Offer Lists Observation

[TonyStalloni]

A number of people are still unimpressed with our class.

A number of other people are responding, "Forget the ranking - look at the offer lists."

So let's do that. Below, I have compiled a list of the teams that finished last season in the Top 25, minus UCF and Louisville, and with the addition of a few power programs that had tough years, such as Georgia, Michigan, Florida and Texas. Next to the team name, I put the number of our commits that that team had offered and recruited. That means for each number you see, we beat that respective school that many times.

These numbers are not cumulative - that is, if Bama and Wisconsin both offered a kid, then two separate tally marks will show up. It's just to show how many of our players are also being offered and pursued by other top programs:

Team | No. of our commits they recruited

Florida State | 2

Auburn | 2

Michigan State | 3

South Carolina | 2

Missouri | 6

Oklahoma | 2

Alabama | 3

Clemson | 2

Oregon | 2

Stanford | 0

Ohio State | 2

Baylor | 4

LSU | 4

UCLA | 3

Oklahoma State | 1

Texas A&M | 2

USC | 2

Notre Dame | 0

Arizona State | 4

WIsconsin | 3

Georgia | 2

Michigan | 2

Florida | 0

Miami | 0

Texas | 2

Make of it what you will.

At first reading I was a little depressed by the facts shown. On the face it appears few if any of the top programs wanted most of our kids. There may be some truth to that. However after thinking more on this subject a lot of the reason may be that many if not most of these schools are in recruiting hotbeds. Southern states, Calif, Ohio etc. They fill their classes with commits after their junior year with kids who want to play locally. Our coaches by necessity have to find kids who:

1. Live in the 500 mile radius starting with Nebraska kids and working outward. IE Peyton Newell

2. Find kids who matured during their senior year and were otherwise under the radar. IE Tanner Farmer

It doesn't have to mean the kids we recruit are inferior. It may mean other schools classes were mostly filled by the time our kids stepped into the limelight. Also that Nebraska still is not a destination school for most high 4 star and 5 star kids. I'm happy with recruiting by our coaches and can't wait to see how this class turns out!

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Using Rivals as a source, I decided to take a look and see what the offers would look like when you take out our top 4 recruits. First, here's the table with each recruit. Notice that there are differences between what I found and what Landlord originally posted (this could be due to him using different sources/combination of sources, or just me causing a mistake... my eyes aren't what they used to be):

Florida State: 1

Auburn: 1

Michigan State: 2

South Carolina: 2

Missouri: 6

Oklahoma: 3

Alabama: 2

Clemson: 2

Oregon: 1

Stanford: 0

Ohio State: 1

Baylor: 4

LSU: 0

UCLA: 3

Oklahoma State: 0

Texas A&M: 1

USC: 2

Notre Dame: 0

Arizona State: 3

Wisconsin: 2

Georgia: 2

Michigan: 0

Florida: 2

Miami: 0

Texas: 0 (OP indicated 2 received offers, I couldn't find them on rivals or I simply looked over them)

Here's the list when you take out the top 4 recruits (in terms of offer lists). The top 4 recruits were: Gates, Foster, McClain, and Newell. The remaining 21 recruits:

Florida State: 0

Auburn: 0

Michigan State: 1

South Carolina: 0

Missouri: 5

Oklahoma: 1

Alabama: 0

Clemson: 1

Oregon: 0

Stanford: 0

Ohio State: 1

Baylor: 2

LSU: 0

UCLA: 0

Oklahoma State: 0

Texas A&M: 0

USC: 1

Notre Dame: 0

Arizona State: 1

Wisconsin: 1

Georgia: 0

Michigan: 0

Florida: 0

Miami: 0

Texas: 0

What do I take away from this? Our class, for the most part, doesn't have overly impressive offer lists. However, I think examining a recruiting class using offer lists as a benchmark has it's flaws. Several recruits who commit early in the process, and are clearly great football players, simply don't receive the same offers that another player would. Take Farmer and Harrison for example. Farmer only accounts for one tally on the table (Missouri), but is a highly ranked 4 star player who has camped well around the country. Similarly, Harrison is a great athlete and is no doubt a talented player, yet, he only accounts for 2 offers (Missouri and Michigan State). In contrast, Nick Gates waited until late in the process to commit and received extensive offers from just about every major school.

 

[Mavric]

What do I take away? Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio St., Wisconsin and Miami don't want very many of our recruits. So it's all the better when we beat them.

 

[Danny Bateman]

In addition, in state highly rated kids my scare offers away just because its assumed they'll be N and recruiting them would be a waste of time.... think ARod a few years back.

And kids like Bubba or Harrison my not rack up offers due to MLB potential.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

In addition, in state highly rated kids my scare offers away just because its assumed they'll be N and recruiting them would be a waste of time.... think ARod a few years back.

