When will recruiting improve?

[UConnDan97]

UConn will never be a top 40 recruiting team, unless they end up in the Big Ten or ACC.

According to Rivals, we have 3 AAC teams in the top 40 for 2018 so far (Cincy, UCF, USF). There's no reason that we cannot be a top 40 recruiting school even in the AAC, although I understand your point that it makes life tougher to do so.

One of the things that folks have to understand when talking about recruiting classes vs. singular recruit evaluations is the type of scoring that occurs. For instance, if you look at the 247 site, you'll find that there are certain metrics assigned to the star values:

1) A 5-star recruit is worth about as many points to your team score as one 4-star recruit + about three 3-star recruits.
2) A 4-star recruit is worth about as many points to your team score as five 3-star recruits

In other words, if we were to land a Jarrell Miller today, we would go from #72 in the team rankings to somewhere in the mid 50's. If we were to land Jarrell Miller and Dwayne Difton this year, we would be top 40 (somewhere in the low 30's).

So that's it. That's how the team rankings work. Essentially landing two players that we've already landed in the past in the same year puts you in that rarefied air. For me, I'd rather have ten 3-star recruits on my team than two 4-star recruits, even if they are worth the same value. It means you have great depth and a better chance to find a star impact player...

 

[Exit 4]

According to Rivals, we have 3 AAC teams in the top 40 for 2018 so far (Cincy, UCF, USF). There's no reason that we cannot be a top 40 recruiting school even in the AAC, although I understand your point that it makes life tougher to do so.

One of the things that folks have to understand when talking about recruiting classes vs. singular recruit evaluations is the type of scoring that occurs. For instance, if you look at the 247 site, you'll find that there are certain metrics assigned to the star values:

1) A 5-star recruit is worth about as many points to your team score as one 4-star recruit + about three 3-star recruits.
2) A 4-star recruit is worth about as many points to your team score as five 3-star recruits

In other words, if we were to land a Jarrell Miller today, we would go from #72 in the team rankings to somewhere in the mid 50's. If we were to land Jarrell Miller and Dwayne Difton this year, we would be top 40 (somewhere in the low 30's).

So that's it. That's how the team rankings work. Essentially landing two players that we've already landed in the past in the same year puts you in that rarefied air. For me, I'd rather have ten 3-star recruits on my team than two 4-star recruits, even if they are worth the same value. It means you have great depth and a better chance to find a star impact player...

Not to be argumentative, but when you look at bread and butter 3 star recruits, we - as usual - are not doing as well as our conference mates when looking at any of the sites. However, I agree, I'd like to have 10 three star kids and zero four star vs 5 three star and one four star.

The staff pulled off some nice gets over just four weeks of Jan. I'd like to see the same strong finish this year. Senior year tape is so much better than junior year tape.

 

[businesslawyer]

According to Rivals, we have 3 AAC teams in the top 40 for 2018 so far (Cincy, UCF, USF). There's no reason that we cannot be a top 40 recruiting school even in the AAC, although I understand your point that it makes life tougher to do so.

One of the things that folks have to understand when talking about recruiting classes vs. singular recruit evaluations is the type of scoring that occurs. For instance, if you look at the 247 site, you'll find that there are certain metrics assigned to the star values:

1) A 5-star recruit is worth about as many points to your team score as one 4-star recruit + about three 3-star recruits.
2) A 4-star recruit is worth about as many points to your team score as five 3-star recruits

In other words, if we were to land a Jarrell Miller today, we would go from #72 in the team rankings to somewhere in the mid 50's. If we were to land Jarrell Miller and Dwayne Difton this year, we would be top 40 (somewhere in the low 30's).

So that's it. That's how the team rankings work. Essentially landing two players that we've already landed in the past in the same year puts you in that rarefied air. For me, I'd rather have ten 3-star recruits on my team than two 4-star recruits, even if they are worth the same value. It means you have great depth and a better chance to find a star impact player...

Recruiting rankings don't mean nothing and they don't mean everything. But you can't compare the recruiting rankings of schools that recruit in the northeast -- where the services don't pay a lot of attention -- to schools that recruit primarily in the south, where the services are all over it. It's apples to oranges. It's more meaningful to compare where we are versus Syracuse, BC, Pitt and Temple.

