How 'Should' Tech Do in Recruiting Rank - Analysis

[Animal02]

Personally, in my opinion. I think you're both right. We need both a wider net and a narrower net. I think we need to start with a very wide net. I think we have to start with a very wide nation-wide and international net. But narrow it down quickly to a select pool and recruit those candidates heavily.

Vespidae is right that recruits are geographically concentrated. But those areas are also heavily saturated with competition. We don't want to focus on those areas and find ourselves in a situation where we're always in the right place, but Clemson, Bama and uGa were already there.

(Wide Net) We need a good number of assistants to call HS coaches in Texas, Louisiana, California, Chicago, Seattle, heck Australia... And ask about kids who have talent: "How are they academically? Smart? Hard worker? Value education? Willing to leave home? Interested in coming to the South? If the answers aren't straight "yes", cross them off the list. (HS coaches are going to talk up their kids, so we have to be savvier than that in reality.) We also need to have our network of coaches in Georgia and the Southeast.

(Narrow Net) Once we identify a manageable pool of kids that have the athletic ability and academic ability we recruit the ever loving **** out of them.

Yes, yes, and more yes......I have several times that the biggest mistake CPJ made was thinking he was going to out recruit in the south.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

@BCJacket , thank you. This is really great stuff. Best I have seen in this area and up there with a lot of the best stuff on Football Outsiders.

One question about model input. Is there a reason that you don't include the team's performance as an input to recruiting performance? I'd look at the JHowell Power Ranking averaged over several years. The idea is that players like coming to winning programs. This input may or may not help your model performance since how well a team performs affects attendance, budget, etc. Everything is cross-correlated.

Again, fabulous concepts.

 

[Techster]

I still believe that Tech needs a nationwide recruiting program. Target the private schools. Sell the uniqueness of Tech to northern kids. Their are a dozen or so private schools in the metro area that consistently place kids in D1 football. ( Did a tour a couple of weeks ago of one. I was dumbfounded by the size of their weight room). I had previously posted about years ago sitting next to a BYU recruiter on a plane in Ohio. That was his territory. Tech needs a similar plan....at least targeting the football hot spots around the country.

We already recruit nationwide. Hell, we even go to Hawaii.

IMO, CPJ's last plan is probably the best plan: Focus on target rich areas (high football talent + good schools). The theory is kids who go to good schools appreciate what GT means, and you have kids that play in a talented football region. Easier to recruit. I actually agree with that.

So instead of hitting all 50 states, you hit the big Metro Areas with good schools. That was Al Groh's model as well as we got a number of very good kids out of the DC/Baltimore area (Louis Young, Jeremiah Attaouchou, etc.)

Surprisingly, you want to know where GT has had success? IMG Academy. They are the 'Bama of HS football. IMG is literally a football/sports factory. The one thing IMG does do is emphasize academics with athletics. Kids who go there are around highly talented kids from various backgrounds...usually affluent backgrounds as it cost "normal" kids a LOT of money to train there. That rubs off on kids who grew up that didn't understand the meaning of an elite education. WE've now gotten 2 4 star kids in successive years out of there...the last one committed when we didn't even have a coach because he wanted the GT education.

https://247sports.com/college/georg...n-Felt-Comfortable-at-Georgia-Tech-125679471/

The fact that Georgia Tech does not currently have a head coach was not an issue for Briton in making his decision. “My mom and I talked it over. We both felt that the education I would get is so important that Georgia Tech was the right place for me. The other stuff will work out.”

 

[BCJacket]

I still believe that Tech needs a nationwide recruiting program. Target the private schools. Sell the uniqueness of Tech to northern kids. Their are a dozen or so private schools in the metro area that consistently place kids in D1 football. ( Did a tour a couple of weeks ago of one. I was dumbfounded by the size of their weight room). I had previously posted about years ago sitting next to a BYU recruiter on a plane in Ohio. That was his territory. Tech needs a similar plan....at least targeting the football hot spots around the country.

