I do agree that it's good for us to do something different than the competition, but recruiting does suffer somewhat. It's a trade-off, and one that I think works in our favor. Somewhat.
I don't agree that the star ratings are purely a product of who wants who. There's some fan base bias, but if that was the predominant factor there wouldn't be the strong correlation between top-ten teams and top-ten recruiting. You'll find exceptions, but in general the correlation is strong.
My point wasn't that recruiting rankings are totally inaccurate, or just based on fan base perception. Like I said, they wind up being a
proxy for identifying talent (in hindsight). But they are an effect, not a cause. Alabama isn't offering kids because they are 5-stars. They're offering them because their scouts have identified that kid as a top tier talent for their system. The ranking services are giving the kid a star rating based on the consensus of the top programs of a kids value. The top programs are getting top tier athletes because they are top programs. Those kids are rated "5*'s" because the top programs highly desire them.
So, yes, there is a direct correlation between top programs, top talent, recruiting rankings and success. But the ratings are more an evaluation of the schools, not the individual players.
My point was in questioning how
Tech should measure recruiting success. Looking at star ratings alone, we're not considering how our staff evaluates a player as a fit for our system. Especially on offense. We're using a proxy score that's designed for NFL-style systems.
There is absolutely overlap. Give us Alabama's O-Line and our offense would be unstoppable. Julio Jones and Calvin Johnson would be monsters in any system...
But Trevor Lawrence would be a poor fit at QB for us. If our program was strong enough to attract 'Trevor Lawrence's then we'd be best served running the system those players want to play in (ie NFL prep). But there is not a realistic scenario where in the near future we are regularly competing head-to-head with uGA, Bama, Clemson, etc for top recruits.
Bottom line, we recruit a lot of guys who are 'athletes' and 'tweeners'. Searcy was rated as a low 3* CB, because that was his 'best fit' for the prevailing system. Lynch was a 2* WR. If the prevailing system were the Flexbone, those guys would have been high 3 or 4* A-back prospects. JeT and James Graham were both 3-4*s as defense-prospect athletes (even though they played quarterback, they weren't a 'fit' for QB at the next level. IIRC JeT was not a 4* 'DB' until Bama offered. Graham was unranked until he committed to VT.) They're 5* material for Tech at QB.
I'm not saying we're a stealth top-15 recruiting powerhouse. But our offensive results have consistently outperformed our "ranking". To get back to my original question "how should we evaluate recruiting success?" I think we have to look at whether we're getting the guys our coaches want, not if we're getting the guys other coaches want. How are we performing with the kids we get, doing what we're trying to do? (Which has been pretty good on offense most years.)
