Our Class Ranking?

[jaws]

I highly doubt Nebraska's coaching staff is sitting on their collective rear during the season.

Just for a little light on the subject on recruiting the whole year, here is an article about the guy behind Ohio States recruiting efforts. I am sure this is the same at many other places.

http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2014/02/33208/ohio-state-buckeyes-football-mark-pantoni-the-mastermind-behind-ohio-states-recruiting-effort

There is a lot of work that goes into just getting a kid to visit the campus.

 

[ObamaRocks91]

They also have a history of not keeping in touch with the recruits that commit before the season and allow other coaches to change thier mind.

Feel free to post the statistics you have to prove this happens more to us than anyone else.

I'll even make it easier for you (since I know you have no such statistics): Simply go through the decommits we had this year and explain why they decommitted.

I won't go as far as AF did, but Mavric, do you think the staff could put more effort into bringing kids in for OVs during the season. By my count, we had 16 uncommitted 2014 recruits come in during OV's during our home games. We are allowed 56 total throughout the entire cycle. In your opinion, would you at least like to see that number improve quite a bit, considering our game day atmosphere is generally considered our #1 selling point to recruits?

 

[RedDenver]

I'm confused by your statement. Are you talking about the whole r = .40 being considered strong, or are you insinuating that I'm implying that all of these numbers actually prove anything? If it's the first, a lot of the social sciences do consider r = .40 to be a pretty strong effect, especially if it has enough power (a large enough sample). If it's the latter, then your insinuation is incorrect. I have not used causal language in any of these posts. I have not said that good recruiting causes more wins, nor have I said that winning causes good recruiting. In fact, you can't really imbue cause to anything in college football; it's impossible to randomly assign and there's no manipulation. You can't put Alabama in the crappy recruiting condition, and you can't put Wyoming in the a lot of wins condition. All you have to go on is associative relationships, which are "better than nothing." You can say that good recruiting leads to wins. You can say that a lot of wins leads to good recruiting; and I've said that I think that it is a bidirectional relationship.

I know that I've said nothing in this thread that should come as a surprise. I was just looking at the relationship between the two variables. A lot of people say that our recruiting rank doesn't matter, and all I'm doing (which was just adding on to KJ's point) is showing that there's a positive linear relationship between those two variables; that our recruiting rank means more than some of us would like to think.

That is all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Wow, you contradict yourself a couple times here.

First you say you can't show causal relationships. Then you say, "You can say that good recruiting leads to wins." But saying that A leads to B is causation. Maybe your use of the words "leads to" is implying more than you meant, but since you flip the relationship around in the next sentence, I can't see how else you could have meant that.

You're going to conclude that recruiting rank has a meaning? You said you can't determine causation. How then does a non-causal, moderately correlated statistic imply value? Even a much stronger correlation doesn't mean the relationship has "value". Like I'd bet there's a strong correlation between stadium size and number of wins.

You're trying very hard not to confuse causation and correlation, but I think your conclusions are muddled.

 

[dylan]

They also have a history of not keeping in touch with the recruits that commit before the season and allow other coaches to change thier mind.

Feel free to post the statistics you have to prove this happens more to us than anyone else.

I'll even make it easier for you (since I know you have no such statistics): Simply go through the decommits we had this year and explain why they decommitted.

I won't go as far as AF did, but Mavric, do you think the staff could put more effort into bringing kids in for OVs during the season. By my count, we had 16 uncommitted 2014 recruits come in during OV's during our home games. We are allowed 56 total throughout the entire cycle. In your opinion, would you at least like to see that number improve quite a bit, considering our game day atmosphere is generally considered our #1 selling point to recruits?

What makes you think they're not putting effort into it? Do they have direct control over when and if kids can visit? The scheduling of early games hasn't helped much in that regard either. I will also add that the administration needs to make sure they are doing everything they can to support the coaches in recruiting. Two lowly paid recruiting staff positions and access to private planes at the end of recruiting season is nice, but we can and should do more to help the coaches with what is already a difficult task.