My perception is that GT football has a much better reputation outside Georgia than within. Folks from B1G, Big 12, Pac 12 areas, just remember seeing our good seasons. No national media talked about our off years. We're also known as a great school.

For example, I think the B1G see us the way we see a school like Northwestern. A good school that pops up in the rankings and bowl games from time to time. They see Northwestern as a B1G also ran. But if a 4* kid from Wesleyan or St. Pius got recruited to go to Northwestern; I'd think, 'oh good for him P5 football, great city, great education.'

 

[GTNavyNuke]

........ I believe the biggest thing Tech is failing to take advantage of is 'Atlanta'. We are the P5 program in Atlanta; the capital of college football. Atlanta should be a core part of our identity. Our marketing should highlight Atlanta on everything. Every single piece of clothing we sell should say 'Atlanta' somewhere. This is anecdotal, but I have a theory that a huge proportion of the folks wearing 'Georgia' gear bought it because they live in Georgia and are proud of the state, couldn't name a single uGa player. Let's sell a ton of white, gold and [sorry] blue 'Atlanta' shirts. Also, 'The Institute'. Get a bunch of shirts that look like this into local Costco's:

The Institute
Atlanta
GT​

If people buy the gear because they like it and it says 'Atlanta'. That opens the door to getting them interested in GT athletics if we deliver an interesting product.

The other thing I believe we should make part of our identity is the success of our black athletes. There was a study out a couple years back that Tech is near the top in graduating it's black athletes. Being in Atlanta, one of the 2-3 centers of black culture in America, it seems like we could market ourselves as the school for the talented, ambitious, intelligent young black athlete. Sell people on the Pat Swilling model: make your first million in the NFL and your second 10-20 in your own business... And if you don't make the NFL, make your first million with Google and then your second 10-20 in your own business.

That's not going to get the 3-and-done IMG 5*s here. But they haven't come here anyway. We need a lot more JeTs, AJ Grays, and Shamire's. I feel like, over time, we could get the black community in Atlanta to rally around our program, instead of those rednecks out east. We should market our successful young [black] men to the community. JeT, Calvin Johnson, Shaq, etc should be on billboards all across the city and beyond. There's probably tons of smart, ambitious and talented black student athletes across the country that would love to come be a P5 football star in Atlanta. I'd like an entire team of Malik Riveras. Hiring a personable black coach would really help this. It's one thing I like about Tony Elliot.

I'd also like to see Roddy Jones as the 'voice of the Yellow Jackets'. He's got a great personality, he's from Dekalb county... imagine if we had him out in the community, visiting high schools, etc... pitching GT to Atlanta. (Demetra doesn't seem to bring any value to the table to me.)

I also believe our brand is better outside Georgia than within. Tech has a kind of split personality in our state. When I tell people I got my degrees from Tech, their eyes get wide and they want to know how I got in; because they wish their kids could go there. (I'm young enough for it to be relevant) When I tell people I'm a Tech football fan, they recoil like I just said "Hail Satan". But to private school kids up North, eg a 4* athlete with a high GPA, Atlanta, ACC football and a Tech degree is highly desirable. We have to expand our recruiting footprint, IMHO. But that takes money.
.........

This concept is worth it's own thread IMHO.

I agree 100% with the Atlanta part. It also appears to be one of the things CGC is going to focus on from his opening press conference.

......... And, by the way, the North won the Civil War. Get over it.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The North did win the War of Northern Aggression. The victor gets to say why and what the war was about.

 

[BCJacket]

@BCJacket One question about model input. Is there a reason that you don't include the team's performance as an input to recruiting performance? I'd look at the JHowell Power Ranking averaged over several years. The idea is that players like coming to winning programs. This input may or may not help your model performance since how well a team performs affects attendance, budget, etc. Everything is cross-correlated.

I did consider that, but I'm afraid that would get too circular. Suffice it to say, recruiting rankings and on the field results correlate very strongly.