 

[UConnDan97]

Not to be argumentative, but when you look at bread and butter 3 star recruits, we - as usual - are not doing as well as our conference mates when looking at any of the sites. However, I agree, I'd like to have 10 three star kids and zero four star vs 5 three star and one four star.

The staff pulled off some nice gets over just four weeks of Jan. I'd like to see the same strong finish this year. Senior year tape is so much better than junior year tape.

Oh, I'm not saying that we are currently where we need to be. I'm saying that we are not necessarily relegated to being a bottom 50 recruiting school. That's all.

As for the current staff, they definitely did a fantastic job in Jan/Feb of last year, landing four 3-star kids and a bunch of 5.4RR kids (highest 2-star rating without being a 3-star). They've already picked up an additional four 3-star kids for 2018, with nine additional 5.4RR kids. The classes are already starting to look better. Imagine what happens when we start winning the next few games, too...

 

[UConnDan97]

Recruiting rankings don't mean nothing and they don't mean everything. But you can't compare the recruiting rankings of schools that recruit in the northeast -- where the services don't pay a lot of attention -- to schools that recruit primarily in the south, where the services are all over it. It's apples to oranges. It's more meaningful to compare where we are versus Syracuse, BC, Pitt and Temple.

Again, when comparing ourselves to those schools, one has to use the same "point system". If Syracuse lands a 4-star recruit and we land three 3-star recruits, then Rivals or 247 says that Syracuse is winning the battle based on their point system. Even though I would argue that I would rather have the latter than the former, unless the 4-star recruit was at the QB position and you could make the argument that it is always more valuable there.

So what I'm essentially saying is take the team metrics with a very large grain of salt...

 

[uconnphil2016]

While we all know about Randy's diamonds, to boil it down to a few key areas:

i) on offense I think pulling in Pindell (over Temple), Washington (no way the last administration pulls him in), and Krajewski has the potential to prove recruiting has improved. We need to see them play to confirm. The potential is there however. Also, on Oline last year's staff had no chance at Robert Holmes, nor would they likely had been able to bring in someone like Ofori-Nyadu (IMO).

ii) On defense not sure we would have pulled in Eli Thomas or even Travis Jones (although he seemed like a homestate lean no matter what). Last year the new staff got TJ Gardner (BC flip) late in the process and Caleb Thomas. All these kids need to play to make a judgement however.

The new staff also brought Jay Rose back to UConn as well. Not sure the old staff had a real chance to do that.

If we finish strong (so to speak) on the last few slots for this class (some RBs and DL help), then perhaps the sum will suggest things have improved....never really know until they play however.

As long as Krajewski, Pindell, and Washington don't end up as backup tight ends, it'll be a big uptick in QB recruitment from what we're used to

 

[DoctorWho85]

The star system is a joke. 3 star,kids get bumped to 4 when Alabama or Michigan recruit them and get demoted when they commit to schools like UCONN. I think whaler said it best, the best way to evaluate any sort of recruit is to see what schools have offered him.

 

[UConnDan97]

The star system is a joke. 3 star,kids get bumped to 4 when Alabama or Michigan recruit them and get demoted when they commit to schools like UCONN. I think whaler said it best, the best way to evaluate any sort of recruit is to see what schools have offered him.

Absolutely right. I remember when Harbaugh stole Ulizio from us as a recruit, his Rivals ranking immediately went up a star. While the stars definitely have meaning in the aggregate, you have to take them with grains of salt...

 

[weyuo]

UConn football recruiting desperately needs UConn football wins and in the immortal words of Bill Murray, "That's a fact Jack!". Uconn has a huge strike against them just getting out of the gate as far as recruiting goes and that is the extremely small recruiting pool in New England. And, of that pool a portion that can actually compete at the D-1 level will never play for the Huskies. Why? Because their parents and/or grandparents went to and may have played for other schools so family legacy will trump a degree from UConn. Nothing you can do about that. So what do you do? Recruit outside of your region and hope you can find players that have football blood in their veins but didn't put up good enough numbers to catch the eye of the big boys. That's the crap shoot UConn has been in since they decided to go D-1. Edsall left because he didn't think it could get done here and Maryland whispered B1G in his ear. Now he's back starting from scratch again in a league that this time is actually devoted to football as much as any sport. So in a way that's a plus over the old Big East. But...this time around it isn't about building a D-IAA team into a D-1 team. It's all about building a D-1 team into a top 25 team because that's the only way your going to be able to tap into that group of New England kids pondering a ranked Husky team over their parents Alma mater. Or stealing kids from NJ and PA from the clutches of Penn St, Notre Dame and the ACC. The longer UConn can hang onto Lashlee and Crocker(yes, this guy is another "Mind", hang onto him) the better. Good luck Randy.

