Deep Breaths and Relax

[Chin Diesel]

The recruiting services and talking heads aren't going to like this group.

Their school rankings have as much to do with quantity and quality. If one school has 15 kids and they're all 3-star recruits and a second school has 25 kids who are all 3-stars, they second school will be ranked way higher due to quantity.

It's a small class 14-16 enrollees depending on how the services count the two mid-year enrollees.

Also, recruiting services usually do a good job of identifying 5-star players from 2-star players. It doesn't mean that a two-star can't progress. But overall schools loaded with 5-star players win a high percentage against lower ranked opponents.

But, Kevin Duffy has a great point in his article today. UConn is competing with the middle of the pack right now, not the elites. And recruiting services become wildly inaccurate as they try and differentiate between 2 and 3 star players. And that's UConn's meat and potatoes right now (or cheeseburgers).

http://www.newstimes.com/uconn/article/Kevin-Duffy-Don-t-get-too-starry-eyed-over-5208667.php

Let's see if you remember: Which players comprised UConn's 2008 class and its woeful 2.14 star rating?
That would be Blidi Wreh-Wilson, Trevardo Williams, Jordan Todman, Sio Moore, Ryan Griffin and Dwayne Gratz. Six NFL draft picks.

Probably UConn's best class ever.

 

[noeynox]

Haven't had a chance to read the board much today but are people worried about our class? UConn fans should be used to seeing our two star players head off to the NFL? Would I love a can't miss 5 star like Clowney? Sure, but Duffy's article nails it. Means nothing.

 

[huskymedic]

“@JohnFSilver: Guys, before we obsess over stars. Scout and 24-7 don't even have uconn writers. Rivals just does recruiting, little day to day coverage...”

 

[d1reality]

Let's see, Baba has the #1 class on Rivals and UConn is #111, but according to Duffy all is well?

 

[CAHUSKY]

Let's see, Baba has the #1 class on Rivals and UConn is #111, but according to Duffy all is well?

If you think we are competing with Alabama for recruits....no. If you live in the real world....YES

 

[huskymedic]

Star Search? Diaco Dismisses Recruiting Sites' Assessments -- Jeff Jacobs
http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn...rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[RedStickHusky]

I'd rather judge a chef by the dish on the plate then obsess over his shopping cart.

 

[Colt house75]

Let's see, Baba has the #1 class on Rivals and UConn is #111, but according to Duffy all is well?

Listen d1realty-you have to get real...when Alabama is in the AAC, be concerned.
No need for concern here. Very positive, awesome additions to the Husky family. Having talked to a bunch in Husky nation, we are back on the upswing and did what was needed
in 7 week timeframe. ......202 days to the first tailgate at the RENT-BYU. Go Huskies!!

 

[noeynox]

No one, no one can compete with Baba. Whatever the hell Baba is.

 

[CL82]

I'd rather judge a chef by the dish on the plate then obsess over his shopping cart.

Nice metaphor.

With almost no time Diaco held on to PP's recruits and added a bunch to fill needs. I'm feeling pretty good about this guy right now and I'm not going let "experts" bring me down. If nothing else he reanimated the corpse that Pasqualoni had left behind.

He's doing a good job with the things that are in his control. I look forward to the Spring game.

 

[CL82]

No one, no one can compete with Baba. Whatever the hell Baba is.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

I'd rather judge a chef by the dish on the plate then obsess over his shopping cart.

Great quote. Sounds like a Diacoism.

 

[Husky25]

It's easy to suggest to not get worked up about the recruiting services, but it is also good advice. It's just hard to do because it shapes perception, which is reality. On the other hand, most Boneyarders know that and that's why we as a fan base get worked up. Reality is inaccurate, based on inefficient metrics. The Moneyball of college recruiting, if you will.

