I didn't see a discussion of this brilliant article on recruiting

[Stainmaster]

More likely to be busts than great... the only ones that I see maybe making an impact is Battle, Mayala, and Beals

At least let them get on campus before slamming them.

 

[UConnDan97]

I'm curious as to what Nolan Ulizio's rating would have been if he declined the Michigan offer and remained a UConn commit.

I know that he was bumped from two stars to three after committing to Michigan. What I am not fully clear on is this: was the bump due to being offered by Michigan or did it actually require his accepting that offer?

He wasn't bumped on Rivals. He is still a 2-star, 5.3 RR recruit:

http://sports.yahoo.com/connecticut/football/recruiting/player-Nolan-Ulizio-163401

 

[J187Money]

What years was UConn in the top 40?

The Fiesta Bowl year and the other year we received a couple of top 25 votes.

 

[Confident Carl]

The Fiesta Bowl year and the other year we received a couple of top 25 votes.

2007

 

[whaler11]

The Fiesta Bowl year and the other year we received a couple of top 25 votes.

The Fiesta Bowl team finished 56th in the Sagarins.

Their best finish was 2009. The 2007 team did break the 40 barrier by finishing 39th.

 

[J187Money]

The Fiesta Bowl team finished 56th in the Sagarins. Their best finish was 2009. The 2007 team did break the 40 barrier by finishing 39th.

They were higher in other polls but yes that was basically the ceiling.

 

[UConnDan97]

This thread, like the many recruiting threads before it, just baffles me. It really does. There are a certain amount of truisms that certain people are simply refusing to understand. Such as:

1) Can a coach find talented players at the 2-star level? Yes.
2) Can those 2-star level players become great players, even NFL-caliber players? Yes.
3) Is a 3-star player inherently better than a 2-star player? No.
4) Can P5 coaches miss out on a talented kid simply due to recruiting areas? Yes.
5) Has a team comprised mostly of 2-star level players ever won the national championship? No.
6) Is it extremely difficult to be a top25 team with a roster full of 2-star players? Yes.

I'm just not sure why #5 and #6 hurt people's sensibilities around here. I really don't get it. There is nothing that precludes a 2-star player from being great, and I hope that Diaco has found more than a couple great ones in this class as well as last class. But the idea that the stars don't mean anything when taken over a large number of players is false. The idea that multiple offers (a.k.a., other top coaching staffs rating the kid highly) don't matter when taken over a large number of players is false. Period.

Having said all that, I'm hoping that Diaco found all the diamonds in the rough, and I truly believe that this year can be a turnaround year for UConn...

 

[Confident Carl]

The Fiesta Bowl team finished 56th in the Sagarins.

Their best finish was 2009. The 2007 team did break the 40 barrier by finishing 39th.

The comment was, quote, the year UCONN cracked the top 25 and that would be 2007 -

NOV. 1, 2007 #16

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/sports/ncaafootball/10uconn.html?_r=0

 

[whaler11]

The comment was, quote, the year UCONN cracked the top 25 and that would be 2007 -

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/sports/ncaafootball/10uconn.html?_r=0

The question was what years did UConn have a team in the top 40?

You can rest easy that I am not asking questions about the team that I don't already know the answers to.

 

[whaler11]

A quick LOL on acting as if the SAT is more predictive than recruiting rankings.

The SAT has an r of .77?

 

[Chief00]

If I had to choose I would pick speed over size.

 

[UconnFamily]

Yup, because the star system says so. There's more players in college football that are/were ranked 3, 4, and 5 star players that make more of an impact than 2 star players. How can you compare an Aaron McLean who is 6'6 210 lbs runs a 4.7 forty (2*) to a Mark Harrison who is 6'6 200 lbs runs a 4.4 forty (4*) other than stature? just because they have the same frame doesn't mean they have the same talent.

I meant Brandon Coleman, But something tells me you already knew that.

 

[SubbaBub]

The list of commits looks pretty good to me all things considered. Most of the guys had some sort of all-conference or were rated locally. About all we can ask for and hope they develop.

 

[Confident Carl]

If I had to choose I would pick speed over size.

Chief, Be honest. Could you walk up to any coach on UCONN and make that statement with a straight face. Seriously. If you did, can you imagine what they would say. For Pete's sake, they are trying to build a winning football program.
It's as though you believe they are not looking for speed when they recruit. Diaco said the team needed to get bigger. That was a priority but I seriously don't think getting slower was on the list.

 

[IMind]

The results perfectly align with the ratings.

Nobody has ever debated that the system is perfectly efficient. Nobody has ever argued that if you have hundreds of two star players over a decade that some percentage of them will end up being good to great players.