As you say, everything is cross-related. But I think talent and winning are so interrelated as to be nearly cause and effect. My goal was to find variables that weren't directly tied to recruiting outcomes and see how they correlated. Appreciate the suggestion though, always open to more ideas on this.

Heck, you could use the prior year recruiting rank as an input... 'kids like to go where they'll be surrounded by other good players.' It would correlate very strongly. But, then you'd just be making a numerical tautology...

 

[Yaller Jacket]

I read a post the last week which said that Tech has (I think) the second highest degree of separation between the SAT scores of the general student body and the scholarship athletes. And yet we have an outstanding APR score. That tells me the tutoring team is doing one helluva job. I have read that Admissions was more lenient in the O'Leary years. With a new coach coming in, could we revisit the number of exceptions? Geof seems to be something of a salesman. Could he talk them into it? Haven't we earned some trust here?

Now realize I don't want to read one morning that the rush end I have been dreaming of has flunked out.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I did consider that, but I'm afraid that would get too circular. Suffice it to say, recruiting rankings and on the field results correlate very strongly.

As you say, everything is cross-related. But I think talent and winning are so interrelated as to be nearly cause and effect. My goal was to find variables that weren't directly tied to recruiting outcomes and see how they correlated. Appreciate the suggestion though, always open to more ideas on this.

Heck, you could use the prior year recruiting rank as an input... 'kids like to go where they'll be surrounded by other good players.' It would correlate very strongly. But, then you'd just be making a numerical tautology...

Again, great post. I understand your answer and figured as much. You are looking at performance as dependent on recruiting and not the other way around. Your thesis is "Build and they will come." There is truth to that.

There is also truth to "Win and they will come." I wish I had the image of a snake eating it's tail which is the circular cross correlated logic we are talking about.

There is a lot of "noise" in performance and recruiting correlations. Not surprisingly though, better recruiting classes go to schools with better performance. Here's something I did in 2014 based on older 2010-11 data.

 

[Jacket in Dairyland]

My perception is that GT football has a much better reputation outside Georgia than within. Folks from B1G, Big 12, Pac 12 areas, just remember seeing our good seasons. No national media talked about our off years. We're also known as a great school.

For example, I think the B1G see us the way we see a school like Northwestern. A good school that pops up in the rankings and bowl games from time to time. They see Northwestern as a B1G also ran. But if a 4* kid from Wesleyan or St. Pius got recruited to go to Northwestern; I'd think, 'oh good for him P5 football, great city, great education.'

Since I have lived about 1/2 of my life in Georgia , and 1/2 in Wisconsin, I agree with your post . The difference to me ? The " quality " of some of the fanbases. Even in Wisconsin and Illinois , Northwestern is respected as an athletic opponent and an academic institution- realizing and understanding that they are " different" than the bigger schools surrounding it.
At Tech, in Georgia , we are relentlessly put down , and ridiculed by a MUCH louder and pervasive fanbase. Not ALL UGA fans to be sure, but enough, to affect the perception of many sidewalk fans who don't have a clue otherwise.

 

[THWG16]

I don’t think we’ll ever see another top 15 class & im perfectly ok with that . I do think though that we should be consistently in top 30 & every now & then crack the top 25, but right now we’re ranked 11th in acc & that’s not gonna get it

 

[4shotB]

I did consider that, but I'm afraid that would get too circular.

oh good! that means if I am patient, your next iteration is going to show up!! An engineer with data and curiosity given a challenge....a new spreadsheet is forthcoming. In all seriousness, your work is much appreciated by us if I may be presumptuous enough to speak for the others in this thread.

 

[croberts]

Just playing devils advocate. Yes, you need good talent and whether that’s recruiting or development, you need it.

But you can spend $$$ and still get nothing. And let’s face it, we should spend less than our peers. Why? The available pool is smaller.