Most FBS recruits are automatically 2* players. The top 5 ranked players (by statistics) in each state are then bumped up to 3* without so much as a film review. That is where the recruit stays, IMO, unless the recruit and/or school suck up to the recruiting services, or is an elite football factory (according this article, "football factory" is a misnomer...for the NFL at least). I get sucked into the recruit rankings because that is the only thing going on, football-wise, but any opinion offered up by any of us or by a recruiting services on any UConn target needs to be taken with a grain of salt until they play the game with their new peers. Any 6'-5", 285lb high school lineman can maul a 185lb defensive end, when that DE is a science wiz with no Div. 1 aspirations., It's why Alabama (LSU, Florida, USC, etc.) would never, ever ever, ever, beat the worst team in the NFL. On any given college team there are maybe 15 players who can play at an NFL level at any given time. There are 53 NFL players on the worst NFL team.

 

[Chin Diesel]

“@JohnFSilver: Guys, before we obsess over stars. Scout and 24-7 don't even have uconn writers. Rivals just does recruiting, little day to day coverage...”

Keep in mind that up until yesterday morning Scout was showing UConn with having 9 recruits committed. They pay zero attention to UConn because we fans give them close to $0 in subscription fees.

 

[tduconn]

I'm not sure how to view this class.

Common sense says we are not competing with the Alabama's, or other top notch P-5 programs for recruits. What concerns me is we still register relatively low.......on the AAC scale as we did on the BE scale.......a far reach even to the UCF's of a "weak league".

I give BD and staff a pass this year.......not too much timeto recruit, and they had pickings from what was left over........aka the typical "under the radar".... "diamond in the rough" senario. A league championship once every five + years may not be good enough for a passive fan base.

BD and staff may have been excellent recruiters on the P-5 level.......but UConn is not there anymore.

We'll see if BD/staff does better next year starting with a time frame of 365 days to go. It would be great if they could challenge the "big boys" for recruits as Schiano did for Rutgers in the BE........but he faces perhaps insurmountable challenges........the perception of the AAC, the perception of UConn FB, and no AAC automatic bid to NC playoff senario.

I like BD's enthusiasm and positive hope, but it may not be as easy as he imagines.

 

[Exit 4]

Keep in mind that up until yesterday morning Scout was showing UConn with having 9 recruits committed. They pay zero attention to UConn because we fans give them close to $0 in subscription fees.

Right and same with all the other services where our subscriber base is almost nil. The services are going to feed those that pay. Both the fan bases that pay for subscriptions and the players that are responsive to the scouting service interviews and video sharing.

This year the new AAC schools present a new business opportunity for these services to establish themselves as the go to place for that fan base. Hence they are all making a go of it this year trumping up their players (UCF, Houston, SMU, etc) to see if their site can secure market share for that team.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I'm not sure how to view this class.

Common sense says we are not competing with the Alabama's, or other top notch P-5 programs for recruits. What concerns me is we still register relatively low..on the AAC scale as we did on the BE scale..a far reach even to the UCF's of a "weak league".

I give BD and staff a pass this year..not too much timeto recruit, and they had pickings from what was left over...aka the typical "under the radar".... "diamond in the rough" senario. A league championship once every five + years may not be good enough for a passive fan base.

BD and staff may have been excellent recruiters on the P-5 level..but UConn is not there anymore.

We'll see if BD/staff does better next year starting with a time frame of 365 days to go. It would be great if they could challenge the "big boys" for recruits as Schiano did for Rutgers in the BE...but he faces perhaps insurmountable challenges...the perception of the AAC, the perception of UConn FB, and no AAC automatic bid to NC playoff senario.

I like BD's enthusiasm and positive hope, but it may not be as easy as he imagines.

This goes back to the recruiting areas. UCF and USF have classes almost exclusively from Florida and Georgia. UCF can literally land an entire class of 3*+ kids without taking a plane ride. And recruiting services tend to saturate those areas. There are literally hundreds of 1-day, 2-day and 7v7 camps in the state of Florida. So, if you are a prospect and are willing to attend those camps you'll be seen and rated.

Even with this class, Scouts/Rivals have Johnson as a two-star and ESPN has him as a high 3*.

I like the film I've seen on almost half this class.

If you're still nervous take solace in the fact that it's a small class. Better to swing and miss on a class of 16 than a class of 25.

 

[huskymedic]

No one, no one can compete with Baba. Whatever the hell Baba is.

 

[Husky25]

After reading your comment, I just want to point out a couple things.

