How Important is Recruiting?

[AugustaSwarm]

We just tried this with G***** C****** and it did not work.

And most of our talent transferred out because of the Geoff-ness. There's no point in playing the what if game, but we lost an awful lot of quality players. Using this as your argument for saying that recruiting well doesn't work is a stretch, at best.

 

[SoMsJacket]

How has that worked for Miami? It takes more than ONLY Jimmys and Joes

Your reading comprehension needs some work. Recruiting the JIMMYS and JOES is the basis of any successful program. Without the JIMMYS and JOES, coaching and development at its highest level can not be successful for any length of time. Ask Clemson how they stay on top. (side note, Miami plays like an bunch of individuals looking to flash to get to the league. No TEAM involved)

 

[RonJohn]

Your reading comprehension needs some work. Recruiting the JIMMYS and JOES is the basis of any successful program. Without the JIMMYS and JOES, coaching and development at its highest level can not be successful for any length of time. Ask Clemson how they stay on top. (side note, Miami plays like an bunch of individuals looking to flash to get to the league. No TEAM involved)

That was exactly my point. It takes a combination of both recruiting and coaching. Miami is an example that out of this world recruiting without the coaching does not lead to winning. To be Alabama, you need recruiting, coaching, and a highly paid support staff. To be a winning program, you need some combination of a level of recruiting and a level of coaching. You CAN coach up players and become a winning program with the Princeton basketball type philosophy. You can't take a scheme without recruiting or coaching up and become a winning program. You also can't take high level recruits and become a winning program without coaching. It takes some combination. To get as good as Alabama, it takes a high level of everything at the same time.

 

[CEB]

How has that worked for Bama, Georgia, OSU, ND, Michigan, Clemson, LSU, Oregon, Penn State, USC, Oklahoma etc. the past 10 years?

Good question.
How about Bama pre Saban? Georgia pre Kirby? Clemson pre Dabo? A couple years ago, they were about to run harbaugh out of Ann Arbor...What explains the down years for any of these programs? Their recruiting didn’t change but their results sure did.
The Tenn example earlier in this thread was a good one too.

 

[southernhive]

And most of our talent transferred out because of the Geoff-ness. There's no point in playing the what if game, but we lost an awful lot of quality players. Using this as your argument for saying that recruiting well doesn't work is a stretch, at best.

We can recruit well, but his has very little to do with a "ra ra" coach with a very limited track record.

 

[UgaBlows]

We do not have the NIL funds (and likely never will) to recruit and keep a team-full of 4-stars (Assuming that Deion could pull in that kind of class here). Chadwell can win with his system using mid-range players that will be stars for us but the factories won’t really want to poach in most cases (sound familiar?). I do think he can recruit better than CPJ, especially on defense. If he ca; recruit middle of the pack in the ACC he will win a LOT of games imo.

 

[bke1984]

He's not even the best recruiter in the Sun Belt according to the rankings. Do you really think 4 and 5 stars would choose him over Deion?

I think that even with Deion we are unlikely to land 5 stars regularly.

 

[bke1984]

Bottom line, ITS ABOUT THE JIMMYS AND THE JOES

Except when that’s not enough. You don’t have to look very far in sports (or anywhere else in life, really) to see organizations full of obvious talent that are failing to succeed. Similarly you can find examples all over the place of well run organizations full of hard working, but less skilled talent that are extremely successful.

 

[MWBATL]

Can we all just agree that to be successful, we MUST have a combination of solid recruiting (which emphasizes good talent evaluation), good coaching to improve players once they are here, AND a quality scheme to maximize our advantages?

To argue for one to the exclusion of the others is ...rather silly, imho. Makes for message board fodder but not much else.

The big issue is how to evaluate all of that in any coaching candidate. We can all look backwards and agree (mostly) on the strengths and weaknesses or prior coaches at GT or coaches elsewhere in CFB, but projecting how they will do at GT seems to be a real crapshoot. I will freely admit I have NO idea how well Deion Sanders would do at all three of those things at GT, nor Jamie Chadwell, nor any of the others. Lots of other schools have had serious problems with the same issues, and in some cases coaches who seem to do OK at one school get fired at another one (I am thinking of Mack Brown as one example of this).

I have resigned myself to simply sitting and watching for a while to see how things develop. I will say I think one can see pretty quickly if a coach is a decent day-to-day coach because the number of stupid "beat yourself" errors goes down. Key has improved our play in that regard...mostly. But he cannot overcome talent deficiencies. Tough spot for a guy who seems much better than G**** C****** ever was, but no way to determine how good he might be at all aspects of the job based on his interim performance.

