Concentration of talent versus 90's

[cuseinchina]

Question for people who have enough history and expertise to know what they are talking about on this...is talent significantly more concentrated in the top programs than it was during our last period of great success in the mid to late 90's? The SEC is obviously the strongest conference today, though last night and hopefully the NC game will take them down a notch - but much of that seems to be cyclical. So ignoring conference affiliation is their a higher degree of talent concentration today - meaning are the best teams substantially more talent rich than they were 15 years ago?

Just thinking anecdotally about our late 90's teams and looking at highlights of some of the games, they were seemingly bigger/faster/more athletic than what we have now - but not by a large margin. The big difference is we tended to have 3 or4 big time players. I don't know how good the recruiting rankings were then and I know people find them to be suspect, but I recall looking back those classes were filled with 2 and 3 star recruits with a few four stars scattered in. Maybe there is 'grade inflation' and those 2's would be 3's and 3's would be 4's today, I don't know. But just overall it seems like the level we are recruiting at this year, carried forward two or three years repeatedly, would get us back to comparable talent level to what we saw in the 90's. I guess my question is - what will that translate into in today's game? Is that good enough to get us back to being a team that is regularly in the bottom end of the top 25 that can compete with all but the very top programs year in and year out? Or is talent so concentrated that getting back to where we were isn't good enough? I love the direction we are going in with the current staff and the uptick in recruiting - I am just wondering if getting back to where we were will be good enough or if we'll have to take it a step further. Thoughts?

 

[anomander]

We will need to step up recruiting pretty significantly to match the talent level we had in the early 90's. We really aren't anywhere close to that level.

 

[Van111]

Talent has always been skewed to the top tier teams. I feel it is worse today because of video and more active individual show caseing ones skills. Still, as always, doesn't compute to winning NC. Bama may be the one exception, but it is cyclic. Teams win NC, regardless off talent level, but as we look back, it does appear unlikely that outside maybe a dozen or so teams, that a NC is just plain unrealistic. Even should SU or middle of the pack BCS team run the table, they would most likely need lots of luck and chips to fall in place to get a shot at the NC game, even with this 4 team playoff. Its better than it was but we'll have to see if a 1 loss Bama gets the seat over an undefeated lower tier BCS squad. For us its simple, keep improving on recruiting, and keep the coaches in place and happy as long as possible.

 

[cuseinchina]

We will need to step up recruiting pretty significantly to match the talent level we had in the early 90's. We really aren't anywhere close to that level.

Were the star rankings of our recruits in the 90's that different from the level we are recruiting at for 2014? You can see back to 2002 on the two major service websites, things had fallen off a bit then but not so much yet I would think, and that class looks an awful lot like the class we have coming in this year in terms of star ratings (again acknowledging that those ratings are flawed they do have some meaning). I guess my question is - is getting back to that level of recruit we had in the late 90's good enough to get us back to the same level of outcome in terms of wins and losses, level of competitiveness, and reputation - if in fact talent is more concentrated today then it was then.

none of it matters, we just need to keep getting better and it looks like that is happening this year. Just wondering what quality level in terms of recruits will get us back to where we were.

 

[cuseinchina]

Just saw that in 1993 we were tied for 10th in Super Prep magazine's rankings - which is obviously a huge step up from where we are today - were we typically in the top 25 by recruiting class ranking back then?

 

[VirginiaOrange]

Just saw that in 1993 we were tied for 10th in Super Prep magazine's rankings - which is obviously a huge step up from where we are today - were we typically in the top 25 by recruiting class ranking back then?

I seem to remember the highest ranking guys typically flamed out while less highly regarded guys went on to be solid players and pros. Not saying all the top recruits failed, but the real hyped ones like Freeney the Parade All American, disappointed.

The program turned on a bunch of lightly regarded recruits (and a couple of exceptions like Tim Green) who made themselves good players - then SU leveraged that success into bigger things.

 

[Franz69]

ESPN had the Under Armour game on yesterday. They listed the top 10 recruiting classes. 7 of the top 10 recruiting classes were in the SEC, 2 for ACC and 1 for the B1G.

 

[OrangeFoo]

I seem to remember back in the heyday of the late 90s we used to get at least one top 200 or so recruit because they used to print that in magazines or newspapers and we'd be listed with one or two of them.

 

[retro44]

much more concentrated at the top thanks to Emmert and the SEC controlling all the rules and who gets hit with sanctions

 

[anomander]

Just saw that in 1993 we were tied for 10th in Super Prep magazine's rankings - which is obviously a huge step up from where we are today - were we typically in the top 25 by recruiting class ranking back then?

that's what i was referring to. we got a lot of blue chip recruits.

 

[Sudano]

I seem to remember the highest ranking guys typically flamed out while less highly regarded guys went on to be solid players and pros. Not saying all the top recruits failed, but the real hyped ones like Freeney the Parade All American, disappointed.

The program turned on a bunch of lightly regarded recruits (and a couple of exceptions like Tim Green) who made themselves good players - then SU leveraged that success into bigger things.

Simply not true. While Freeney didn't go to the NFL he was a 3 yr contributing player to a top 15 team.
Jason Walters, Kevin Mitchell, Garland Hawkins, Donovan Darius, Rickie Simpkins, Antoine Anderson, Antwane Ponds, Kevin Abrams, Dana Cottrell were all top recruits which resulted in wins on the field.
Somehow we try to create a narrative that top players fail and underdogs prevail.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

I think the blue bloods couldn't find all of the good players back then. It was easier to find really good guys at under the radar schools that the big boys didn't know about.