I'm not sure how to view this class.

Common sense says we are not competing with the Alabama's, or other top notch P-5 programs for recruits. What concerns me is we still register relatively low..on the AAC scale as we did on the BE scale..a far reach even to the UCF's of a "weak league".

I give BD and staff a pass this year..not too much timeto recruit, and they had pickings from what was left over...aka the typical "under the radar".... "diamond in the rough" senario. A league championship once every five + years may not be good enough for a passive fan base.

BD and staff may have been excellent recruiters on the P-5 level..but UConn is not there anymore.

Recruiting services will always rate schools in the P5 more favorably and they will give more weight to the traditional powers (The SEC, Michigan, ND, USC) than the rest of the P5. For instance, Kentucky and Tennessee had highly rated classes yesterday, but they have won about 5 games apiece over the last 3 years, in total. If a kid is being recruited by USC, UCLA, LSU, and Arizona State and is highly rated, his rating is bound to go down if he chooses ASU.

We'll see if BD/staff does better next year starting with a time frame of 365 days to go. It would be great if they could challenge the "big boys" for recruits as Schiano did for Rutgers in the BE...but he faces perhaps insurmountable challenges...the perception of the AAC, the perception of UConn FB, and no AAC automatic bid to NC playoff senario.

I like BD's enthusiasm and positive hope, but it may not be as easy as he imagines.

No conference has an automatic bid into the Playoff, at least not yet. The Auto Bid is for admission to the New Years Day Six bowl games.

 

[IMind]

The one thing that I found telling was that Ferrell said in Dez' article was that Edsall hid his kids. That he didn't want other schools to know who he was bringing in. Coach P not so much... and it's why we had our highest rated classes under him... but it's pretty clear when you look at the number of players Edsall put into the NFL that our classes were under ranked.

 

[freescooter]

I agree with Diaco and have been saying this for a long time. Recruiting is about getting the guys you need. If you have no oline depth, you need to get olinemen. If it were the 1970s and you had 110 scholarships, sure take whoever you want. Stockpile cornerbacks like there's no tomorrow. But when you can bring in between 15 and 20 players per year, you need to approach it strategically. What are our needs? Who is available to fill those needs? Obviously you need to be flexible. If a 4-star receiver fell in our laps this year, we wouldn't turn him down because we aren't looking for that position. But priority was to land guys to man both lines, linebacker and running back positions.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Basketball recruiting happens in the living room, football recruiting happens in the film room.

After 5* recruits, the rankings are close to meaningless. Even "other offers" is a very imperfect measure of a player, since a huge percentage (I believe it is something like 20%) of all FBS recruits only receive one FBS offer. There is a lot of talent out there, and evaluation is imperfect, to say the least. This isn't like basketball where it is more of an individual game and there are hundreds of summer camps at which to evaluate kids. So much of recruiting is local too. Even many of the top schools only take a few national recruits and then fill in with pipeline area recruits.

Ways to get an early assessment of a recruiting class outside of the "stars":

I like to see a coach get his guys early on. This was always Edsall's problem. He was great at finding talent, but couldn't hold on to his kills. I used the cheetah analogy with Edsall before. I hope Diaco is not a cheetah.

I do like to see other offers. This is an indication of both the caliber of the player and how other coaches perceive our coach. Edsall used to get a lot of only offer recruits at the beginning, but his last few years, other coaches would show up if a recruit was offered by UConn because they respected Edsall as a talent evaluator. If we end up seeing a lot of Diaco guys not getting other offers, it says as much about the coach as the players.

How many of the players produce right away? UConn is not a good team right now, and has a reasonable amount of graduation losses, so there should be spots for 4-5 players to contribute in some meaningful way. If we aren't seeing any freshmen playing next year, that is a problem.

What are some other ways to get an early gauge on a class?

 

[ZooCougar]

Basketball recruiting happens in the living room, football recruiting happens in the film room.

After 5* recruits, the rankings are close to meaningless. Even "other offers" is a very imperfect measure of a player, since a huge percentage (I believe it is something like 20%) of all FBS recruits only receive one FBS offer. There is a lot of talent out there, and evaluation is imperfect, to say the least. This isn't like basketball where it is more of an individual game and there are hundreds of summer camps at which to evaluate kids. So much of recruiting is local too. Even many of the top schools only take a few national recruits and then fill in with pipeline area recruits.