 

[stigs02jrt]

I think that even with Deion we are unlikely to land 5 stars regularly.

He got a 5 star to come to Jackson, MS. Jackson. Think about that. That matches Tech's all time total I think?

 

[yeti92]

He got a 5 star to come to Jackson, MS. Jackson. Think about that. That matches Tech's all time total I think?

Tech has never signed a 5 star.

 

[stigs02jrt]

Can we all just agree that to be successful, we MUST have a combination of solid recruiting (which emphasizes good talent evaluation), good coaching to improve players once they are here, AND a quality scheme to maximize our advantages?

To argue for one to the exclusion of the others is ...rather silly, imho. Makes for message board fodder but not much else.

The big issue is how to evaluate all of that in any coaching candidate. We can all look backwards and agree (mostly) on the strengths and weaknesses or prior coaches at GT or coaches elsewhere in CFB, but projecting how they will do at GT seems to be a real crapshoot. I will freely admit I have NO idea how well Deion Sanders would do at all three of those things at GT, nor Jamie Chadwell, nor any of the others. Lots of other schools have had serious problems with the same issues, and in some cases coaches who seem to do OK at one school get fired at another one (I am thinking of Mack Brown as one example of this).

I have resigned myself to simply sitting and watching for a while to see how things develop. I will say I think one can see pretty quickly if a coach is a decent day-to-day coach because the number of stupid "beat yourself" errors goes down. Key has improved our play in that regard...mostly. But he cannot overcome talent deficiencies. Tough spot for a guy who seems much better than G**** C****** ever was, but no way to determine how good he might be at all aspects of the job based on his interim performance.

OF COURSE coaching matters too. Can't have idiots coaching 4 stars. All I'm saying is that we just need COMPETENT coaches. Finding competent coaches is easy. We CURRENTLY HAVE competent coaches at tech, just not the recruiting. For example, if Key, Long and Thacker could get top 25 recruiting classes, they could translate that into top 25 finishes. They're good enough coaches to do that. But they probably can't recruit that high (who knows, maybe clown CGC was actually hindering us in recruiting and they can?).

Now pair Deion with a Long and a Thacker, we'd have the recruiter and competent coaching to get to the top 25. Pair Deion with a Chadwell/Heupel clone, and perhaps there is magic?

Folks on here want us to predict the next unicorn offensive coordinator/"schemer" (who won't have the track record to recruit) and pray he turns his top 50 recruiting classes to top 25 finishes. Are we really predicting that Chadwell is a unicorn OC? That his system will translate to P5? Are we willing to gamble 3-4 more years?

 

[RonJohn]

But if you want to point to outlier seasons or outlier teams to say that the obvious pattern doesn't exist, cool. Some folks like to play roulette in vegas too.

You keep acting as though posters are saying that recruiting doesn't matter at all. The athletic abilities of the players does matter. However, it is still only part of the equation. Miami is the perfect example of top notch recruiting while lacking everything else. Their athletes can cause them to win games. Their lack of discipline can cause them to lose games.

GT has several limitations, the most obvious is funding. Unless fans put up a lot more money (and by a lot I mean something close to double the current athletic association income), GT will not be able to hire a unicorn coach ($10 million per year compared to our current $3 million), hire the best coordinators ($2 million vs highest paid at GT around $600-800k), and provide donations for NIL which TA&M has around $30 million according to rumors. To compete for that, GT needs around $15 million per year for additional coaching salaries and $15-30 million per year for NIL.

It could be argued that GT sold out everything else for recruiting with Collins. Explain to fans and donors what is happening? No, he is talking to recruits, not us. Maintain traditions that make GT unique? No, only pander to recruits. Practice in ways that lead to winning games? No, practice in such a way that you can sell the practices to recruits.

I am not, and would not argue that GT should not concern itself with recruiting. I am arguing that recruiting is one piece of the puzzle and that everything has to be balanced out as well as possible for the best chance at success.

 

[RonJohn]

Calvin Johnson is a 5 star on 247. But you get the point.

247 didn't start until 2010. They didn't publish recruiting rankings until 2011. Everything before that was retroactively posted.

 

[yeti92]

Calvin Johnson is a 5 star on 247. But you get the point.

247 did not exist until many years after Calvin Johnson was a recruit, that is a retroactive rating. He was a 4 star on Scout and Rivals, the only major ratings services at the time.

