregon.

Would I like to recruit like the big boys? Sure I would, but it isn't likely to happen for a variety of reasons. While the most recent statistics point to great recruiting as the key to getting to a national championship game, there are plenty of other examples that show that you don't need consistent top 10 classes to be a consistent and winning program. For now, that is all I ask of this staff and our players. We need to return to the Huskers of the late 80's and very early 90's before we can ever dream of the mid-90's again.

 
zoogies said:
How has Nebraska done since 2002?
Click to expand...
The better question is "How has the Big XII done since 2002?" since the measuring stick for the statistics was set at all-conference recognition. Regardless, here are the SuperPrep rankings for our classes from 1998-2001:

1998 - 17th

1999 - 17th

2000 - 15th

2001 - 7th

4 year average = 14th

According to the recruiting rankings, we should have been much better in 2002 than we were.

Here are the Rivals rankings for 2003-2006:

2003 - 42nd

2004 - 27th

2005 - 5th

2006 - 20th

4 year average = 24th

Again, we should have been much better than we were in 2007 going purely off recruiting rankings. In fact, I believe the per star average of our 2007 defensive starters was higher than the per star average of the 2007 defensive starters for LSU.

 
Carricker had nice offers, but he was also being recruited by Oregon to play Quarterback and came to Nebraska to play Defensive End. Oh if only he had considered playing Quarterback here.... man it would have been something else.

 
Another thing to think about is attrition. The 4* and 5* players who don’t get much play time seem more likely to bail out on us: Leon Jackson, Curt Dukes, Harrison Beck. etc.

So I say we only recruit 3* players from now on. Let’s get rid of those pesky 4* and 5* commits we now have. (insert Sarcasm emoticon here)

Nice way of looking at the data though. :)

edited to correct mistake: Sorry Bobby N.

 
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NU will continue to rely on a lot of kids from the Midwest, as this is where we are well-known. Kids around here will see sooner than coastal kids the successful program we are rebuilding. We probably carry more weight in the Midwest... it just makes sense- local kids. They may not be as highly regarded by recruiting analysts but in some cases are just as talented as the highly rated kids... they might just be under the radar type kids.

We will also hopefully continue to rely on Texas... they have oodles of talent to go around. I am shocked we do not have a commit from TX yet this year. I'm sure that will change... possibly tomorrow if we could somehow snag either Vestal/Wheeler duo or Ciante Evans.

It is nice to see us reaching into California for guys like Taylor Martinez and Kerr, and other lesser recruited states, like we did with North Dakota to snag Qvale. Shows that the coaches know they can't rely SOLELY on Midwest prospects.

Eventually, though, coastal kids and ones that are farther away will begin to recognize the program we're building. It is just a matter of time. Hopefully winning on the field will attract higher ceiling players. It may not and we may need to continue redshirting less talented or refined ones and give them an extra year to lift and learn the schemes. Either way we'll be fine. This staff has shown they know how to TEACH and DEVELOP kids, and to PRESERVE THEM until they're either needed or fully prepared to play- not just throw them into the fire as frosh.

 
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uh, bobby newcombe didn't bail on anyone afaik, but i kinda agree with the point. some of the problem there could be dishonesty (promising starts) recruiting or not "recruiting character"

 
until we consistently have a top 12 rated recruiting class, we will likely struggle to win the Big 12 Championship...OU and UT are out recruiting us by a country mile and i don't see that changing anytime soon...in fact, Okie State is taking players we really want here as well. when we start losing guys to KU and MU, well it is time for a reality check and a big one!...we need to figure this out and get a lot better at recruiting.

 
When it comes to stars I like to use the Adrian Peterson / Ryan Perilloux example. Both were five star prospects coming out of high school. Both had oodles of potential. So what was the difference between the two? Work ethic and committment. Adrian Peterson, from everything I have heard, has an incredibly strong work ethic and does everything the right way, dare I say he does it the "Nebraska way." Ryan Perilloux on the other hand was lazy, a trouble maker and had a poor work ethic. One is in the NFL the other was booted off the team and is probably in jail right now.

I'm not a star gazer by any stretch but stars do matter...to a degree.

 
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