Making 3 Star Recruits into 5 Star Athletes

Heisman's Ghost

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,945
Location
Albany Georgia
Having an eye for talent is way more important than recruiting stars, or stars ratings if you will. Character, intelligence and work ethic matters more than you may think.

Strength is important but over-rated in a way. Being really strong will not make you great athlete. However, great athletes can benefit immensely from increasing strength.

Recruiting 5 stars may be safer than not, but it still isn't that safe. Programs like Bama make more hay by running off their failed 5 star recruits and recycling them, than they do signing them, if that makes sense.

I am not the least bit concerned with signing higher "rated" classes. What I AM concerned about is getting more of the players that our staff has targeted as good fits for us and expanding the geographical area we cover in search of the right kids. There are a ton of really really good athletes out there, many of them under-rated or under appreciated. Chan was good at spotting them. Many kids with a ton of potential are simply not rated highly because they haven't matured as quickly as others, have been injured, or simply didn't live or play in a high profile area or system. Having a more robust and expansive recruiting machine can help find those type of kids.

We just saw Calvin Johnson on the sideline being interviewed and getting recognized recently. Think back to his recruitment and star rating. In my recollection, he was a 4 star. Four!!!! When you think about what has happened with him in terms of his college and pro career and then think about his physical abilities compared to the rest of the CFB (or pro) WR landscape, how could any single WR prospect have been rated ahead of him? Honestly!! Yet he was a four star. GT gets four stars now and again. What set Calvin apart was work ethic, core values, and character IN COMBINATION WITH great physical abilities. Maybe he wasn't as highly rated because of where he played or how mature he was at the time. Whatever. He is just one example. Can we please stop hyperventilating about class rank as a measure of recruiting success and start focusing on the right things?

There was a defensive player that played during Chan's time who was a defensive end I think. That guy looked like he trained on twinkies but Lord have mercy when that ball was snapped he was moving like a runaway freight train. May have been Gary Guyton or that guy from Louisiana. (Henderson?) He didn't really look like a football player with bulging muscles or anything but man he made plays all the time. Anyone remember who I am thinking about?
 

GTonTop88

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,013
Location
Gibson, GA
Phil wheeler. Mike cox. Adamm oliver. Vance walker. Gary guyton. Chris reis. Dawan landry. Andrew gardner. Wrotto. List goes on and on. We have transformed alot of 2 star and low 3 star guys to nfl players in the past. Why. It was great scouting and evaluating and a solid system. Some reason what we did then worked better than now.

We have sucked to high heavens on this under paul. Very few nfl guys have developed from our avg recruiting. We have always had avg recruiting at tech. For some reason it seems top end development has really tailed off. Its alot of things that add up to this. Scouting. Development. Kids in right system. S&c. Etc etc.

Not sure i have the answer. Its complicated. But its clear this has tailed off
I think a lot of that is to do with us recruiting undersized guys that can play vs nfl sized guys who don’t show up on tape. We’ve had better results with less stars under CPJ. The NFL looks more at a guy’s ceiling than his floor. A 5’10” 220 LB that runs a 4.7 can have 1000 tackles and be a nightmare in college will go undrafted but a 6’5” 250 LB who never starts a game could run a 4.4 and get drafted just because he has the height, weight, speed.
 

Boomergump

Helluva Engineer
Featured Member
Messages
3,284
It is hard to believe that Phillip Wheeler and Dawan Landry were three star players out of high school. They looked to be a tad better than that. I kind of question Wrotto as well but that was an era at the beginning of the whole recruiting saga that came of age in the late 1990s. One thing is for sure all of those players improved markedly from when they were freshmen. All of them became very good players for us especially the linebackers and defensive backs.
Phillip Wheeler is a perfect example of a kid who simply matured later than other 4 star type of recruits. He had obvious gifts of cat like agility and balance, while simply not as physical as some of his peers in the beginning. I see Charlie Thomas as a very similar player at this point. When he matures physically, we are really going to have something. In an ideal world, he would be wearing a shirt this year.
 

33jacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,698
Location
Georgia
It is hard to believe that Phillip Wheeler and Dawan Landry were three star players out of high school. They looked to be a tad better than that. I kind of question Wrotto as well but that was an era at the beginning of the whole recruiting saga that came of age in the late 1990s. One thing is for sure all of those players improved markedly from when they were freshmen. All of them became very good players for us especially the linebackers and defensive backs.

Wheeler was 2 star by many places. Same with guyton.

Both were well scouted and developed and grew in the system.
 