 

[CEB]

The last few years richt was 12, 12, 15, 6, 10 in recruiting. And even in his earlier years, he was typically 3rd in the SEC. He averaged 9.5 wins and finished top 10 in 7 of 15 years. Ya'll act like he was trash. Did he underperform his recruiting rankings? not by much.

Their recruiting ABSOLUTELY changed when the current coaches arrived, and the performance followed. Bama pre-saban was typically recruiting outside the top 10, and as low as #30 in the early 2000s, until 2008 when they were #1 (you guessed it, Saban). Clemson was never top 10 recruiting in the early 2000s. Michigan was top 10 only 4 of 9 years from 2002 to 2010.

But if you want to point to outlier seasons or outlier teams to say that the obvious pattern doesn't exist, cool. Some folks like to play roulette in vegas too.

Saban started winning 12 games a season in 2008. He did that all with freshmen recruits? Of course not! That’s coaching.
No one is saying he doesn’t recruit, but he won 12 games with other people’s guys and never won fewer than 10 again!
By the way, Bama is the worst example possible; they have been at the top of the heap in terms of football talent forever.
Clemson is closer to proving your point, as Dabo really turned a corner in year 3, but they looked a lot like UGA and Miami prior to that - never quite living up to their talent level.
Bottom line, NO ONE is saying we can’t try to recruit better.
I AM saying that we are NOT going to be able to recruit top 20, no matter who is here, and even if we could, it’s not a guarantee of success.

 

[stigs02jrt]

247 did not exist until many years after Calvin Johnson was a recruit, that is a retroactive rating. He was a 4 star on Scout and Rivals, the only major ratings services at the time.

Wiki says calvin was 5 star on Scout. But if Rivals is your favorite service, or you just don't like a composite like 247 which looked at a bunch of rating services from 2004, go with it.

The actual point was apparently way over your head anyway.

 

[stigs02jrt]

Saban started winning 12 games a season in 2008. He did that all with freshmen recruits? Of course not! That’s coaching.
No one is saying he doesn’t recruit, but he won 12 games with other people’s guys and never won fewer than 10 again!
By the way, Bama is the worst example possible; they have been at the top of the heap in terms of football talent forever.
Clemson is closer to proving your point, as Dabo really turned a corner in year 3, but they looked a lot like UGA and Miami prior to that - never quite living up to their talent level.
Bottom line, NO ONE is saying we can’t try to recruit better.
I AM saying that we are NOT going to be able to recruit top 20, no matter who is here, and even if we could, it’s not a guarantee of success.

Bama was NOT at the top of the heap in football talent forever. I just proved that to you with actual rankings.

and 2008 was coaching? LOL then what was saban's work at bama in 2007 when they went 7-6?

Recruiting is not a guarantee of success. No one said that. But it is literally the best predictor of success. But if you want to find us the next unicorn offensive guru that no one knows about yet, I'm with you. Who's the next Heupel/Kiffin?

 

[RonJohn]

Wiki says calvin was 5 star on Scout. But if Rivals is your favorite service, or you just don't like a composite like 247 which looked at a bunch of rating services from 2004, go with it.

The actual point was apparently way over your head anyway.

I believe Scout actually changed his rating retroactively. It was a big deal when that happened.

I understand your point that Sanders signed a 5 star at an HBCU. I don't attach as much significance to that as you do. I do not want Sanders as the coach for GT for several reasons.

A VERY large point about recruiting rankings seems to be flying over your head. You can't even realize that a website that releases rankings AFTER the players have already failed or made their way into the NFL isn't extremely trustworthy. When their "corrections" are claimed to be legitimate because they average across other rankings, it falls apart when they purchased one of the rankings that they "average", and that happens to be the one that retroactively changed the rating of a player who far exceeded his original ratings.

Recruiting athletes matters. What some third party says on a website that is put together with the intent of drawing traffic to sell adds and memberships does not matter.

 

[CEB]

Recruiting is not a guarantee of success. No one said that. But it is literally the best predictor of success. But if you want to find us the next unicorn offensive guru that no one knows about yet, I'm with you. Who's the next Heupel/Kiffin?

"Literally" not true. Its an easy, lazy metric fans point to. Good programs do recruit well - that sample set proves little to nothing. Some bad programs recruit well. Some good programs recruit poorly.

I don't give a **** about an offensive guru and there are no unicorns. The ONLY thing I am saying is that we won't recruit ourselves into success at GT.

I want a coach, first and foremost, who builds something real. Recruiting will improve if there is something to believe in and build on. It's funny that some won't even consider what a coach has done at G5 level as evidence of anything, but what an 18 year old did in high school will determine the direction of our program? Not buying.