How many other coaching staffs have to canvas the whole country and dig for diamonds as much as ours do? To criticize their effort when they already have to work harder than other major programs is ridiculous.

 

[ObamaRocks91]

They also have a history of not keeping in touch with the recruits that commit before the season and allow other coaches to change thier mind.

Feel free to post the statistics you have to prove this happens more to us than anyone else.

I'll even make it easier for you (since I know you have no such statistics): Simply go through the decommits we had this year and explain why they decommitted.

I won't go as far as AF did, but Mavric, do you think the staff could put more effort into bringing kids in for OVs during the season. By my count, we had 16 uncommitted 2014 recruits come in during OV's during our home games. We are allowed 56 total throughout the entire cycle. In your opinion, would you at least like to see that number improve quite a bit, considering our game day atmosphere is generally considered our #1 selling point to recruits?

What makes you think they're not putting effort into it? Do they have direct control over when and if kids can visit? The scheduling of early games hasn't helped much in that regard either. I will also add that the administration needs to make sure they are doing everything they can to support the coaches in recruiting. Two lowly paid recruiting staff positions and access to private planes at the end of recruiting season is nice, but we can and should do more to help the coaches with what is already a difficult task.

How many other coaching staffs have to canvas the whole country and dig for diamonds as much as ours do? To criticize their effort when they already have to work harder than other major programs is ridiculous.

Maybe I shouldn't have used that word and gone with strategic decision making. Someone asked Els "during the Wyoming game, why did you have only 3 OV's?" He said, "well we have 8 home games, so we want to spread them out a little more." That weekend went on to be one of the most highly attended weekends. That is a problem that 16 uncommitted OVs attended our home games, in 8 home games.

If you don't want Bo fired and think he is the right guy for the job, I'm fine with that although I don't completely agree. But even if you feel that way, you're not required to think every single thing he does is the 100% best way and he is beyond criticize and isn't allowed to be improved.

As far as your AD support. I just can't help but laugh at this that everyone blames SE. Bo has been HC for 6 years. 5.5 of them, TO was his AD. Now after 8 months on the job, SE is getting blamed for the last 6 years of lack of administration support. Sure, those 2 low paid recruiting jobs were just posted and may not be enough, but those are 2 MORE THAN TO OFFERED TO BO. And there are going to end up being closer to 6 or 7 for the recruiting department. That is 6 or 7 more people that EICHORST (in 8 months) made available to Bo than T.O. did in 6 years.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

I'm confused by your statement. Are you talking about the whole r = .40 being considered strong, or are you insinuating that I'm implying that all of these numbers actually prove anything? If it's the first, a lot of the social sciences do consider r = .40 to be a pretty strong effect, especially if it has enough power (a large enough sample). If it's the latter, then your insinuation is incorrect. I have not used causal language in any of these posts. I have not said that good recruiting causes more wins, nor have I said that winning causes good recruiting. In fact, you can't really imbue cause to anything in college football; it's impossible to randomly assign and there's no manipulation. You can't put Alabama in the crappy recruiting condition, and you can't put Wyoming in the a lot of wins condition. All you have to go on is associative relationships, which are "better than nothing." You can say that good recruiting leads to wins. You can say that a lot of wins leads to good recruiting; and I've said that I think that it is a bidirectional relationship.

I know that I've said nothing in this thread that should come as a surprise. I was just looking at the relationship between the two variables. A lot of people say that our recruiting rank doesn't matter, and all I'm doing (which was just adding on to KJ's point) is showing that there's a positive linear relationship between those two variables; that our recruiting rank means more than some of us would like to think.

That is all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Wow, you contradict yourself a couple times here.

First you say you can't show causal relationships. Then you say, "You can say that good recruiting leads to wins." But saying that A leads to B is causation. Maybe your use of the words "leads to" is implying more than you meant, but since you flip the relationship around in the next sentence, I can't see how else you could have meant that.