Last edited:

33jacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,698
Location
Georgia
I think a lot of that is to do with us recruiting undersized guys that can play vs nfl sized guys who don’t show up on tape. We’ve had better results with less stars under CPJ. The NFL looks more at a guy’s ceiling than his floor. A 5’10” 220 LB that runs a 4.7 can have 1000 tackles and be a nightmare in college will go undrafted but a 6’5” 250 LB who never starts a game could run a 4.4 and get drafted just because he has the height, weight, speed.

True on O. But most guys i listed there are on D and none were big recruits.

Chans D was always upper 1/3. And a good system. Good coaches. Developed talent. Now. Chans O sucked. But i am talking d because pauls O system doesnt need the same as you state.

Under paul have always been lower 1/2 or 1/3. Bad coaches. Bad systems. And actually by stars have outrecruited chan on D; yet dont seem to develop well. But we have had many kids make the nfl on abysmal Ds. The 2014 D had 4-5 nfl players starting, only 1 or 2 was drafted due to college tape. But the talent was there. So thats system. Coaching. Development. The 2014 was damn near dead last in ncaa in some stats.

Its a big equation. Scouting. System. Development. The right fit. Its all part of the issue now.
 

Boomergump

Helluva Engineer
Featured Member
Messages
3,284
When recruiting, or more specifically evaluating talent, the one thing you can count on is that you can't fake speed. When you have it, you have it, and your ceiling gets raised because of it. If you play defense it shrinks the size of the field and the windows of operational space for the opposition and if you play offense it does the opposite. An athlete's strength, flexibility, size, knowledge, feel for the game, leadership, technique, and work ethic are all way more variable and able to be improved upon over time. Speed is really not the same way. Through excellent training involving technique and conditioning a player might be able to go from a 4.6 to a 4.5, but that is about it. There might be a few counter examples of a kid who was extremely immature physically at the time of his recruitment, but generally speaking, by the time you are 18, we know if you are fast or not.

IMHO, we can handle project recruits and establish a 5 year system of player development involving a high percentage of red shirts in order to field a two deep roster of upperclassmen that plays at the highest levels, but we have to find SPEED, CHARACTER, and ACADEMICs to supply that model and survive. To do so will require a massive expansion of our capacity in recruiting efforts, both in a geographic sense and a player analysis sense. We need teams of people who are trained and know what the coaches are looking for, right down to the smallest details, including both on the field and off the field stuff. This science is not exact, but if you have the capacity to give it due diligence, the payoffs could be huge. Of course, it is going to take money and lots of it.

Trying to compete with Clemmons and their fairy tale, amusement park facilities is not the answer for us IMHO. If kids take too much pleasure in those things they will flunk out of school. Better facilities should be sought after, but only after we completely restructure our efforts in the search process model. This is what we need to be selling to the big donors.
 

Truth

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
32
When recruiting, or more specifically evaluating talent, the one thing you can count on is that you can't fake speed. When you have it, you have it, and your ceiling gets raised because of it. If you play defense it shrinks the size of the field and the windows of operational space for the opposition and if you play offense it does the opposite. An athlete's strength, flexibility, size, knowledge, feel for the game, leadership, technique, and work ethic are all way more variable and able to be improved upon over time. Speed is really not the same way. Through excellent training involving technique and conditioning a player might be able to go from a 4.6 to a 4.5, but that is about it. There might be a few counter examples of a kid who was extremely immature physically at the time of his recruitment, but generally speaking, by the time you are 18, we know if you are fast or not.

IMHO, we can handle project recruits and establish a 5 year system of player development involving a high percentage of red shirts in order to field a two deep roster of upperclassmen that plays at the highest levels, but we have to find SPEED, CHARACTER, and ACADEMICs to supply that model and survive. To do so will require a massive expansion of our capacity in recruiting efforts, both in a geographic sense and a player analysis sense. We need teams of people who are trained and know what the coaches are looking for, right down to the smallest details, including both on the field and off the field stuff. This science is not exact, but if you have the capacity to give it due diligence, the payoffs could be huge. Of course, it is going to take money and lots of it.

Trying to compete with Clemmons and their fairy tale, amusement park facilities is not the answer for us IMHO. If kids take too much pleasure in those things they will flunk out of school. Better facilities should be sought after, but only after we completely restructure our efforts in the search process model. This is what we need to be selling to the big donors.
Of course, Stansbury says his plan is addressing all of that.
 

Truth

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
32
I wonder if you even think through your post before you type it?

If you were to ask the question of what coach could do better to Clemson fans in 08, and received a response of Dabo Swinney you and everyone else would have laughed.