 

[sportsart]

UConn football recruiting desperately needs UConn football wins and in the immortal words of Bill Murray, "That's a fact Jack!". Uconn has a huge strike against them just getting out of the gate as far as recruiting goes and that is the extremely small recruiting pool in New England. And, of that pool a portion that can actually compete at the D-1 level will never play for the Huskies. Why? Because their parents and/or grandparents went to and may have played for other schools so family legacy will trump a degree from UConn. Nothing you can do about that. So what do you do? Recruit outside of your region and hope you can find players that have football blood in their veins but didn't put up good enough numbers to catch the eye of the big boys. That's the crap shoot UConn has been in since they decided to go D-1. Edsall left because he didn't think it could get done here and Maryland whispered B1G in his ear. Now he's back starting from scratch again in a league that this time is actually devoted to football as much as any sport. So in a way that's a plus over the old Big East. But...this time around it isn't about building a D-IAA team into a D-1 team. It's all about building a D-1 team into a top 25 team because that's the only way your going to be able to tap into that group of New England kids pondering a ranked Husky team over their parents Alma mater. Or stealing kids from NJ and PA from the clutches of Penn St, Notre Dame and the ACC. The longer UConn can hang onto Lashlee and Crocker(yes, this guy is another "Mind", hang onto him) the better. Good luck Randy.

You do know if you hit enter it creates paragraph's.

 

[BlueMAB]

You do know if you hit enter it creates paragraph's.

*paragraphs

 

[gtcam]

*paragraphs

Don't you just love it when an individual corrects another upon the proper usage of the language or structure and in that lecture screws up themselves?
Maybe someone should "coach up" this "expert" in that area
Not talking about you WingU-Conn - I am commenting about the person to whom you were correcting

 

[sportsart]

Don't you just love it when an individual corrects another upon the proper usage of the language or structure and in that lecture screws up themselves?
Maybe someone should "coach up" this "expert" in that area
Not talking about you WingU-Conn - I am commenting about the person to whom you were correcting

Maybe you should lighten up Francis. I promise you my gaffe was much easier to read than the Spackler epic post.

 

[Chief00]

It's possible for RE2, Lashlee and Crocker to get 2, 3 and 4 star kids locally (CT, New England, NY, NJ, PA) but it is critical that UCONN keep it's academic ranking near the top. Many kids and their parents will factor that into their final decision. Those Republican cuts to UConn would be disastrous to the football program and to recruiting in football, basketball, soccer, women's basketball and baseball.

Academic budget cuts would have had no impact on UNC’s fake class.

 

[ShakyTheMohel]

According to Rivals, we have 3 AAC teams in the top 40 for 2018 so far (Cincy, UCF, USF). There's no reason that we cannot be a top 40 recruiting school even in the AAC, although I understand your point that it makes life tougher to do so.

Generally agree...but those 3 schools are in talent rich areas. UConn's location will always make it challenging to be top 40 in recruiting.

 

[UConnDan97]

Generally agree...but those 3 schools are in talent rich areas. UConn's location will always make it challenging to be top 40 in recruiting.

They are in talent rich areas where they are, AT BEST, the 4th choice school. Seriously, I'm not making that up.

In Ohio, the first three choices would be OSU, Notre Dame, and Michigan (probably in that order). One would also argue that Penn State, Wisconsin, etc., also come first.
In Florida, the first choices would be FSU, Florida, and Miami (possibly in that order). One would also argue that LSU, Alabama, Georgia, etc., come first.

In some ways, a kid from Mass or New Hampshire in the 3-star prospect range perhaps has more incentive to come to UConn than an Ohio 3-star prospect has to go to Cincy. In this comparison, region matters very little...

 

[BlueMAB]

Don't you just love it when an individual corrects another upon the proper usage of the language or structure and in that lecture screws up themselves?
Maybe someone should "coach up" this "expert" in that area
Not talking about you WingU-Conn - I am commenting about the person to whom you were correcting

Nobodies perfect.

(see what I did there)