Recruiting Ratings from 90s

[Nexus]

I recall when Bobby Bowden visited Nebraska a couple years ago for a coaching clinic and he made this comment regarding recruiting:

"You know, you can get too many stars," Bowden said of recruiting. "All you really need is maybe three or four 4-star recruits and fill the rest in with rock-solid people who all want it so bad they can taste it."
LINK

The "too many stars" comment was particularly interesting considering the guy bathed in it on a regular basis. He pulled in nine consecutive Top 10 recruiting classes according to the link in the OP with an avg. ranking of 3rd.

With that in mind, here's something to ponder:

FSU (1990-1999)

Avg. Recruiting Class Rank = 3rd

W/L record = 109-13-1 (.890)

2 National Titles (1993, 1999)

Nebraska (1990-1999)

Avg. Recruiting Class Rank = 17th

W/L record = 108-16-1 (.868)

3 National Titles (1994, 1995, 1997)

 

['SkersRule]

There is a lot of rewriting history going on in the ranking of our recruiting classes. Back in the early 90's I don't remember any recruiting service ranking the Huskers in any of the top 20 lists. Nebraska's recruiting classes were almost always ranked 30th or lower. But since the 90's run these services have decided to rewrite history to make themselve look like they actually knew what they were talking about.

 

[RedRedJarvisRedwine]

There is a lot of rewriting history going on in the ranking of our recruiting classes. Back in the early 90's I don't remember any recruiting service ranking the Huskers in any of the top 20 lists. Nebraska's recruiting classes were almost always ranked 30th or lower. But since the 90's run these services have decided to rewrite history to make themselve look like they actually knew what they were talking about.

I agree! I remember someone telling me that Tommie fraziers class was somewhere in the 50s! This came out after the 95 season because either I was told or read an article about how that class was a reason to not buy into the recruiting hype!

 

[kchusker_chris]

There is a lot of rewriting history going on in the ranking of our recruiting classes. Back in the early 90's I don't remember any recruiting service ranking the Huskers in any of the top 20 lists. Nebraska's recruiting classes were almost always ranked 30th or lower. But since the 90's run these services have decided to rewrite history to make themselve look like they actually knew what they were talking about.

Since they are pulling these numbers from printed publications - I'm going to have to disagree w/ you.

 

['SkersRule]

There is a lot of rewriting history going on in the ranking of our recruiting classes. Back in the early 90's I don't remember any recruiting service ranking the Huskers in any of the top 20 lists. Nebraska's recruiting classes were almost always ranked 30th or lower. But since the 90's run these services have decided to rewrite history to make themselve look like they actually knew what they were talking about.

Since they are pulling these numbers from printed publications - I'm going to have to disagree w/ you.

I had the '93 Huskers Illustrated and I threw it away about 10 years ago because I didn't think I would ever need or want it ever again. Boy am I regretting that right about now. I'm going off of memory, which I freely admit might be suspect, but I remember reading that issue and the two recruiting services they cited had a generally poor opinion of Nebraska's recruiting class. I know for a almost certain fact that our recruiting classes were consistently ranked 30th or lower for the 90, 91, 92, and 93 classes. Tommie Frazier was a :star :star :star :star DB which was what schools like Miami and Florida State were recruiting him as. As a QB Frazier was a minimally ranked :star :star :star dual threat. These recruiting services are rewriting history to try and make themselves look better by placing Nebraska higher after the fact.

 

[dylan]

There is a lot of rewriting history going on in the ranking of our recruiting classes. Back in the early 90's I don't remember any recruiting service ranking the Huskers in any of the top 20 lists. Nebraska's recruiting classes were almost always ranked 30th or lower. But since the 90's run these services have decided to rewrite history to make themselve look like they actually knew what they were talking about.

Since they are pulling these numbers from printed publications - I'm going to have to disagree w/ you.

I had the '93 Huskers Illustrated and I threw it away about 10 years ago because I didn't think I would ever need or want it ever again. Boy am I regretting that right about now. I'm going off of memory, which I freely admit might be suspect, but I remember reading that issue and the two recruiting services they cited had a generally poor opinion of Nebraska's recruiting class. I know for a almost certain fact that our recruiting classes were consistently ranked 30th or lower for the 90, 91, 92, and 93 classes. Tommie Frazier was a :star :star :star :star DB which was what schools like Miami and Florida State were recruiting him as. As a QB Frazier was a minimally ranked :star :star :star dual threat. These recruiting services are rewriting history to try and make themselves look better by placing Nebraska higher after the fact.

we didn't get top 10 classes every year, but we regularly brought in national level recruits and top 10-20 level classes. i think it was 90 or 91 that was poorly regarded, but that was the exception. we certainly didn't have classes rated that low for all of the years you cited.

what osborne did a great job of was not only getting the blue chips, but identifying kids that didn't quite fit the profile for 5 star recruits, but worked great for our unique offense at QB and OL (shorter, more mobile linemen). that is one reason our classes weren't always top 10 classes. but make no mistake, TO brought in a lot of talent and recognized the importance of recruiting. the difference between he and most other coaches was that he was better at identifying the right kids and much better at coaching them.

 

[Nexus]

I tried to find a link from signing day 2010 when T.O. was asked about recruiting rankings but to no avail. It was a video interview on-campus at one of the cafeteria's. Anyway, to paraphrase what he said was he didn't put a lot of stock into recruiting rankings. He said over his 25-year career at Nebraska, his recruiting classes ranked between 20-30 if you averaged it out. That's not a far-fetched number. The 90s alone has him at 17. If you throw in his 70s and 80s rankings on top of that, 20-30 sounds about right?

This is a bit of a sidetrack to the rankings convo, but it also reinforces the point that Nebraska was never a recruiting juggernaut under Osborne. Kevin Steele's comments below on what made Nebraska's system successful.

Clemson defensive coordinator Kevin Steele has coached about everywhere -- in the NFL, under Nick Saban at Alabama and Bobby Bowden at Florida State. Steele said the best player development system he observed was at Nebraska, where he coached linebackers under Tom Osborne.
"When I was at Nebraska, we never had top recruiting classes, we never did," Steele said. "But we had a system, and coach Osborne just had a way of developing players. They lead the nation in non-scholarship players becoming first-round draft picks."

Steele said part of Nebraska's success was the number of players it brought to camp. SEC programs like Alabama have come under criticism for over-signing and then using different practices to trim rosters down to 85 scholarships.

At Nebraska, Steele said he needed an auditorium to conduct linebacker meetings.

"At the time I was there, we had 187 players," Steele said. "I had 19 linebackers. You have two pass skeletons going on at the same time, two inside run (drills) going on at the same time. Everything is done in twos, so you are getting reps all the time. By the time a guy becomes a starter, he has done it 50,000 times."

LINK