This same question was posed when Gailey was on the hot seat as well. It’s just a silly argument.
Do you read before you react? I did not comment on hiring either of those two- but rather a coach (maybe hiding somewhere) with that skillset would still be at a disadvantage with poor facilities.
You seem to believe anyone but CPJ will lead us to the promised land. Thats how we got B*** L***s
 

LibertyTurns

Banned
Messages
6,216
@Boomergump Interesting take on getting recruitment staffs to notice the details. As volumes have gone up my company needed to ratchet up hiring. This combined with a less qualified talent pool results in more whiffs. We went back to the drawing board and identified 20-30 characteristics and changed our hiring process. Too early to tell but the infant mortality has dropped off significantly. I’m sure it’s not any different sorting thru 10,000 unrated to 3 stars. Sounds to me like a good IE project. That’s how we did ours.
 

Heisman's Ghost

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,945
Location
Albany Georgia
Wheeler was 2 star by many places. Same with guyton.

Both were well scouted and developed and grew in the system.

Amazing because let me tell you that Phillip Wheeler was one fine football player as was Gary. I was never a "fan of Chan" but his eye for talent and being able to fully develop a player's potential was unequaled.
 

Heisman's Ghost

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,945
Location
Albany Georgia
Phillip Wheeler is a perfect example of a kid who simply matured later than other 4 star type of recruits. He had obvious gifts of cat like agility and balance, while simply not as physical as some of his peers in the beginning. I see Charlie Thomas as a very similar player at this point. When he matures physically, we are really going to have something. In an ideal world, he would be wearing a shirt this year.

"Very similar to Phillip Wheeler?" Well, now we are going places. Charlie is going to be a fine football player for us.
 

Heisman's Ghost

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,945
Location
Albany Georgia
When recruiting, or more specifically evaluating talent, the one thing you can count on is that you can't fake speed. When you have it, you have it, and your ceiling gets raised because of it. If you play defense it shrinks the size of the field and the windows of operational space for the opposition and if you play offense it does the opposite. An athlete's strength, flexibility, size, knowledge, feel for the game, leadership, technique, and work ethic are all way more variable and able to be improved upon over time. Speed is really not the same way. Through excellent training involving technique and conditioning a player might be able to go from a 4.6 to a 4.5, but that is about it. There might be a few counter examples of a kid who was extremely immature physically at the time of his recruitment, but generally speaking, by the time you are 18, we know if you are fast or not.

IMHO, we can handle project recruits and establish a 5 year system of player development involving a high percentage of red shirts in order to field a two deep roster of upperclassmen that plays at the highest levels, but we have to find SPEED, CHARACTER, and ACADEMICs to supply that model and survive. To do so will require a massive expansion of our capacity in recruiting efforts, both in a geographic sense and a player analysis sense. We need teams of people who are trained and know what the coaches are looking for, right down to the smallest details, including both on the field and off the field stuff. This science is not exact, but if you have the capacity to give it due diligence, the payoffs could be huge. Of course, it is going to take money and lots of it.

Trying to compete with Clemmons and their fairy tale, amusement park facilities is not the answer for us IMHO. If kids take too much pleasure in those things they will flunk out of school. Better facilities should be sought after, but only after we completely restructure our efforts in the search process model. This is what we need to be selling to the big donors.

UPVOTE THIS A MILLION TIMES. Boomer has identified the blueprint for Tech to compete with the factories at least some of the time. The formula: Speed X Character X Physical Development + Academic preparation + Redshirting = Good football players in their physical prime who can compete successfully with the oven ready four and five stars coming out of high school. OK Boomer I got it. When is the test?
 

AlphaBuzz

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
48
UPVOTE THIS A MILLION TIMES. Boomer has identified the blueprint for Tech to compete with the factories at least some of the time. The formula: Speed X Character X Physical Development + Academic preparation + Redshirting = Good football players in their physical prime who can compete successfully with the oven ready four and five stars coming out of high school. OK Boomer I got it. When is the test?


This is not a "CCG" support post. However, I listened to him speak at the lunches in Sandy Springs a few times. He said 2 specific things about recruiting that have stuck with me. He always recruited speed first. He said you can add muscle and weight, but you can't add speed to a kid.

The second item was that he believed that defense wins championships and that he would recruit to replace the entire D every year. If there was a player who could play both sides of the ball, D got first pick.

People were upset/frustrated when Chan spread a broad net to pull in players because they saw it as abandoning the in-state stars. The reality is that he was doing an early version of what we need to do now.

Gailey was really good at identifying talent before the arms explosion that has gone on the past 10 years and was ahead of that curve. The AD's until TS didn't understand what was going on in the landscape and let CPJ down so our recruiting suffered. CPJ's offense is a talent equalizer to some extent, but you gotta have the players AND the system/coaches on D. I think we have the coach and the system we need for our D in place now; all we need now is a slight uptick in the actual players. Keep in mind that this may not be reflected in star ratings either, so let's judge by what we see on the field, not what some recruiting service says.
 
Top