Assume 2500 kids entering D1 yearly. The candidate pool available to Tech is what, 10% of that based on grades? So while our peers are pursuing 2500, we are pursuing 250. Our spend per available target candidate should be higher even though total spend is less.

The goal imo is to increase the conversion rate of the candidates from Awareness to Consideration. T ch has the stats, it only takes data analysis to sort it out. Which we have in spades.

Fun discussion.

I see your logic but wonder if other schools are busy with 25 recruiting staff members focusing solely on a kids tape and we have 3 that first must determine the 10-20% that have what it takes to be successful here, we may have a problem and have had one.

Some here ignore one simple fact: GT was getting 4 star players under CPJ. We were actually getting an OK amount of them as well. They were 90% on the defensive side.

Now imagine if the offense matched the defense with signing 4 star recruits. That's going to happen because the new offense will attract the 2-4+ 4 star (possibly 5 star?!) offensive recruits that wanted nothing to do with a pure option system.

If we do that we'll fall in the top 20's-30's in recruiting rankings. That is not wishful thinking, that's just an educated extrapolation of our offensive recruiting mirroring our defensive recruiting.

GT just isn't set up to be a top 10 recruiting school, nor are we set up to be school that can sign a 2007 class every year. But we can consistently sign top 20 to top 30 classes. IMO, recruiting classes in the 30's should be our floor. Once every 3-5 years maybe everything works out and we have another 2007 class.

The fun part is now we have a coach that thinks in the same vein, and sounds like he doesn't want to hear excuses. He wants results.

Time will tell if "GT historical patterns" that some like to box us in hold true, or if it was just a confluence of years where recruiting was just not good.

Certainly a lot of what you are saying fits the talking points of many about PJs offense. I will throw out the counter that with a much larger budget that we could have found many more Shaq Masons at 2-3 star that others didnt want because the were not 6'4" and 4 star qbs that were told they were a defensive back at the next level. In my mind Our offense played like they were 4 star players except when they were over powered by teams that were in the top 10 defensively. Top 10 defensive units generally over matched any offense. Your statement about a top 30 recruiting class sounds wonderful but our finances put us 5th from the bottom in all of power 5 football and every team spending more also think they should be in the top 30. Im not picking on you but just pointing out the other side. On the bright side: We have seen a shocking transformation in recruiting performance here on the flats before. It just wasnt in this sport. Bobby Cremins came on campus and with out a budget hitch hiked across the country to find Joseph, John Sally, Mark Price and history was made. . By the way, there was talk of him loosing his job over spending money that wasnt there. As you say, time will tell.

 

[Techster]

Certainly a lot of what you are saying fits the talking points of many about PJs offense. I will throw out the counter that with a much larger budget that we could have found many more Shaq Masons at 2-3 star that others didnt want because the were not 6'4" and 4 star qbs that were told they were a defensive back at the next level. In my mind Our offense played like they were 4 star players except when they were over powered by teams that were in the top 10 defensively. Top 10 defensive units generally over matched any offense. Your statement about a top 30 recruiting class sounds wonderful but our finances put us 5th from the bottom in all of power 5 football and every team spending more also think they should be in the top 30. Im not picking on you but just pointing out the other side. On the bright side: We have seen a shocking transformation in recruiting performance here on the flats before. It just wasnt in this sport. Bobby Cremins came on campus and with out a budget hitch hiked across the country to find Joseph, John Sally, Mark Price and history was made. . By the way, there was talk of him loosing his job over spending money that wasnt there. As you say, time will tell.

I get what you're saying, but again, let's drill down and not talk generalities in terms of what we THINK we need to spend and what is really happening.

Let's take 2018 recruiting class rankings and GT for instance.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/

The 30th ranked team was Louisville. They signed a combined 4 4star recruits, and 23 total recruits.

GT had the 54th ranked class. We signed a combined 2 4 star guys (in an odd year, one of them was a 4 star offensive player...JG), and a 21 total recruits.