And kids like Bubba or Harrison my not rack up offers due to MLB potential.

This is definitely true. I think the same thing applies to Stoltenberg this year.

Still, class at the bottom is a bit worrisome. Many of them, particularly the WRs and DBs, will benefit greatly from a redshirt year.

 

[Landlord]

In addition, in state highly rated kids my scare offers away just because its assumed they'll be N and recruiting them would be a waste of time.... think ARod a few years back.

And kids like Bubba or Harrison my not rack up offers due to MLB potential.

This is definitely true. I think the same thing applies to Stoltenberg this year.

Still, class at the bottom is a bit worrisome. Many of them, particularly the WRs and DBs, will benefit greatly from a redshirt year.

Our numbers are different because I didn't only include documented offers, but schools that a recruit had taken official visits to or that were listed as having specific coaches recruiting them (ie, they might not have an offer, but they are being pursued by that school).

I wasn't trying to make any kind of point or conclusion and I realize it's not exactly scientific. I think the worrisome bit at the bottom of the class is legitimate, to an extent,

BUT,

would be interested in looking at the bottom of other schools' classes. Obviously Bama, USC, LSU, etc. are still going to wipe the floor with us, but I bet taking away the top four guys of many other schools' lists would be more comparable than you'd think.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

In addition, in state highly rated kids my scare offers away just because its assumed they'll be N and recruiting them would be a waste of time.... think ARod a few years back.

And kids like Bubba or Harrison my not rack up offers due to MLB potential.

This is definitely true. I think the same thing applies to Stoltenberg this year.

Still, class at the bottom is a bit worrisome. Many of them, particularly the WRs and DBs, will benefit greatly from a redshirt year.

Our numbers are different because I didn't only include documented offers, but schools that a recruit had taken official visits to or that were listed as having specific coaches recruiting them (ie, they might not have an offer, but they are being pursued by that school).

I wasn't trying to make any kind of point or conclusion and I realize it's not exactly scientific. I think the worrisome bit at the bottom of the class is legitimate, to an extent,

BUT,

would be interested in looking at the bottom of other schools' classes. Obviously Bama, USC, LSU, etc. are still going to wipe the floor with us, but I bet taking away the top four guys of many other schools' lists would be more comparable than you'd think.

Good point. I don't know how comparable we are to those schools, however, comparing us to our peers (Wisconsin, Michigan State, Penn State, etc) would probably yield similar results.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Here's an updated list when you take out the top 4 recruits (in terms of offer lists). The top 4 recruits were: Gates, Foster, Keels, and Newell. The remaining 20 recruits:

Florida State: 0

Auburn: 0

Michigan State: 1

South Carolina: 0

Missouri: 4

Oklahoma: 1

Alabama: 0

Clemson: 1

Oregon: 0

Stanford: 0

Ohio State: 1

Baylor: 2

LSU: 0

UCLA: 0

Oklahoma State: 0

Texas A&M: 0

USC: 0

Notre Dame: 0

Arizona State: 1

Wisconsin: 0

Georgia: 0

Michigan: 0

Florida: 0

Miami: 0

Texas: 0

Also: 12 of our recruits (exactly half) received 0 offers from the above schools. 17/24 recruits (71%) received 1 offer or less.

 

[Mavric]

You could also say that, despite what some people think, most recruits will go to a bigger/closer program given the chance. This has been pretty obvious for quite some time.

 

[Danny Bateman]

Here's an updated list when you take out the top 4 recruits (in terms of offer lists). The top 4 recruits were: Gates, Foster, Keels, and Newell. The remaining 20 recruits:

Florida State: 0

Auburn: 0

Michigan State: 1

South Carolina: 0

Missouri: 4

Oklahoma: 1

Alabama: 0

Clemson: 1

Oregon: 0

Stanford: 0

Ohio State: 1

Baylor: 2

LSU: 0

UCLA: 0

Oklahoma State: 0

Texas A&M: 0

USC: 0

Notre Dame: 0

Arizona State: 1

Wisconsin: 0

Georgia: 0

Michigan: 0

Florida: 0

Miami: 0

Texas: 0

Also: 12 of our recruits (exactly half) received 0 offers from the above schools. 17/24 recruits (71%) received 1 offer or less.

Apparently... Mizzou needs to get off our nuts.

They were talking about Mizzou recruiting on 1620 the other day. Said they spend more time trashing us than they do selling their own program.

Me thinks Pinkel's still bitter about losing the rain game and coming to town with a #6 team and leaving with a loss the next year...

Also, copied off of Wikipedia:

Series record: Nebraska leads, 65–36–3

Inferiority complex, big time.