Trio of Auburn players not returning

[Chief00]

How many scholarships do we have available

As many as we need.

 

[IMind]

And that has nothing to do with coaching?? Let me know a team in D1 college football who has won a National championship with a team full of 2 and 3 * players? I'll wait

Who was arguing that? There are only 5-10 programs that have a legit shot at a national title most years. Top programs get top kids. They get top rankings because the kids go to the top programs... it's not because the rankings have any value. It's because good coaches can identify great talent. Great programs have the resources to hire great coaches. It's got everything to do with coaching and nothing to do with rankings. The recruiting rankings are fan service pure and simple.

I can point to programs that break the mold... Miami always seems to get top 25 type recruiting classes... but can't win shit. West Virginia during the Rich Rod era had classes filled with 2* and 3* kids that would go out and blow away teams with 4* and 5* players in the bowl games. UCF with Blake Bortles. Utah has put together a couple of top 10 teams based on lesser talent. It's not always because the coach has some magic powers and coaches them up. Sometimes it's because the coach can find talent that the recruiting services miss. Darius Butler, Donald Brown, Tyvon Branch, Obi... all these guys were NFL talent the second they set foot on campus... but they weren't 4*-5* players.

That being said it's FAR easier to come up with programs that have good recruiting but don't win regularly. Miami, Tennessee, Maryland, UCLA, heck half the SEC...

Even Clemson... based on this they'd have no shot at a national title.

They're a lagging indicator... programs recruiting often improves AFTER they win national titles not before. They're far more indicative of past success than they are at future success. They certainly didn't predict Texas' drop off.

Recruiting rankings are good for one thing...validating the egos of fans from big programs.

 

[ktuck911]

any updates on whether any of these Auburn kids showing UConn some love.. or are they headed elsewhere?

 

[weyuo]

Somewhere in between the star rankings meaning nothing and the pundits who after years and years of studying and assigning star rankings knowing something lies the truth. Schools recruiting 5 star kids and being regularly ranked in the top ten to twenty means something. Kids in New England don't play and practice football 12 months a year(partly due to the fact that it's harder to play football in 2 feet of snow) like kids down South do so your not going to see 5 star kids pouring out of CT. Give the guys assigning stars some credit for knowing what they are doing. Everyone, including them, knows that some stars will crash and some diamonds will rise. Lets hope Edsall can find those diamonds and once in a while catch a rising star.

 

[Pudge]

Somewhere in between the star rankings meaning nothing and the pundits who after years and years of studying and assigning star rankings knowing something lies the truth. Schools recruiting 5 star kids and being regularly ranked in the top ten to twenty means something. Kids in New England don't play and practice football 12 months a year(partly due to the fact that it's harder to play football in 2 feet of snow) like kids down South do so your not going to see 5 star kids pouring out of CT. Give the guys assigning stars some credit for knowing what they are doing. Everyone, including them, knows that some stars will crash and some diamonds will rise. Lets hope Edsall can find those diamonds and once in a while catch a rising star.

This is anti-intellectual and just not passing the smell test. EVER

You cannot have a bunch of you spouting bluster about 3 star kids let alone 5 star when you understand the "guys assigning stars" methodology. This is simply not anything but a "fun" little cottage industry that grabs the dollars from about 60 Universities' fans ... and not indicative of future performance. Sure? The SEC has a level of scrutiny that I would pose that you can accurately understand the ratings correlation to the strength of recruiting. Probably B1G. B12 and ACC ... and California section of the Pac12.

For UConn - our subject - you can easily find 20 out of 25 of our Class that scrape the system with solid evaluative tools. And the most growing portion of our harvest - the NE and NJ prep schools - seemingly barely get touched.

So ... it still is a fun little exercise.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Not sure how to feel about this thread. Interest in a player who only "appeared" in 6 games in 3 years? Is our line so bad that could be an upgrade? (Don't answer that)

Tom Brady backing up Drew Henson

And Matt Cassel never even played at QB for USC behind Carson Palmer and then Matt Leinart, and was moved to TE in 2003 (and briefly WR in 2001) then back to QB in 2004. He's still in the NFL.

 

[Exit 4]

If you dont like the star system you can ignore it. I think its that simple.

Personally, I think the star system is improving as there is a solid 5-10 mins of HUDL film on virtually all the prospects these days. Just 5 years ago, only 1/2 the kids had film and the film was often hidden from the masses. In the old environment is was much easier for the scouting services to inflate their own recruits because the vast majority of the public did not have access to all the video we have today. I'm finding fewer discrepancies in the stars handed out today vs 5 -10 years ago.

 

[HuskyHawk]

If you dont like the star system you can ignore it. I think its that simple.

Personally, I think the star system is improving as there is a solid 5-10 mins of HUDL film on virtually all the prospects these days. Just 5 years ago, only 1/2 the kids had film and the film was often hidden from the masses. In the old environment is was much easier for the scouting services to inflate their own recruits because the vast majority of the public did not have access to all the video we have today. I'm finding fewer discrepancies in the stars handed out today vs 5 -10 years ago.

I honestly don't know who is right on this issue, but I'd be surprised if the rankings weren't improving based on data availability. That said, I think there is a vast amount of confirmation bias built into these rankings (and for basketball). Kids from certain places and programs will tend to be inflated and kids from other places and programs will go under the radar. And our region will be forever underrated.

What I'm hopeful for with our current staff is (a) that they can find a lot of quality under the radar kids and (b) that they can sell, and I think Lashlee helps a lot here, a few more high 3* or 4* kids to come here than we've typically gotten. Do that and they will win.

 

[huskymedic]

If you dont like the star system you can ignore it. I think its that simple.

Personally, I think the star system is improving as there is a solid 5-10 mins of HUDL film on virtually all the prospects these days. Just 5 years ago, only 1/2 the kids had film and the film was often hidden from the masses. In the old environment is was much easier for the scouting services to inflate their own recruits because the vast majority of the public did not have access to all the video we have today. I'm finding fewer discrepancies in the stars handed out today vs 5 -10 years ago.

Agree but the "raters" still have to watch the film and there are thousands and thousands that never see any of the evaluation service eyeballs.

 

[Exit 4]

Agree but the "raters" still have to watch the film and there are thousands and thousands that never see any of the evaluation service eyeballs.

Of course, as we all have discussed at length around here. But I think the days of blatant baseless homering is on the wane as abundant video is a great equalizer. But raters over rating their home team will never completely go away. There will always be regional and subscription based bias in the services.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Simple process really. UConn needs to get more of the kids that NorthCarolina, Rutgers, Syracuse, BC, West Virginia, etc get. And fewer kids who have offers from Stony Brook, New Hampshire, SUNY Albany, etc. Its all about recruiting.