No stars in this veteran high school sportswriter's eyes
- Thread starter MotownMedilldo
- Start date
Motown,
Thanks for posting this. Rivals and Scout rankings are baloney, and have been forever. We have a nice solid class this year, and the suggestion by Rivals that all but two BIG teams have better recruiting classes than NU is utter nonsense. Fortunately, the coaches are easily able to see past all of this crap. All of this reminds me of self-declared NFL draft expert Mel Kiper declaring, as if he knows any better, that Dwight Freeney and Russell Wilson are not big enough to play in the NFL.
My prediction for the 2015 class is that Andrew Otterman will red-shirt and then be a four year starter on the o-line.
Que Glades!
Thanks for posting this. Rivals and Scout rankings are baloney, and have been forever. We have a nice solid class this year, and the suggestion by Rivals that all but two BIG teams have better recruiting classes than NU is utter nonsense. Fortunately, the coaches are easily able to see past all of this crap. All of this reminds me of self-declared NFL draft expert Mel Kiper declaring, as if he knows any better, that Dwight Freeney and Russell Wilson are not big enough to play in the NFL.
My prediction for the 2015 class is that Andrew Otterman will red-shirt and then be a four year starter on the o-line.
Que Glades!
One of the most interesting things I've seen on ESPN was an Adam Schefter Bill Polian interaction. Schefter commented that he didn't understand what Bill Polian meant that RGIII was a bad runner but Russell Wilson was a good runner. The third person there (anchor type not analyst), started making fun of Schefter asking why he wouldn't believe a hall of fame GM. Schefter then clarified that he trusted Polian but didn't understand until this year's playoffs what he meant. The comment was Griffin had a long stride running style. This puts him in a lot of bad positions and he'll be injury prone because of it. Wilson takes compact strides which allows him to evade the big hit and stay healthy. I found it fascinating how Bill Polian thought of that.
Another interesting piece of analysis I heard during the superbowl was the width between of Marshawn Lynch's feet when he runs. Because he's feet are so wide, he keeps a more powerful stance at any point and can bounce off of more hits because of it. It's also harder to tell where and how he will cut.
There is no way, Mel Kiper, Rivals, and Scout know anything about stride length, width between feet, and all the subtle nuances that someone the likes of Bill Polian, Bill Belichick, Bill Snyder or even Bill Cubit.
Just because the guy isn't qualified doesn't mean he isn't right. But yes, he's clearly yelling and screaming about something in order to get people passionate and drive clicks to his article.
The part I hated of his article was using JJ Watt as the example. His offer list CMU, Minnesota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Northern Illinois. Oh he ended up at CMU as a tight end. The other 115 head coaches in the country... Missed him too!!!! So McCabe's premise the college coaches don't agree with ratings based on Watts progress isn't supported
The part I hated of his article was using JJ Watt as the example. His offer list CMU, Minnesota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Northern Illinois. Oh he ended up at CMU as a tight end. The other 115 head coaches in the country... Missed him too!!!! So McCabe's premise the college coaches don't agree with ratings based on Watts progress isn't supported
I have no idea how good NU's class is, but some class has to be the 12th best in the league. Why is it some other school's and not NU's? Just because rankings aren't always accurate doesn't mean that they are out to get NU. What usually happens is that a school's fans call the rankings bogus when their school is ranked low and love the rankings when their school is ranked highly. How is this year different?
My greater point is that getting verified height/weight/speed can be a very big deal for recruits. Having good measurables is usually enough to keep a player on the "keep warm" list rather than the "just a guy" list.
By and large, college coaches couldn't care less about star ratings or a prospect's offer list.
"I have no idea how good NU's class is, but some class has
to be the 12th best in the league. Why is it some other school's and
not NU's?"
It's possible, but given the fact the typical NU class tends to be ranked in the bottom tier of the conference you'd think the on field results would be consistently much worse than they have been over the rivals/scout era (rivals' metrics reward classes with large numbers, something NU can't do because of the program's preference of redshirting freshman). That or Fitz and Co. are actually pretty good at developing players (a premise some around here would scoff at). I don't what is responsible for the divergence, but it exists.
Check out this link from Five Thirty Eight, in particular the second graphic.
This post was edited on 2/14 6:50 PM by ColumbusCatFan1
Mentioned before on WR, but still worth a read
to be the 12th best in the league. Why is it some other school's and
not NU's?"
It's possible, but given the fact the typical NU class tends to be ranked in the bottom tier of the conference you'd think the on field results would be consistently much worse than they have been over the rivals/scout era (rivals' metrics reward classes with large numbers, something NU can't do because of the program's preference of redshirting freshman). That or Fitz and Co. are actually pretty good at developing players (a premise some around here would scoff at). I don't what is responsible for the divergence, but it exists.
Check out this link from Five Thirty Eight, in particular the second graphic.
This post was edited on 2/14 6:50 PM by ColumbusCatFan1
Mentioned before on WR, but still worth a read
I think coaches should care about a prospect's offer list. I mean if Fitz sees an offensive lineman with offers from schools known for good lineman ie coaches that are good at recruiting lineman like Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio State, as well as teams that play a similar offensive style to NU wouldn't it be a good idea for Fitz to take a 2nd or 3rd look at the prospect's tape to determine if those coaches are out of their mind or if he missed something?
You've got to trust your evaluation and trust your process, though "copycat offers" are definitely a real thing. Wisconsin used to be known for doing it with OL that Iowa had offered and we were pretty sure Duke was offering most of our Chicago and Ohio offers sight unseen.
At most, maybe an offer from Ohio State makes you go back and take a second look at a kid's tape. It isn't going to be the deciding factor in issuing an offer.
Though rare, you know that similar scenarios have happened at NU in the past. News of a faulty 40 time spreads, resulting in offers from big schools, and NU joins the herd even though they initially decided not to offer based upon their initial scouting.
This post was edited on 2/15 10:44 AM by Gladeskat
I'm in agreement that each coaching staff should make and trust their own evaluations. I do think that a big offer list should tell the coaches to throw out their previous evaluations on a player and start again. If the coach comes to the same conclusion, then maybe he's smarter than everyone else, or maybe he missed something. Either way he should trust his own eyes. I think it might also be a good idea to get a different set of eyes on the recruit ie Hankwitz if Brown did the original evaluation.
Similar threads
