Making 3 Star Recruits into 5 Star Athletes

[ATL1]

GT football has to start showing that it can consistently put kids in the league.

 

[iceeater1969]

It's hard to get athletes identified , recruited, and into ga tech.
I think we all agree with that.

The debate has focused on recruit in area only ( per Todd Spencer) or go to large cities with good schools and football.

I think that debate misses the point of the importance of retention.
For 40 years I ran a largepilelinec enineering company. Get new clients and staff is critical, but having an environment that keeps them is easy more important. Getting new work or new engineers is not possible if u are getting fired by clients or engineers are quitting.
Word spreads fast.
Gactech has moved to stop the academics causing us to loose athletes (83 % gsr!! - note NW & ND are near 100%)

When we recruit a kid like Mills and he leaves due to off field issues it kills the recruiting for NON perfect family kids.

The blame the kid engineers are not invited to the sales presentation or the recruiting trips. At least we have fixed the marijuana policy are he was booted.


I hope we can FINISH STRONG = keep the attrition to a minimum, expand recruiting area , and get a couple of Calvin's ON DEFENSE. The o will take care of the rest

 

[first&ten]

Lots of good thinking & input going on here. Going to take awhile and money to make it work. Still, the main problem as I see it, recruits still must decide if they want to play in PJ's offense.

 

[ATL1]

Lots of good thinking & input going on here. Going to take awhile and money to make it work. Still, the main problem as I see it, recruits still must decide if they want to play in PJ's offense.

Unless PJ makes some adjustments, on the money.

 

[slugboy]

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.

His staff had a lot of strong recruiters. The defensive coaches did a great job teaching fundamentals and developing players. We seemed to do much better on defense than offense


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

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.

Chan made perfect sense. Recruit speed, recruit regionally for hard to find players like defensive linemen and really emphasize player development.

 

[NorthAvenueNation]

The recruiting rating system is conjured up by football enthusiasts with opinions (and using metrics) however, isn’t that how “Pre-season” picks are made?! They don’t always go as planned. Look at Pitt and Syracuse this year. Rating a kid that’s 17-18 y/o as a “5 star recruit” to me means they have great “potential” at the next level. However, I’m also a firm believer that “potential” is an action-less word. Someone above said it best; it’s about who can coach the best fundamentals and build upon that foundation. A walk-on kicker was the hero of tonight’s game. What was his rating? Go jackets.

 

[ATL1]

The recruiting rating system is conjured up by football enthusiasts with opinions (and using metrics) however, isn’t that how “Pre-season” picks are made?! They don’t always go as planned. Look at Pitt and Syracuse this year. Rating a kid that’s 17-18 y/o as a “5 star recruit” to me means they have great “potential” at the next level. However, I’m also a firm believer that “potential” is an action-less word. Someone above said it best; it’s about who can coach the best fundamentals and build upon that foundation. A walk-on kicker was the hero of tonight’s game. What was his rating? Go jackets.

Most 5 Stars end up being pretty good and the numbers bare out.

 

[Lavoisier]

Pitt and Cuse are loaded with redshirt JR and SR starters. The rating system can't really take into account where a kid is going to be half a decade down the line. A 5 star kid is someone who is ready to contribute day 1 at the P5 level and would start at most schools. A 3 star player isn't that good when they are rated, but tons of 3 stars eventually become all-conference type guys. That is why it is important for schools that don't recruit like that to have a good S&C program, keep their kids enrolled, and build depth. To be super elite you need to recruit at a level so that when a guy graduates/goes pro you have a 5star player to plug in.

 

[Frenchise]

Big thing is that you don't just want to put on a ton of muscle and lose speed. I think Vic may have lost a step and added 10-15 pounds of muscle.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

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.

I agree completely. With respect to deficit of resources, it’s the human kind that matter most.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Most 5 Stars end up being pretty good and the numbers bare out.

That’s like saying a Ferrari ends up being pretty fast when all you got money for is a Toyota. No point in stating the obvious when it’s unattainable. There are other ways to go fast, ways that we can achieve.

 

[croberts]

Best option is to find a 5 star that is rated as a 3 star! Like our kick returner.

 

[ATL1]

That’s like saying a Ferrari ends up being pretty fast when all you got money for is a Toyota. No point in stating the obvious when it’s unattainable. There are other ways to go fast, ways that we can achieve.

Maybe you missed the context of that reply.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Northwestern is using analytics with recruiting.

https://www.northwestern.edu/innovation/our-impact/ben-weiss.html

And pumped in $270 million into a facility.
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2018/...ability-to-attract-recruits-is-up-for-debate/

The fact that we’re not THE LEADER in analytics with the #1 IE program in the nation and probably Top 5 in every other Engineering discipline is a telling sign of The Hill’s lack of commitment to athletics. Read Bud Peterson’s comments about athletics in his latest newsletter or not because he talked about virtually everything else about the Institute and completely disregarded athletes. Stansbury is not fighting an uphill battle. He’s climbing a cliff.

 

[ATL1]

The fact that we’re not THE LEADER in analytics with the #1 IE program in the nation and probably Top 5 in every other Engineering discipline is a telling sign of The Hill’s lack of commitment to athletics. Read Bud Peterson’s comments about athletics in his latest newsletter or not because he talked about virtually everything else about the Institute and completely disregarded athletes. Stansbury is not fighting an uphill battle. He’s climbing a cliff.

Well the AD also has to take initiative to foster the relationship. I’m sure the students would love to build a program for the department.

Idk with all the Biotech & robotics programs GT has I would expect a lot more innovation. GT athletes should look like autobots. But.....

 

[Jim Prather]

You know, there is one think I have always wondered... with all the linemen wearing knee braces these days, why don't we spring load the joints? not much... just enough to make the linemen feel like they are 10-15 Lbs lighter. Imagine a 300 Lb lineman moving like one 285...

 

[Lavoisier]

Big thing is that you don't just want to put on a ton of muscle and lose speed. I think Vic may have lost a step and added 10-15 pounds of muscle.

That's why you need a really good S&C program. Anyone can put on mass, but then you are back in the 1980s where every player looked like bodybuilders. Strength, size, speed, and health are all important. ND basically changed overnight on the health and strength front when they hired a new guy two years ago.

 

[steebu]

You know, there is one think I have always wondered... with all the linemen wearing knee braces these days, why don't we spring load the joints? not much... just enough to make the linemen feel like they are 10-15 Lbs lighter. Imagine a 300 Lb lineman moving like one 285...

Because it's most likely illegal or would violate NCAA competition rules. There are lots of innovations done to athletic gear that cannot be legally used in competition - like the bodysuit that Michael Phelps and other swimmers wore to shatter world records.

 

[steebu]

If I recall correctly, Shaq Mason was a 2 star, and posters on various Tech sites were asking why we wasted a scholarship on him. I believe PJ answered that he cleaned everybody's clock during one of our HS player camps.

This was a bit of a unique situation - Shaq camped at GT, got an offer, accepted it, and shut down his recruitment. Other teams asked him to come to their camps and offered visits but he declined, so he remained a 2* because there just wasn't much to evaluate other than high school film. And he was from a small town so watching him destroy some 5'10" 215 pound DT wasn't exactly mind-blowing.

I am pretty sure that if he camped more he would've popped up to a high 4* or possibly even a 5* ranking. Imagine if he got offers from Florida, Tennessee, FSU, Alabama, Auburn ... there's no way he would have remained a 2*.

Our coaches have been doing this for a long time ... we should probably trust their judgment on talent. Most of the time, anyway.