You're going to conclude that recruiting rank has a meaning? You said you can't determine causation. How then does a non-causal, moderately correlated statistic imply value? Even a much stronger correlation doesn't mean the relationship has "value". Like I'd bet there's a strong correlation between stadium size and number of wins.

You're trying very hard not to confuse causation and correlation, but I think your conclusions are muddled.

You can't determine causation, but you can show an associative relationship. Maybe I'm not explaining myself clearly, but those two things are different. Saying recruiting ranks doesn't mean anything to me implies that there is no relationship, and that's not the case.

 

[Mavric]

I won't go as far as AF did, but Mavric, do you think the staff could put more effort into bringing kids in for OVs during the season. By my count, we had 16 uncommitted 2014 recruits come in during OV's during our home games. We are allowed 56 total throughout the entire cycle. In your opinion, would you at least like to see that number improve quite a bit, considering our game day atmosphere is generally considered our #1 selling point to recruits?

What are you basing your assertion that "the staff could put more effort into bringing kids in for OVs during the season"? You seem to be basing that simply on how many showed up. If you think the only variable is how much effort the coaches put in, I don't know where to start. I would absolutely like to see more but there are a lot of reasons we don't get more that fall in line before the coaches' effort.

Maybe I shouldn't have used that word and gone with strategic decision making. Someone asked Els "during the Wyoming game, why did you have only 3 OV's?" He said, "well we have 8 home games, so we want to spread them out a little more." That weekend went on to be one of the most highly attended weekends. That is a problem that 16 uncommitted OVs attended our home games, in 8 home games.

I believe this is what Els said that you are slightly mis-quoting and taking out of context:

“With the schedule these kids have, their time demands are pretty big,” Els said. “When they're able to come in, they're able to come in. We leave it up to them. Absolutely, we want them in as early as we can, but we also have eight home games, so it's not a 'Hey,-you-must-come-to-the-Wyoming-game' type of deal.”
Els added that the extra home game allows Nebraska to spread out its visits more instead of bringing several players at the same position in at the same time.

“Maybe if you have a couple guys at the same position, you can say, 'Let's bring them in a different weekend,' so they have some options,” Els said. “That's good.”

OWH Article

The Wyoming game was actually our lowest-attended games. IIRC, many high schools hadn't started yet so several guys couldn't visit because they aren't allowed until their senior year starts. We usually get many more visitors at the end of the season after their high school year is over because they don't have to make such a quick trip from playing a game Friday night to getting a flight first thing Saturday morning. It is much easier for schools in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, etc. where the recruits can make a 3-4 hour drive Saturday morning. That was the case this year as our November games were much better attended and we continued to get more in December and January.

 

[AFhusker]

They also have a history of not keeping in touch with the recruits that commit before the season and allow other coaches to change thier mind.

Feel free to post the statistics you have to prove this happens more to us than anyone else.

I'll even make it easier for you (since I know you have no such statistics): Simply go through the decommits we had this year and explain why they decommitted.

I won't go as far as AF did, but Mavric, do you think the staff could put more effort into bringing kids in for OVs during the season. By my count, we had 16 uncommitted 2014 recruits come in during OV's during our home games. We are allowed 56 total throughout the entire cycle. In your opinion, would you at least like to see that number improve quite a bit, considering our game day atmosphere is generally considered our #1 selling point to recruits?

What makes you think they're not putting effort into it? Do they have direct control over when and if kids can visit? The scheduling of early games hasn't helped much in that regard either. I will also add that the administration needs to make sure they are doing everything they can to support the coaches in recruiting. Two lowly paid recruiting staff positions and access to private planes at the end of recruiting season is nice, but we can and should do more to help the coaches with what is already a difficult task.

How many other coaching staffs have to canvas the whole country and dig for diamonds as much as ours do? To criticize their effort when they already have to work harder than other major programs is ridiculous.