If you follow my logic that if GT can sign 2-4 defensive 4 stars per year, we should be able to match it on the offensive side...hence recruiting classes in the 30's.

The fact is, and CGC touched on it, GT has advantages most schools do not. We have an elite education, we are located in an opportunity rich/world class city, and we can offer anything any of P5 school can. GT just didn't take advantage of it, or we had a system that turned off recruits. Now whether or not CGC is the right coach to take advantage of it, we're going to find out real soon.

Recruiting in the 30's should not be that hard. It's hard if one side of the ball is system kids want nothing to do with...but that impediment will change going forward.

 

[takethepoints]

The North did win the War of Northern Aggression. The victor gets to say why and what the war was about.

Yes, especially when the losers were, you know, traitors.

 

[Vespidae]

Yes, especially when the losers were, you know, traitors.

Not even close to historically accurate. You can’t be treasonous when you’ve seceded. For another thread ...

 

[4shotB]

. For another thread ...

yes please...and hopefully on another board as well.

 

[croberts]

I get what you're saying, but again, let's drill down and not talk generalities in terms of what we THINK we need to spend and what is really happening.

Let's take 2018 recruiting class rankings and GT for instance.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/

The 30th ranked team was Louisville. They signed a combined 4 4star recruits, and 23 total recruits.

GT had the 54th ranked class. We signed a combined 2 4 star guys (in an odd year, one of them was a 4 star offensive player...JG), and a 21 total recruits.

If you follow my logic that if GT can sign 2-4 defensive 4 stars per year, we should be able to match it on the offensive side...hence recruiting classes in the 30's.

The fact is, and CGC touched on it, GT has advantages most schools do not. We have an elite education, we are located in an opportunity rich/world class city, and we can offer anything any of P5 school can. GT just didn't take advantage of it, or we had a system that turned off recruits. Now whether or not CGC is the right coach to take advantage of it, we're going to find out real soon.

Recruiting in the 30's should not be that hard. It's hard if one side of the ball is system kids want nothing to do with...but that impediment will change going forward.

I think you are spot on in what can happen. But will that make a upward movement in game performance? I have just a few concerns about the goal . My goal is about winning ball games (I know yours is as well) and not winning magical recruiting championships. I believe that Paul could compete with anyone if his recruiting classes were in the top 25. He couldnt get to that point and maybe it was about his offense (most on here think so) or maybe as much about budget as his offense (I think so). If you take his offensive recruiting ranking I would suggest that it would fall in the 60+ range but performed around 20th or better. In my thinking, it will take a serious bump in recruiting to translate to a top 20 offense in a pro-set. Here is praying that our Young Mr. Collins finds a very young and very large (fat) man that looks and performs much like the one Coach G.O. did. Then both camps will be very happy.

 

[takethepoints]

I get what you're saying, but again, let's drill down and not talk generalities in terms of what we THINK we need to spend and what is really happening.

Let's take 2018 recruiting class rankings and GT for instance.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/

The 30th ranked team was Louisville. They signed a combined 4 4star recruits, and 23 total recruits.

GT had the 54th ranked class. We signed a combined 2 4 star guys (in an odd year, one of them was a 4 star offensive player...JG), and a 21 total recruits.

If you follow my logic that if GT can sign 2-4 defensive 4 stars per year, we should be able to match it on the offensive side...hence recruiting classes in the 30's.

The fact is, and CGC touched on it, GT has advantages most schools do not. We have an elite education, we are located in an opportunity rich/world class city, and we can offer anything any of P5 school can. GT just didn't take advantage of it, or we had a system that turned off recruits. Now whether or not CGC is the right coach to take advantage of it, we're going to find out real soon.

Recruiting in the 30's should not be that hard. It's hard if one side of the ball is system kids want nothing to do with...but that impediment will change going forward.

I agree with the analysis and I think we can do it. Iff the supposed pool of 4* and 5* offensive recruits that didn't commit to Tech if the last 11 years because of Paul's offensive system actually exists.

