Hard Facts and Tough Questions

[redbeerman]

Rivals is in the best position becuase they get to rank kids AFTER they have started to get offers and give verbals. It is really easy to not have a kid ranked or evaluated and then "hear" that he has offers from PSU, FSU, USC, Bama and then go "oh he is a 4 star"

Again, Rivals is good and does a decent job but they are like Biff in Back to the Future. They have the sports atlas that gives all the scores so they can win all the bets.

If people working for rivals could really independently evaluate talent with high accuracy they would be working for universities not a bunch of rectruiting geeks. It's all about who has offered.

 

[typ3kal]

the original post is an interesting one, and begs the question: What is NU's ranking so far for the 2011 class or is there such a thing yet?

And how have the Big 10 teams fared in this "ranking" versus some of these other conferences...most notably, the one we just left?

We have a top 10 class right now, but it's really early in the game. However, we have grabbed a lot more recruits in the top 250/500 this year. So while our class may only be 5-10 (10 being on the far end this year) we have a lot more solid players than last year's class. Because class ranks are based on the rating and star's attached to each recruit, a player ranked 170 could give the same points as say a player ranked 250- although there is a talent difference between the two.

 

[AndyDufresne]

the original post is an interesting one, and begs the question: What is NU's ranking so far for the 2011 class or is there such a thing yet?

And how have the Big 10 teams fared in this "ranking" versus some of these other conferences...most notably, the one we just left?

We have a top 10 class right now, but it's really early in the game. However, we have grabbed a lot more recruits in the top 250/500 this year. So while our class may only be 5-10 (10 being on the far end this year) we have a lot more solid players than last year's class. Because class ranks are based on the rating and star's attached to each recruit, a player ranked 170 could give the same points as say a player ranked 250- although there is a talent difference between the two.

So what recruits from this class and last year's class would you consider "not solid"? How much talent differential do you really think there is between a player ranked 170 and a player ranked 250? How are you determining a top 500? I would really like to see it.

IMO, there is certainly value in the recruiting services, but you seem to be placing entirely too much importance in them and are definitely overestimating their accuracy.

 

[typ3kal]

the original post is an interesting one, and begs the question: What is NU's ranking so far for the 2011 class or is there such a thing yet?

And how have the Big 10 teams fared in this "ranking" versus some of these other conferences...most notably, the one we just left?

We have a top 10 class right now, but it's really early in the game. However, we have grabbed a lot more recruits in the top 250/500 this year. So while our class may only be 5-10 (10 being on the far end this year) we have a lot more solid players than last year's class. Because class ranks are based on the rating and star's attached to each recruit, a player ranked 170 could give the same points as say a player ranked 250- although there is a talent difference between the two.

So what recruits from this class and last year's class would you consider "not solid"? How much talent differential do you really think there is between a player ranked 170 and a player ranked 250? How are you determining a top 500? I would really like to see it.

IMO, there is certainly value in the recruiting services, but you seem to be placing entirely too much importance in them and are definitely overestimating their accuracy.

If we get Aaron Green will he be that much better of a pick up than Braylon Heard? Probably not a game changing difference, but Aaron is perceived by many as a lot better prospect. That's the sort of difference I see in this year's class. Is Turner/Starling really that much better than Carnes? Same thing.

 

[drmathprog]

This is an interesting argument, I actually wrote a piece about it on my blog. My argument though, is teams like Boise State and TCU. I'm not exactly sure of the numbers, but Boise hasn't had a recruiting class in the top 60 since rivals started, and Utah hasn't had a class in the top 50. Yet they have 4 BCS victories between them in the last 5 years. Sure those aren't nationals titles, but they're damn close. I think if Nebraska can get the coaching like you see at TCU and Boise with top 15-25 recruiting classes, we could break that trend.

I agree to some extent.

However, the one area where TCU/Boise State/Utah unarguably fall short is in quality depth. Luckily, they play in conferences where they only play 2-3 tough games per year and therefore have a much easier potential road to BCS bowls. Also, the team is probably less banged up from their road to that bowl game than their BCS opponents.

To think about it another way: Put Boise State talent and coaching at KU. Would they be in a BCS bowl in the last five years? I don't think they would.

My point exactly! The coaches at these schools may not even be the best, but they know how to play their conferences, and they play to their strengths better than anyone. Which is what NU needs to do.

That's a tough call. I would argue that this approach can hurt you as well. I think NU's problem from about 1988 to 1993 or so is that they targeted themselves, especially their defense, to win in the Big 8/12, which meant stopping the triple option variants. While they were largely successful in doing that, they then struggles in bowl games against teams with more modern offense schemes. I think Ohio State had a similar problem in the early 00's when they excelled at "Big 10" football, with it's emphasis on size and power, but then struggled against bowl opponents from conferences that emphasized speed.