Ways to get an early assessment of a recruiting class outside of the "stars":

I like to see a coach get his guys early on. This was always Edsall's problem. He was great at finding talent, but couldn't hold on to his kills. I used the cheetah analogy with Edsall before. I hope Diaco is not a cheetah.

I do like to see other offers. This is an indication of both the caliber of the player and how other coaches perceive our coach. Edsall used to get a lot of only offer recruits at the beginning, but his last few years, other coaches would show up if a recruit was offered by UConn because they respected Edsall as a talent evaluator. If we end up seeing a lot of Diaco guys not getting other offers, it says as much about the coach as the players.

How many of the players produce right away? UConn is not a good team right now, and has a reasonable amount of graduation losses, so there should be spots for 4-5 players to contribute in some meaningful way. If we aren't seeing any freshmen playing next year, that is a problem.

What are some other ways to get an early gauge on a class?

Evaluate them 3 years after you sign them. I would love to see class grades adjusted for performance.

 

[freescooter]

Basketball recruiting happens in the living room, football recruiting happens in the film room.

After 5* recruits, the rankings are close to meaningless. Even "other offers" is a very imperfect measure of a player, since a huge percentage (I believe it is something like 20%) of all FBS recruits only receive one FBS offer. There is a lot of talent out there, and evaluation is imperfect, to say the least. This isn't like basketball where it is more of an individual game and there are hundreds of summer camps at which to evaluate kids. So much of recruiting is local too. Even many of the top schools only take a few national recruits and then fill in with pipeline area recruits.

Ways to get an early assessment of a recruiting class outside of the "stars":

I like to see a coach get his guys early on. This was always Edsall's problem. He was great at finding talent, but couldn't hold on to his kills. I used the cheetah analogy with Edsall before. I hope Diaco is not a cheetah.

I do like to see other offers. This is an indication of both the caliber of the player and how other coaches perceive our coach. Edsall used to get a lot of only offer recruits at the beginning, but his last few years, other coaches would show up if a recruit was offered by UConn because they respected Edsall as a talent evaluator. If we end up seeing a lot of Diaco guys not getting other offers, it says as much about the coach as the players.

How many of the players produce right away? UConn is not a good team right now, and has a reasonable amount of graduation losses, so there should be spots for 4-5 players to contribute in some meaningful way. If we aren't seeing any freshmen playing next year, that is a problem.

What are some other ways to get an early gauge on a class?

The other thing to keep in mind in evaluating classes is that it is very much based on projections. How does an 18 year old 6-5, 265 tackle perform after adding 35 pounds and taking the field 3 years from today as a 300 pound 21 year old redshirt soph? How does a hotshot high school running back translate as a college linebacker or the other way around? How hard is he going to work in the off season? Is he already at his peak or does he have higher ceiling? I read a comment a while back by some coach that one major reason guys don't make it is that they are bigger and stronger than the guys they play in high school, but they are as big/strong as they are ever going to be.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

If you think we are competing with Alabama for recruits....no. If you live in the real world....YES

Speaking of Bama:

If you think we are competing with Alabama for recruits....no. If you live in the real world....YES

Speaking of Alabama, the following is from Jonathan Chait writing for New york Magazine. Unlikely writer in a surprising publication. Talk about different worlds.

"One way to see this is to look at the biggest problem currently afflicting college football players: over signing. Currently, every football program has a limit of 85 scholarships it can hand out at any given time. Traditionally, football players who are granted scholarships get to keep those scholarships for four years, unless they flunk out of school or commit serious violations of school rules. Recently, some programs, mostly in the Southeastern Conference, have figured out that if they can nudge weaker players off the roster, they can make room for more recruits every year. The site oversigning.com has tracked this abuse. Roll Bama Roll, an Alabama blog, has a mortified post facing up to the fact that Nick Saban simply has to cut seven players from the football roster to make room for his new recruits."

Chait is discussing possible benefits of the proposed Union, by the way.