General News about Key and his Staff

[jojatk]

I like it when we have coaches that find the players through their good evaluation abilities rather than going with rankings. Does not mean I'm against rankings. Bobby Bowden said their recruiting dropped off when they started going more with rankings and got away from digging them out.

My impression is that the rankings themselves are meaningless for coaches who are true professionals with one exception. The fact that there are so many people contributing to the database of ranked players means that they could potentially find out about a player they had not heard of and then go do their own evaluation on him. POTENTIALLY. I'm not saying this actually happens. I'm just saying that I think that's probably the only real value any coach could get from the rankings (and by rankings I'm talking about the database of players that form the rankings, not the numerical rank itself).

 

[roadkill]

I like it when we have coaches that find the players through their good evaluation abilities rather than going with rankings. Does not mean I'm against rankings. Bobby Bowden said their recruiting dropped off when they started going more with rankings and got away from digging them out.

My impression is that the rankings themselves are meaningless for coaches who are true professionals with one exception. The fact that there are so many people contributing to the database of ranked players means that they could potentially find out about a player they had not heard of and then go do their own evaluation on him. POTENTIALLY. I'm not saying this actually happens. I'm just saying that I think that's probably the only real value any coach could get from the rankings (and by rankings I'm talking about the database of players that form the rankings, not the numerical rank itself).

You both make good points. The implied accuracy of the fourth decimal place on a recruit’s rating likely exists only for relative comparison; I can’t imagine even the rating services take it that seriously. And I won’t revisit the many critiques of the rankings/rating systems that have been discussed on this board in the past. My take is that, with the exception of the relatively few “freaks” that have obvious star potential, individual rankings should be taken with a grain of salt and often have a large inaccuracy relative to actual performance. We probably offer most 3-stars only after a coach has had a chance to evaluate them personally and feels that they would be a good contributor.

That said, aggregate rankings that sum all the recruits in a given year or use a team blue chip ratio, tend to mitigate these individual inaccuracies and are more likely to be at least directionally useful for team comparisons.

 

[orientalnc]

My impression is that the rankings themselves are meaningless for coaches who are true professionals with one exception. The fact that there are so many people contributing to the database of ranked players means that they could potentially find out about a player they had not heard of and then go do their own evaluation on him. POTENTIALLY. I'm not saying this actually happens. I'm just saying that I think that's probably the only real value any coach could get from the rankings (and by rankings I'm talking about the database of players that form the rankings, not the numerical rank itself).

My thought about this probably not dissimilar to yours. I doubt many D1 coaches personally subscribe to recruiting services or rely on their rankings solely. There is just so much more that goes into recruiting. To the extent the rankings are used I think it's by recruiting staff chasing down fragments of info to get a full picture of a potential recruit's fitness/interest for their program/school. If a player looks like a good fit, the position coaches and coordinators make initial "official" contacts. I doubt head coaches are cold calling recruits based on a 247 ranking in the top 100.

What I think is more likely is that HS coaches are contacting assistants with a pitch for kids in their program the services might be undervaluing. If there's a relationship, maybe some of those calls go too the head coaches.

 

[jojatk]

My thought about this probably not dissimilar to yours. I doubt many D1 coaches personally subscribe to recruiting services or rely on their rankings solely. There is just so much more that goes into recruiting. To the extent the rankings are used I think it's by recruiting staff chasing down fragments of info to get a full picture of a potential recruit's fitness/interest for their program/school. If a player looks like a good fit, the position coaches and coordinators make initial "official" contacts. I doubt head coaches are cold calling recruits based on a 247 ranking in the top 100.

What I think is more likely is that HS coaches are contacting assistants with a pitch for kids in their program the services might be undervaluing. If there's a relationship, maybe some of those calls go too the head coaches.

Without a doubt what you're describing about HS coaches are contacting assistants is exactly as you say. That 100% is the primary way, I suspect, college coaches find out about guys they don't already know about.

Let me be clear that I don't believe many legit college coaches troll the recruiting databases out there. I tried to indicate that by saying I thought it was simply a potential use case and we GT folks all know that potential just means it could happen, not that it does. And if a coach was looking in the recruiting databases the way I would see it happening is that they're looking to fill a spot and someone they know tells them there's a kid out there and there's some basic info on him in the Rivals site and they go look at the page and see where he goes to school and where he's from and maybe they even view the highlight reel (though if you've ever watched one of those you'll know it contains only positive plays and they're hard to see even on a large screen) and then find a way to contact the coach at the kid's school to take the next step. I don't think they look at the rankings even a little bit.

So overall I think we look at it the same way.

 

[DeepSnap]

Without a doubt what you're describing about HS coaches are contacting assistants is exactly as you say. That 100% is the primary way, I suspect, college coaches find out about guys they don't already know about.

Let me be clear that I don't believe many legit college coaches troll the recruiting databases out there. I tried to indicate that by saying I thought it was simply a potential use case and we GT folks all know that potential just means it could happen, not that it does. And if a coach was looking in the recruiting databases the way I would see it happening is that they're looking to fill a spot and someone they know tells them there's a kid out there and there's some basic info on him in the Rivals site and they go look at the page and see where he goes to school and where he's from and maybe they even view the highlight reel (though if you've ever watched one of those you'll know it contains only positive plays and they're hard to see even on a large screen) and then find a way to contact the coach at the kid's school to take the next step. I don't think they look at the rankings even a little bit.

So overall I think we look at it the same way.

Coaches network like they always have..... and from both directions, it's all about who can you trust.

No college coach wants to be pimped nor have his time wasted about a HS player who can't compete and contribute at that level. HS coaches don't want to be lied to and their kids misled.

Today's off-the-field GA's & staff do a lot of the groundwork, watching video, and doing evaluations before the area/position coaches get asked "Whattyathink?" In situations where the area/position coach has a prior relationship with a HS coach, it's obviously different. And the area/position coach has to be able to give the HFC an honest, accurate opinion and evaluation of why a particular player should be offered over someone else.

College coaches want to use the Mk1Mod0 eyeball to evaluate the talent and today's camps provide increased opportunities. It's not all about just watching a Friday night HS game any more....

But recruiting services run by wannabes/jock sniffers? Not so much.

 

[Em_Jae20]

 

[TooTall]

 

[Buzzbomb]

https://footballscoop.com/news/sources-personnel-hires-at-liberty-coastal-carolina
With Tucker off to Liberty, sources tell FootballScoop that Coastal is hiring Abu Turay to take the defensive recruiting coordinator role for the Chanticleers.

Turay joins the staff from Georgia Tech, where he was a football recruiting assistant. A Cincinnati grad, Turay worked previously in recruiting at Mount St. Joseph University and Northwestern.