In 12 years UConn had exactly two teams with winning records in conference. Their best team was humilated by Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. If you'd like to argue that 2007 was their best team well they got humiliated by West Virginia prior to dumping their bowl game to Wake Forest.

They have had some good players and have put more players in the NFL than you'd expect.

Maybe they can put together a team that can win the AAC by outrecruiting Maine, Monmouth and Bryant - but until it happens it's hardly unreasonable to be skeptical.

To Fuller's point about Davis' offer list that would be about the 3rd or 4th best list in this class - so he might want to come up with a better
example.

Not for nothing but those West Virginia teams that used to kick our ass were full of 2 and 3 star recruits. Rich Rod didn't get boatloads of 5 star kids. Check out Steve Slaton and Pat White's recruiting rankings.

 

[IMind]

It's a great point if you focus on 2 or 3 of the guys mentioned and ignore the fact that the others were from Bama, NC, PA, Mass, MD, NY, FL and other recruiting cul-de-sacs.

Umm NY and Mass are hardly recruiting hot beds. If you're outside of 25 miles of NYC I doubt you get a sniff from most recruiting services.

 

[whaler11]

Not for nothing but those West Virginia teams that used to kick our ass were full of 2 and 3 star recruits. Rich Rod didn't get boatloads of 5 star kids. Check out Steve Slaton and Pat White's recruiting rankings.

Pat White claims to have been offered a Corvette to sign with Alabama.

Slaton had offers from UNC, Rutgers and Maryland had him but pulled his offer because they had other backs they like better.

Maybe not the best examples that offers don't matter.

For maybe the ten millionth time it's the aggregate that proves accurate not any single player.

 

[IMind]

Pat White claims to have been offered a Corvette to sign with Alabama.

Slaton had offers from UNC, Rutgers and Maryland had him but pulled his offer because they had other backs they like better.

Maybe not the best examples that offers don't matter.

For maybe the ten millionth time it's the aggregate that proves accurate not any single player.

I'll pull this back a bit.. it's not that I don't buy that teams with higher rated recruiting classes aren't going to do better. I don't buy that teams do better BECAUSE they have higher rated recruiting classes. Texas, Notre Dame, Michigan, Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, Florida, etc are always going to have very highly rated recruiting classes... not necessarily because their recruiting classes are great, but because they are Texas, Notre Dame, Michigan, etc. I understand there is a correlation between high recruiting classes and successful programs, I don't necessarily think the causation is there.

These schools are always going to get the recruits they want because they are Michigan, Texas, Notre Dame, etc. and when they have a great coach who is good at identifying talent... they get great results... when they have crappy coaches who aren't so great at this... then they get crappy results... but no matter who is the coach they always have great recruiting classes no matter how good the actual talent coming in is. When you get a Nick Saban or Brian Kelly you get great recruiting classes and great results... when you have Mike Shula and Charlie Weis you get great recruiting classes and poor results.

West Virginia is actually a great example of this... they almost never had top 25 recruiting classes during the Rich Rod era, they constantly out preformed their rankings... Edsall's UConn was really a poor man's West Virginia... Take Steve Slaton's recruiting class... ranked 31st... a nice little class... largely on the back of one Jason Gwaltney who never amounted to anything... now don't get me wrong... 31st is a great class and I'd kill for UConn to be in this range... but if you could use recruiting rankings as a predictive indicator then West Virginia shouldn't have even been a top 25 program under Rich Rod instead of the top 10 program it was. They didn't have a top 25 recruiting class until the year Rich Rod left 2007.

Rivals had them:
2002 - 37th
2003 - 46th
2004 - 63rd
2005 - 31st
2006 - 53rd
2007 - 23rd

I think what Pudge and I are arguing is that the model for our success looks more like Rich Rod's West Virginia or Edsall's UConn... it has too.. because it's never going to be Saban's Alabama...

 

[BlueMAB]

I think what Pudge and I are arguing is that the model for our success looks more like Rich Rod's West Virginia or Edsall's UConn... it has too.. because it's never going to be Saban's Alabama...

I don't recall anyone claiming we should rival Saban's Alabama. If anyone has, nobody should take anything they say seriously.

All Whaler has ever really said is that he wants to see us beat out Temple, Cinci, Rutgers, Maryland and BCU more often than Maine, Stony Brook, Bryant, Fordham, and Buffalo.

 

[whaler11]

I don't recall anyone claiming we should rival Saban's Alabama. If anyone has, nobody should take anything they say seriously.

All Whaler has ever really said is that he wants to see us beat out Temple, Cinci, Rutgers, Maryland and BCU more often than Maine, Stony Brook, Bryant, Fordham, and Buffalo.