Everyone outside of Florida, Texas, and California has to "canvas the whole country" as you put it. And they wouldn't have to "dig for diamonds in the rough" as you also put it if they put fourth more effort. I don't understand how anyone can defend how bad this class this deep into his tenure at NU. There is no excuse for it if you want this program to become relevant again. And we've got 3 potential non-contributors in this class as well. Stewart is an academic risk. Harrison has a good possibility of accepting a pro baseball contract. Darlington is high risk of going on a medical scholarship pending any future concussions. Everything that this staff does, they seem to be reactionary to a need. If recruiting assistants has been allowed for 2 years, then we are 2.5 years too late in requesting help. With our recruiting disadvantages, we don't have to luxury of simply working almost as hard as other programs. We have to work harder than them. Every year we hear comments through several recruits who decommit or start wavering saying that they stopped hearing from the staff. Just because we gain a commit doesn't mean we can just coast through till signing. Other teams are still recruiting them and if the other teams are the main voice they keep hearing it's not surprising that eventually they start listening to that voice. I think that's what's frustrating to me the most. It's not that they are incapable of recruiting, but that they don't put forth the effort required to get it done year round. They may not like the way things are now, but until the rules change it is what it is. Refusal to participate only means we will continue to be left behind.

 

[dylan]

Which of our recruits did we stop communicating with? What evidence do you have that our coaches "coast"?

And which other major schools have to recruit nationwide like we do? Be specific. Oklahoma? Schools in the south? Ohio State and Michigan? Notre Dame?

 

[strigori]

Which of our recruits did we stop communicating with? What evidence do you have that our coaches "coast"?

And which other major schools have to recruit nationwide like we do? Be specific. Oklahoma? Schools in the south? Ohio State and Michigan? Notre Dame?

ND, Stanford (yes they are in CA, but they do recruit nationally more than many) Oregon to start. The there is the who 'does' and who 'should' which is not necessarily the same group. Most schools have to leave their home state to fill a recruiting class.

 

[Stumpy1]

Of coarse there are other schools that recruit nationally, most all of them do. Take a look at the top 10-15 teams in the recruiting rankings and then look at the recruits and notice where they are from in comparison to where the school is. Location is a BIG part in how you recruit and how well you recruit. I believe last year we traveled more miles then anyone else trying to recruit. You don't do that with a lack of effort.

 

[Atbone95]

Quoting isn't working for some reason. AFHusker, post #85.

So many freaking things wrong with this its obvious why no one has come after you for it. Can you please, PLEASE tell me just how bad this class is? I mean, it's a terrible class right? Based on a star rating that an analyst gave a kid. Have you watched any film, at all? Please, give it a try. Then, let's have a rational discussion prospect by prospect about weaknesses you see that make this class so terribly weak. Because, if you had watched film, you'd have seen:

1) We have a great QB class. Darlington is medically cleared and AJ Bush is just a freak athlete that can be moved around (I mean, not that you'd know that if you hadn't watched his film).

2) Larenzo Stewart (who does have an academic risk but has said he will make it) comes into the B1G as the fastest dude in the league from day one. Everyone wants speed, right? Speed kills and we don't have any because we aren't in the SEC? Then you have Wilbon who is your coveted 4 star and so I won't go there.

3) We have possibly the most athletic WR in the country in Monte Harrison who, according to recent reports, is now leaning towards playing football instead of the MLB. Pierson-El? Watch film. Drool. Repeat. Jariah Tolbert, big body with pretty impressive hands, perfect replacement for Q. Glenn Irons is exactly what this return game has been missing if it translates.

4) TE is the one weak spot in the class, although I really like Freedom. Maybe projects better to the defense side, but oh well. Get over it.

5) OL - Watch film. Drool. Repeat. For an interesting counter to these star gazers, please read the OWH article about Tanner Farmer on Signing Day. Went from a low 3-star player to a top 5 OL in the 2014 class. I bet he just got better, right? No, stars are done off of camps. Quote I liked, by Farmer's dad after Tanner had attended a few camps and saw a huge boost in ratings : "It's not like he's any different, I swear. Just went out to a few camps and proved himself." Throw in Gates and Foster and Stoltenberg and I have no reason to see you complaining.