As I said in response to one of your previous posts, we are now committed to a classic natural experiment to see if that is true. Previous shifts - from Chan to Paul - don't support the assertion, but college football has changed since then and perhaps that will make a difference. One thing = we may have to wait a couple of years to see. Recruiting this year is already set. Recruiting next year will probably be unrepresentative. If you go to Vegas and win $100K, you could do a lot of different things: you could invest the money, give it to your family, gloat over it like Mr. Burns, or blow it at the track. One thing is certain, however: your behavior for this year will change and won't be representative of how you will behave in the future. How Coach does next year in recruiting will still be influenced by the shock of the change and wii almost certainly not be indicative of future trends. We'll just have to wait to get a reading on what's happening.

I'm not so much preaching to you here as to the legion of fans out there who will go ape if we have a good recruiting year in 2020. I hope that happens and that it holds up, but that will depend on long run trends and whether a change in offensive system will lead to a "regime shift" in our recruiting, As this thread has shown, recruiting success seems to depend on resource commitments more then anything else. If we see a sea change in that then the causal picture sketched above becomes confounded and a more complex analysis will be needed to parse out what is going on.

 

[takethepoints]

I did consider that, but I'm afraid that would get too circular. Suffice it to say, recruiting rankings and on the field results correlate very strongly.

As you say, everything is cross-related. But I think talent and winning are so interrelated as to be nearly cause and effect. My goal was to find variables that weren't directly tied to recruiting outcomes and see how they correlated. Appreciate the suggestion though, always open to more ideas on this.

Heck, you could use the prior year recruiting rank as an input... 'kids like to go where they'll be surrounded by other good players.' It would correlate very strongly. But, then you'd just be making a numerical tautology...

Not necessarily. One of the problems with the analysis as presently done is that it does not account for relationships between the indicators and, as a consequence, doesn't allow for the kind of controls needed to allow for this kind of analysis. That's why I suggested an index approach before. Let's suppose that you did that. Then the model would be simple:

Recruiting rankings(time t) = a + b1 (Index) + b2 (Recruiting rankings(time t - 1) + e

Using your indicators individually would lead to:

Recruiting rankings(time t) = a + b1 (Vector of indicators) + b2 (Recruiting rankings(time t - 1) + e

Both models are examples of static score panel models. The lagged recruiting rankings control the readings for the indicators so that the influence of recruiting in the past is parsed out. The influence of the indicators on each other is also controlled. Then you can be assured (sorta) that the overall effect of each indicator in correctly specified and that the predicted scores of recruiting rankings would be less vulnerable to attack.

Now, would all this rigamarole lead to different results? Maybe, maybe not. My guess = the same conclusion - that resources committed are the main influence - would be found. What it would do is make the real relationship clearer.

Alert: I had my right knee replaced last Friday and there is no way in Hell I'm going to do this. Right now, I'm going to take some more dope and do my exercises. if any of you hear someone growling and groaning loudly, that would be me.

 

[takethepoints]

Again, great post. I understand your answer and figured as much. You are looking at performance as dependent on recruiting and not the other way around. Your thesis is "Build and they will come." There is truth to that.

There is also truth to "Win and they will come." I wish I had the image of a snake eating it's tail which is the circular cross correlated logic we are talking about.

There is a lot of "noise" in performance and recruiting correlations. Not surprisingly though, better recruiting classes go to schools with better performance. Here's something I did in 2014 based on older 2010-11 data.

Thanks for re-posting this. My main take = the low amount of explained variance in the relationship. if the "recruiting uber allles" crowd around here was right, you'd expect a much stronger reading. There's obviously a lot more to it, as BC has shown pretty conclusively in this thread.

I suggest to the mods that this thread be moved where it can be referenced easily for on-going contributions. It's a sterling example of what the Tech fanbase is capable of. It also supports our AD's truly necessary agenda for increasing the program's resources.