That is pretty much it. And I can't for the life of me understand why some don't think it's a realistic goal.

Do they think the program/school are that unattractive that we can't beat Cincinnati, Syracuse and Temple more often than we have?

 

[UconnFamily]

I think what Pudge and I are arguing is that the model for our success looks more like Rich Rod's West Virginia or Edsall's UConn... it has too.. because it's never going to be Saban's Alabama...

2002 - Broderick Jones and Derrell Weekly (4 stars)
2003 - 12 (3 stars) and 12 (2 stars). I've always said I don't mind 2 star players, just not a whole team full of 2 stars. We need more 3's than 2's to be where we was a few years ago.
2004 - Brandon Barrett and Raymond Williams (4 stars)
2005 - Jason Gwaltney (5 star) with a lot of 3's and 2's
2006 - More 3's than 2's
2007 - Bradley Starks, Pat Lazear, Ellis Lankster, Terence Kerns (4 stars) and Noel Divine (5 star) more 3's than 2's.

UConn's 2015 ranking: 96 out of 128 (way more 2's than 3 stars) how does UConn's model look like Rich Rod's West Virginia? Not only did Rich get 3, 4, and 5 star players, but he recruited speed (I'm talking 4.3 /4.4 speed) not size and guess what, speed killed us every time. I don't see how our model resembles Rich Rod's model. Let me say this. I'm not saying Diaco is not going to be successful, however I do worry about us recruiting more 2's than 3's because not everyone can do what Edsall has done here, so I'm a little skeptical.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

Not for nothing but those West Virginia teams that used to kick our ass were full of 2 and 3 star recruits. Rich Rod didn't get boatloads of 5 star kids. Check out Steve Slaton and Pat White's recruiting rankings.

True. But there is one article on Rich Rod that keeps popping into my head every time RE or PP and, now, RD talked/talks about offense preferences. I'm paraphrasing from memory. RR indicated that:

His choice of the Spread/Read Option was recognition of the fact that the type of player necessary to successfully run a pro-style offense would not be available to programs he had/was coaching, including West Virginia. This was especially true of offensive lineman, but also included big, fast running backs and receivers. Typically, the remaining players, with size, tended to be slow and less athletic. But, if you dropped down, in size, there were players that could thrive in an offense that required the defense to spread out; thus creating natural gaps and situations that didn't require pancake type overwhelms for success. Smaller, fast backs, including QB's, could be successful, as well.

Urban Meyer said pretty much the same thing when he was at Utah. Two highly successful coaches that recognized the realities of recruiting and adjusted accordingly by using a system that allowed reasonably athletic 270ish pound offensive lineman to thrive. A real case of taking what they give you.

It is harder to win with two star people. It is harder still if those two stars are asked to bang heads with a cement wall every Saturday. Rich Rod and Urban Meyer showed the world coaching adaptations. So do the coaches at the Military Academies. There are probably others that make good use of available talent. Creativity and the ability to teach won't beat Bama, but we don't play Bama.

 

[Palatine]

Year after year FSU had the number one rated class even as they got worse and worse. Then when their classes ratings started to slide, they rebounded. You see this trend again and again.

Recruiting ratings are a lagging indicator. If we won 13 games next year, our recruiting ranking would jump.

 

[BlueMAB]

If we get twenty 2 star athletes with offers from schools like Cuse, Pitt, Temple, Cinci, Louisville, Maryland, USF, UCF, SMU, Houston, ECU, BCU, etc. @whaler11 myself, and others will be happy.

If we get twenty 2 star athletes with offers from Maine, UMass, Stony Brook, Army, Bryant, Fordham, etc, @whaler11 myself, and others will be very concerned. It's really simple. There's a reason that those teams aren't consistently competitive against the teams we have to play, and it's the level of athlete they are able to recruit, not how those athletes are ranked.

Florida State's recruiting ranking has absolutely nothing to do with us. It's like discussing whether or not the handling of a Mercedes E class is overrated, while making a decision between buying a Nissan Altima or Chevrolet Malibu.

 

[huskymedic]

Other than folks being obstinate because they can - I'm not sure many are realistically disagreeing that 5* are better than 4* are better than 3* in aggregate (we can all find outliers on both sides of that argument). The difference/caliber between "high" 2* and "low" 3* are negligible in majority of cases. We have recruited and have offered 5*, 4*, 3*, etc. over the years. The "problem" is who commits, commits. I'm sure the coaches would rather a high number of 3*'s as well but sometimes you reach and pray.

And any one who doesn't think the conference realignment horsesheet isn't impacting recruiting (and where kids are choosing) is not being realistic. There is a lot of negative recruiting going on.