6) DL - Great haul. It's been hashed out so many times on this forum I won't go over it again. Very pleased with the haul here.

7) LB - Only needed 1. It sure sucks we only got a low 3-star player though.

Film please. Tell me you'd like to be steamrolled by Mr. Walton.

8) DB - Trai and Chris Jones are very, very underrated prospects. Trai, our 3-star CB, has NFL athleticism per NFL WR's. Throw in Mr. Kalu and Cockerell and I don't see what you're complaining about.

9 ST - Got a great, legacy kicker.

Now, if you'd like to watch some film and get back to me, I'd be more than happy to hash this out in a rational, fact-based discussion. Ignoring star ratings.

 

[KJ.]

Quoting isn't working for some reason. AFHusker, post #85.

So many freaking things wrong with this its obvious why no one has come after you for it. Can you please, PLEASE tell me just how bad this class is? I mean, it's a terrible class right? Based on a star rating that an analyst gave a kid. Have you watched any film, at all? Please, give it a try. Then, let's have a rational discussion prospect by prospect about weaknesses you see that make this class so terribly weak. Because, if you had watched film, you'd have seen:

1) We have a great QB class. Darlington is medically cleared and AJ Bush is just a freak athlete that can be moved around (I mean, not that you'd know that if you hadn't watched his film).

2) Larenzo Stewart (who does have an academic risk but has said he will make it) comes into the B1G as the fastest dude in the league from day one. Everyone wants speed, right? Speed kills and we don't have any because we aren't in the SEC? Then you have Wilbon who is your coveted 4 star and so I won't go there.

3) We have possibly the most athletic WR in the country in Monte Harrison who, according to recent reports, is now leaning towards playing football instead of the MLB. Pierson-El? Watch film. Drool. Repeat. Jariah Tolbert, big body with pretty impressive hands, perfect replacement for Q. Glenn Irons is exactly what this return game has been missing if it translates.

4) TE is the one weak spot in the class, although I really like Freedom. Maybe projects better to the defense side, but oh well. Get over it.

5) OL - Watch film. Drool. Repeat. For an interesting counter to these star gazers, please read the OWH article about Tanner Farmer on Signing Day. Went from a low 3-star player to a top 5 OL in the 2014 class. I bet he just got better, right? No, stars are done off of camps. Quote I liked, by Farmer's dad after Tanner had attended a few camps and saw a huge boost in ratings : "It's not like he's any different, I swear. Just went out to a few camps and proved himself." Throw in Gates and Foster and Stoltenberg and I have no reason to see you complaining.

6) DL - Great haul. It's been hashed out so many times on this forum I won't go over it again. Very pleased with the haul here.

7) LB - Only needed 1. It sure sucks we only got a low 3-star player though.

Film please. Tell me you'd like to be steamrolled by Mr. Walton.

8) DB - Trai and Chris Jones are very, very underrated prospects. Trai, our 3-star CB, has NFL athleticism per NFL WR's. Throw in Mr. Kalu and Cockerell and I don't see what you're complaining about.

9 ST - Got a great, legacy kicker.

Now, if you'd like to watch some film and get back to me, I'd be more than happy to hash this out in a rational, fact-based discussion. Ignoring star ratings.

Ignore star ratings and rely completely on the hard-hitting analysis of "OH HE'S GREAT, HE'S A GREAT GREAT PLAYER, I DROOL WHEN I WATCH HIM YOU'RE DUMB FOR NOT THINKING THAT HAHA!".

 

[PaulCrewe]

Another dynamite contribution from kj

 

[Atbone95]

Lol @ KJ, as usual. I didn't say take my word for it. I said watch film. Try it. I threw out my opinion after watching film, take it or leave it. Not going to hurt my feelings.