Recruiting analysis

[Boaty1]

Staff is a major thing, the more staff the better recruiting gets imo. They are missing some things we have, but two of the biggest things for recruiting they are beating us in. I think the fact that they have increased in staff and the recruiting has gotten substantially better is proff of how important big staff can be.

I agree staff plays a role. I would be shocked however if when we go back to a traditional offense we don’t immediately start recruiting better than them regardless of staff.

 

[bobongo]

Staff is a major thing, the more staff the better recruiting gets imo. They are missing some things we have, but two of the biggest things for recruiting they are beating us in. I think the fact that they have increased in staff and the recruiting has gotten substantially better is proff of how important big staff can be.

There's no question we need a bigger recruiting staff. But it seems a new HC would be beneficial, too. Both are needed. Paul Johnson seems to me to be aloof and arrogant. Recruits are probably turned off by his persona. A bigger commitment to our recruiting budget will get us a better head coach down the road, whether that be this year or next.

 

[bobongo]

I agree staff plays a role. I would be shocked however if when we go back to a traditional offense we don’t immediately start recruiting better than them regardless of staff.

I think the offensive scheme matters less than Paul Johnson's personality, but that's just a guess. No one really knows for sure.

 

[Boaty1]

I think the offensive scheme matters less than Paul Johnson's personality, but that's just a guess. No one really knows for sure.

Meh. I think we’ve got a good read on his offense hurting recruiting.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Thanks for doing the work, this tells me what I really didn't want to know. We are not coaching our players up. That is a bad problem.

Not necessarily. You must factor in player retention/attrition. We’ve suffered some major losses in recent years most notably Mills.

 

[684Bee]

...is proof of how important big staff can be.

That’s what she said.

 

[tech_wreck47]

I agree staff plays a role. I would be shocked however if when we go back to a traditional offense we don’t immediately start recruiting better than them regardless of staff.

Yea, I agree with that.

 

[iceeater1969]

The system requires many reps to learn. It's not as dependent on raw athletic ability. BUT When we get out of phase in an area we have a week link in the system AND WE SPUTTER.

By out of phase I mean for example we had way too many QBs one year then 2 leave and 1 is interested. or like now offensive tackles in short supply and a huge surplus of guards ( WB moved to tackle, what about the morgans). We had 2 tackles not come back for senior red shirt and one injury that started this cycle.. it could move to the guard position.

As cheese has shown u cant plug in raw athletes and play in our system.


Solution-
Offense get players to stay 5 years. Accept more projects that work out for 3 years and play for 2.
Defense - offer 4 and 5 stars w promise of moving into rotation day one. Play very aggressive so their skill set is visible.

 

[stech81]

Not necessarily. You must factor in player retention/attrition. We’ve suffered some major losses in recent years most notably Mills.

Yes I understand that but it is part of football I know it seems to happen to us more but it does happen to others. We just lack the depth of other teams to make up for losing some of our starters.

 

[bobongo]

Meh. I think we’ve got a good read on his offense hurting recruiting.

I didn't say his offense didn't hurt recruiting. I said his personality hurts MORE than the scheme.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

I didn't say his offense didn't hurt recruiting. I said his personality hurts MORE than the scheme.

You're basing that on what you perceive about his personality from press conferences. In well-done interviews, he comes across completely differently, and I would be willing to bet when he is talking to recruits, he is all charm.

 

[ATL1]

The offense hurts recruiting. That’s not debatable to me.
The curriculum and academic work hurts recruiting too.
A bigger budget would definitely help.
A new offense would definitely help.
Loosening the academic requirements would help.
That said the first to would help the most. Strong academics could also be used as a selling point and should be a selling point.

 

[RiseUpATL]

I already did some research similar to this last week in another thread so I’ll repost it here for relevance. It sort of back up what your analysts does. Here it is:

Let’s start with recruiting, we have the following class rankings compared with Duke, Pitt, UNC, UVA and VT:

GT Duke Pitt UNC UVA VT
2003 38 86 47 18 11 27
2004 48 67 42 28 37 34
2005 70 55 46 49 17 20
2006 62 51 16 26 77 31
2007 15 77 21 10 28 26
2008 51 67 20 30 56 18
2009 41 54 43 12 33 25
2010 43 73 31 23 74 28
2011 43 63 62 18 23 35
2012 53 62 43 41 25 21
2013 70 71 32 28 29 21
2014 54 61 44 30 33 28
2015 44 52 46 28 50 29
2016 60 33 30 32 63 42
2017 48 47 37 29 58 26
2018 53 62 46 20 60 24

So over 16 years here are my observations as compared to some other "like" programs:

GT - AVG ranking of 50. About what I expected. Over the first 8 years our average ranking was 46. Over the last 8 years it's 53. If you take out the obvious outlier year of 2007, the first 8 years is 51 vs. 53 over the last 8 years. If I am to believe the ongoing thought that we have fallen further behind in recruiting staff and thus recruiting, then I look to the data and the numbers simply to do not prove that out. We have stayed almost exactly where have been over 16 years. Our worst class in recent history is 70. We also had a 70th ranked class in 2005. We have only recruiting sub 50 in 7 of the last 16 years, the two most recent classes in 2015 and 2017 which is kinda surprising given our records over those years. Further, based on the "sabatoge" and severe money slide compared to other "like" programs I would expect the average classes of the other programs analyzed to result in improved classes in recent years vs. past years. So let's look at the data. Let's start in 2009. PJ's first full recruiting class. That's 10 years. Over the first 5 years GT had an average class of 50 (again, not surprising). Over the last 5 years we have had an average class of 52. Duke had 65 vs 51; Pitt had 42 vs. 41; UNC had 24 vs 28; VT had 26 vs. 30. Some surprising results here, namely Duke. Duke has improved its recruiting by 14 spots in the last 5 years. Pitt has stayed exactly the same, similar to GT. UNC has slid 4 spots, same as VT.

