Agreed. Its because this staff has a great eye for players that fit our system and most importantly can be molded by the best S&C staff we have ever had. Wish Boller would come back.
aint enough money for that kind of work by the services
Staff has said they've been bringing in higher rated recruits, per their evaluation, a few times.(despite what the services say) Also, a higher level of raw athleticism, that coach E gets to work on. We're lucky to have the evaluators, and S n C staff we do.
Boller had a great eye. Nice parting gift with the best kicker in the country. Dave is the one I overheard talking about the actual scout services colleges use. Talked with him about his time with Tampa Bay. My favorite offensive player, at that time was Mike Alstott. Dave was responsible for TB taking a fullback at #35. Fullbacks don't go that high. When he saw talent, he knew it, and I'm guessing he didn't care about what outsiders thought. Was really hoping they could find a spot for him. He's a big loss.
Agree. This class looks similar to last class (at best) at this time. 2nd-lowest ranking per recruit in the P5 and lowest in the ACC.
OK -- so I quoted a ton of messages here but I think college football recruiting is one of the most misunderstood topics on this board and, presumably, on any board outside of maybe Alabama and a few of the bluebloods.
The star system essentially works in basketball but is essentially trash in college football, which seems ridiculous to say until you think about it. In basketball, most teams are bringing in 2-4 recruits and those recruits that end up at P5 and higher end programs are not only smaller in number (let's say 250-300) kids but for the most part they are already aggregated. They all play for the same AAU teams (for the most part) which not only puts them all in the same place on many weekends throughout the year, but also puts them head-to-head against similar competition.
For football, you have camps but that's about it. Otherwise there are thousands of kids to rank each year and for many of those kids they are spread far and wide across the U.S. What that creates is a simple reality: That is to say there are way too many variables at play to accurately figure out if the 3-star running back from Massachusetts is a better recruit than the 3-star linebacker from Nevada. It's why a kid like Derrell Smith or Jay Bromley can be added late, with little fanfare to a class and have no recruiting pedigree, but turn out to be a great player.
To illustrate the point, here are a couple things that I think make it really hard to actually assess how a class is doing:
1. No one knows 100% where a kid will ultimately end up or how hard a kid will work the next four or five years. In hoops, this stuff is baked in. But in football a kid may be a borderline DB recruit but turn into a great linebacker. Derrell Smith as a nobody RB who turned into a really good LB is a great example. And the S&C portion of this is huge b/c most kids who aren't 5 stars need to develop at the college level. There's no way for a random talent evaluator to accurately predict that for the hundreds (thousands?) of kids he sees each year.
2. How does a kid fit into a system? It's fine to rank kids but where they end up ultimately has something to do with how successful they are.
3. Syracuse never has and, unless Babers wins a ton and pulls off a complete miracle, never will land classes comprised largely of 4- and 5-star recruits. We live with 2- and 3-star recruits b/c very few schools can afford to do otherwise. We are in upstate ny, we aren't a traditional power (at least financially), facilities and game day atmosphere are ... OK, I guess, but definitely not great. Sitting here and worrying about landing let's say a handful of 4-star kids makes little sense b/c even in our glory years, it was the class as a whole that determined how we did.
4. Early commits and/or kids with other good offers are every bit as important (for us) as star rankings. If you trust the staff, which I would suggest we should (and really I'm not sure Shafer/GRob/Marrone were bad in this regard either), they know what they're looking for. If they see a kid and like him enough to offer early and then he commits -- it's probably a good sign. If a kid commits and has *fill in the blank* stars, it's probably fine if he has some other really solid offers. Sometimes kids inflate their offer lists, I think, but regardless if we accept that they are being offered at other good football programs, and they're committing to us in the summer or early fall, that's a good thing.
5. Recruiting isn't always about landing your top priority from the state's big football factory high school. That's cool but sometimes it's about turning over rocks and finding Jay Bromley or Mike Williams (preferably without the baggage) or Eric Dungey.
So anyway, the bottom line is this: We need good players. Stars are fine and I think anyone would be fired up if we pick up a 5-star or start landing a bunch of 4-stars. But 'recruiting', IMO, is something of a misnomer. It's important to get good, projectable talent, but the key is having a good system, having a focused, effective S&C program, keeping the kids on campus once they get there so they can develop, teaching good technique ... all that stuff is equally as important.
The folks pining away for 4- and 5-star kids are missing the point, IMO.
