Elite Recruiting vs Elite Coaching

[whosyourwally]

Woke up this morning with my weekend brain not thinking about work and, instead, about how we pushed OSU around last week. With OSU and Alabama having rosters stacked with absolutely elite prospects top-to-bottom, and Oregon sporting one of their highest-rated rosters ever, but still mostly a tier below what OSU lined up across from us, I wondered how important those elite recruits actually are to sustained success/championships. Traditionally, we look at who wins championships and determine that elite recruiting is absolutely necessary to be an elite program, BUT elite programs also have the ability to keep elite coaches, rather than just being a stop on their way to the top. Boise and others (including CK’s Oregon) have shown you can win against the big boys if you have the scheme, the culture, and the player development for as long as you can hang on to your coaches. Cincinnati is going through this right now. Can they keep Fickle? If so, can he regularly make the playoffs with a roster filled with 3 and 4 star recruits?
We’re not Boise and we’re not Alabama. I write all this to pose the idea that elite recruiting isn’t all that important if you’ve got the capacity to consistently recruit and develop top 250 players and you can hang on to an elite coach. And to further support this argument, I give you the results of the first round of the 2021 NFL draft by recruiting grade:

5-stars: 7
4-stars: 10
3-stars: 14
2-stars: 1

Happy football Saturday, all.


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[StevensTechU]

Before this subject takes off, I want to say that people routinely discount the talent that Chip's teams and those early year Boise State teams had. Star ratings arent perfect now, but they're much better than they were 10-15 years ago. Boise had a lot of guys go play in the NFL. That's probably a better measure of talent (along with # of guys who are all-conference) than star ratings are.

[Duck07]

Woke up this morning with my weekend brain not thinking about work and, instead, about how we pushed OSU around last week. With OSU and Alabama having rosters stacked with absolutely elite prospects top-to-bottom, and Oregon sporting one of their highest-rated rosters ever, but still mostly a tier below what OSU lined up across from us, I wondered how important those elite recruits actually are to sustained success/championships. Traditionally, we look at who wins championships and determine that elite recruiting is absolutely necessary to be an elite program, BUT elite programs also have the ability to keep elite coaches, rather than just being a stop on their way to the top. Boise and others (including CK’s Oregon) have shown you can win against the big boys if you have the scheme, the culture, and the player development for as long as you can hang on to your coaches. Cincinnati is going through this right now. Can they keep Fickle? If so, can he regularly make the playoffs with a roster filled with 3 and 4 star recruits?
We’re not Boise and we’re not Alabama. I write all this to pose the idea that elite recruiting isn’t all that important if you’ve got the capacity to consistently recruit and develop top 250 players and you can hang on to an elite coach. And to further support this argument, I give you the results of the first round of the 2021 NFL draft by recruiting grade:

5-stars: 7
4-stars: 10
3-stars: 14
2-stars: 1

Happy football Saturday, all.


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If you have the capacity to consistently recruit Top 250 players - you are at the elite recruiting level.
10/14 Alabama 2022 recruits are ESPN 300 rated.
11/20 of our 2022 recruits are ESPN 300.

A much better argument would be to show teams that have won it all with poor recruiting. Frankly, I don't know of a good example of a team like that. To touch on STU's point, ESPN did a reranking of recruiting classes after we went to the NC against Auburn and they had the 2007 class reranked #2 behind Alabama based upon on-field results. (I also noticed that 247 apparently thought that TJ Ward was in the 2009 recruiting class lol).

[wlduck]

Woke up this morning with my weekend brain not thinking about work and, instead, about how we pushed OSU around last week. With OSU and Alabama having rosters stacked with absolutely elite prospects top-to-bottom, and Oregon sporting one of their highest-rated rosters ever, but still mostly a tier below what OSU lined up across from us, I wondered how important those elite recruits actually are to sustained success/championships. Traditionally, we look at who wins championships and determine that elite recruiting is absolutely necessary to be an elite program, BUT elite programs also have the ability to keep elite coaches, rather than just being a stop on their way to the top. Boise and others (including CK’s Oregon) have shown you can win against the big boys if you have the scheme, the culture, and the player development for as long as you can hang on to your coaches. Cincinnati is going through this right now. Can they keep Fickle? If so, can he regularly make the playoffs with a roster filled with 3 and 4 star recruits?
We’re not Boise and we’re not Alabama. I write all this to pose the idea that elite recruiting isn’t all that important if you’ve got the capacity to consistently recruit and develop top 250 players and you can hang on to an elite coach. And to further support this argument, I give you the results of the first round of the 2021 NFL draft by recruiting grade:

5-stars: 7
4-stars: 10
3-stars: 14
2-stars: 1

Happy football Saturday, all.


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Frankly, your draft numbers make the opposite point you’re trying to make. 5 stars make up less than 1% of high school football players. That they make up almost a quarter of first round picks shows how much higher their “hit rates” are. Recruiting highly ranked players is still the surest way to get competitive, and is the entry point to even thinking of championships.

[jimmy12]

Before this subject takes off, I want to say that people routinely discount the talent that Chip's teams and those early year Boise State teams had. Star ratings arent perfect now, but they're much better than they were 10-15 years ago. Boise had a lot of guys go play in the NFL. That's probably a better measure of talent (along with # of guys who are all-conference) than star ratings are.

Hey man-- just making sure you saw my DM. Apologies for the late response.

[OfaFeather]

Before this subject takes off, I want to say that people routinely discount the talent that Chip's teams and those early year Boise State teams had. Star ratings arent perfect now, but they're much better than they were 10-15 years ago. Boise had a lot of guys go play in the NFL. That's probably a better measure of talent (along with # of guys who are all-conference) than star ratings are.

That is a good point, look at the star ratings for FSU and Miami… and even USC prior to Helton. They routinely had high caliber recruits but horrible team play. As you say I think that the telling story is the number who actually play in the NFL. Because two things are happening there, either they have enough raw talent that they just shine when they arrive…ala Herbert. Or the teams staff is developing and improving those players to the level where they can compete professionally.

[UofDuck]

Before this subject takes off, I want to say that people routinely discount the talent that Chip's teams and those early year Boise State teams had. Star ratings arent perfect now, but they're much better than they were 10-15 years ago. Boise had a lot of guys go play in the NFL. That's probably a better measure of talent (along with # of guys who are all-conference) than star ratings are.

The Boise state teams that beat us back to back had 3 first round picks the following draft. That’s insane for a non-power 5 team.


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