Duke - pretty consistent. In the Mid-60's in terms of classes. Had some decent classes sprinkled in there, namely 2016 with a 33 rank. Duke out-recruited GT in 2005, 2006, 2016 and 2017. So Chan got out-recurited by Duke twice and PJ has been out-recruited twice.

Pitt - Very consistently in the low 40's. They had some top 25 classes in the mid to late 2000's which surprised me a bit. But over PJ's tenure very much low 40's. Hasn't changed much.

UNC - Surprising to see them ranked so highly year over year.

UVA - Probably the biggest wasters of talent of the teams listed. My god. If any fanbase has a right to be pissed off it's them. Particularly over the first half of the analysis. The second half they are around 53, same as GT essentially.

VT - Right there with UNC. Mid-20's. Sliding back a bit over the most recent years.

So, in short, I'm not sure that I'm buying the lack of recruiting staff. I don't think we have been any worse off that we have been in the last 15 years. Detractors may want us to think that, but the data doesn't bear it out. We have stayed remarkably consistent even when compared to other programs we like to think we are better than. GT has regressed a very small margin. VT and UNC have regressed by a larger margin.

GT has new locker rooms and an indoor practice facility. So, it's not like we haven't done anything. In fact, the IPF was put in under Bobinski's watch.

 

[takethepoints]

So many things wrong with this. For one, avg star rating is useless in examining classes. Most power 5 players are ranked 3 star so there is a world of difference between a high 3 star and low 3 star player.

Also, I wouldn’t say GT is similar to most of these schools in terms potential. I would say VT has the highest ceilings of these programs listed followed by GT and Pitt. Rice shouldn’t be in the conversation and Purdue has 3 starters on their offense alone from Ga. no way they are in a better position than we are.

You need to read the analysis again. I never said that star rankings are valid; I said they were the best I could do and much better then the overall ranking (sorry, RiseUp; I suppose we disagree) when comparing over years. I never said that Purdue and Rice were "in a better position then we are"; what I said is that they are like Tech in that they are like us in terms of image and curriculum.

Oth, I also pointed out that VT wasn't actually directly comparable. I put them in there because they are a tech school. I agree they have the highest ceiling, with Pitt and Tech close behind.

As I bet you do, I wish the stat resources were up to a real analysis on this. Why they aren't is a question. I think there isn't much incentive for the people who do this as a business to do much more. It may need a Bill James to come up with the insight to do it.

Update: Purdue 48, OSU 20 with 2:30 to go! BOILER UP! HAMMER DOWN!

 

[RiseUpATL]

OSU losing is not great. Now we get to hear all week how this opens the door for 2 SEC teams in the CFB playoff.

 

[RiseUpATL]

You need to read the analysis again. I never said that star rankings are valid; I said they were the best I could do and much better then the overall ranking (sorry, RiseUp; I suppose we disagree) when comparing over years. I never said that Purdue and Rice were "in a better position then we are"; what I said is that they are like Tech in that they are like us in terms of image and curriculum.

Oth, I also pointed out that VT wasn't actually directly comparable. I put them in there because they are a tech school. I agree they have the highest ceiling, with Pitt and Tech close behind.

As I bet you do, I wish the stat resources were up to a real analysis on this. Why they aren't is a question. I think there isn't much incentive for the people who do this as a business to do much more. It may need a Bill James to come up with the insight to do it.

Update: Purdue 48, OSU 20 with 2:30 to go! BOILER UP! HAMMER DOWN!

Agree stars aren’t the best but it’s all we have. And it’s at least apples to apples. And those apples say GT isn’t any worse off now compared to other programs in our division over 15 years of recruiting data.

 

[Boaty1]

You're basing that on what you perceive about his personality from press conferences. In well-done interviews, he comes across completely differently, and I would be willing to bet when he is talking to recruits, he is all charm.

Lol. I don’t think he is capable of being a Dabo lik

You need to read the analysis again. I never said that star rankings are valid; I said they were the best I could do and much better then the overall ranking (sorry, RiseUp; I suppose we disagree) when comparing over years. I never said that Purdue and Rice were "in a better position then we are"; what I said is that they are like Tech in that they are like us in terms of image and curriculum.

Oth, I also pointed out that VT wasn't actually directly comparable. I put them in there because they are a tech school. I agree they have the highest ceiling, with Pitt and Tech close behind.

As I bet you do, I wish the stat resources were up to a real analysis on this. Why they aren't is a question. I think there isn't much incentive for the people who do this as a business to do much more. It may need a Bill James to come up with the insight to do it.

Update: Purdue 48, OSU 20 with 2:30 to go! BOILER UP! HAMMER DOWN!

I hear you. Thanks for the work.

 

[iceeater1969]

High level conclusion / observation

So the teams we are very close to in star level are wasting money on un needed recruiting resources?

Does this point to us needing a big increase in recruiting ?

 

[MWBATL]

GT still has more resources than Duke. Not even close.

????

What do you mean? Everything I have seen shows Duke spending more $ on football than GT

 

[bobongo]

You're basing that on what you perceive about his personality from press conferences. In well-done interviews, he comes across completely differently, and I would be willing to bet when he is talking to recruits, he is all charm.

Probably so, but they will look at his actions in other settings, too, like the way he yells angrily at an erring player coming off the field. Many other coaches (like Dabo, for instance) will encourage a player who is doing his best but has made a mistake. Or the way he will angrily complain to anyone in earshot about a bad play, standing there with his hands crossed. Most recruits know who they would rather play for, and it will most often not be Paul Johnson. His haughty countenance is wearing thin.