You might rather, but I think Fitz knows what it takes to win better than us. He may well be telling McCall to play conservative, don't make mistakes (turnover, penalties), open up offense only as needed and let the defense control the game. Alabama opened it up this year and they got destroyed in the championship game including costly mistakes. Playing conservative offense that doesn't make mistakes and makes timely plays is good offense.
2020 recruiting
- Thread starter torque-cat
- Start date
You might rather, but I think Fitz knows what it takes to win better than us. He may well be telling McCall to play conservative, don't make mistakes (turnover, penalties), open up offense only as needed and let the defense control the game. Alabama opened it up this year and they got destroyed in the championship game including costly mistakes. Playing conservative offense that doesn't make mistakes and makes timely plays is good offense.
Two F****** decades?...It seems like yesterday, but I guess not. Actually, it WAS yesterday, or last month, when we won the B1G West, which given the changes in the B1G is pretty damn good, especially given we played your nemesis OSU and played them well, which is not worth complaining about.
Or maybe the head coach has a different offensive philosophy? Fitz only cares about wins, stats are for losers. How many times do we need to say it before it penetrates that thick skull of yours? The OC takes his direction from the HC. It’s not like McCall has forgotten how to coach; the guy has guided prolific offenses many times in the past. If you’re not happy with the offensive philosophy direct your ire towards Fitz; not McCall.
Fitz might have discovered his inner riverboat gambler the past couple of years on 4th downs, but he still has the mindset that he wants a ball-control style team that manages the clock and field position and edges opposing teams. Our philosophy under Fitz has been to maintain possession and bleed clock where we can, whether through dink and dunk or rushing, and then bend but don't break defense. That's a recipe for winning low-scoring contests, which has been our strong suit the past decade.
Given the results of the past 4 years, it's working out now that we have the horses (especially on defense) to win those types of games more often than not.
Maybe that changes with Hunter Johnson and a more talented WR group, but I don't really think it will if our defensive depth is as good as it's been the past couple of years.
Our offensive play may look inefficient statistically, but all that matters is we put up more points than our opponents.
Given the results of the past 4 years, it's working out now that we have the horses (especially on defense) to win those types of games more often than not.
Maybe that changes with Hunter Johnson and a more talented WR group, but I don't really think it will if our defensive depth is as good as it's been the past couple of years.
Our offensive play may look inefficient statistically, but all that matters is we put up more points than our opponents.
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Of course, such advice assumes that one can properly assess a coin's or a player's quality/value.
If you get them there, it would still help if you can get them there at the beginning and keep them there throughout the whole game
Under Walker O was stressed but Fitz has a D background. While he is fine with having an O(tough with the OLs we have fielded), if it compromised the D or the overall team performance....
NU doesn't even give credit to NUMB members. Hence the steady dwindling numbers.
In all honesty, I was including the bowl win. I didn't realize there were so many 9 win teams in the top 20. I should have checked.
Guess the information I remember reading was wrong then. It partially blamed the dwindling size of NUMB on the fact that the kids got no credit and very few lasted more than two years.
Going to disagree w/ that (albeit McCall, at times, did a better job w/ that this past season), both w/ regard to play-calling and use of personnel.
But blame goes to both McCall and Fitz.
The QBs w/ the highest QBR were -
1. Murray - 42 TD, 7 INT
2. Tua - 43 TD, 6 INT
3. Haskins - 50 TD, 8 INT
Lawrence was 6th - 30 TD, 4 INT
Thorson is 65th - 17 TD, 15 INT
'Bama under Saban had been opening up its O for few years now as Saban realized that the O needed to score more to keep up w/ the top scoring teams.
Opening up an O doesn't necessarily mean an increased risk of TO's.
The problem in the Championship game is that Clemson had the far better game plan, in no small part due to the OC/DC having been around w/ 'Bama having new co-ordinators who weren't as good as in past years.
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Back to the original post, and now that the 2019 class is a wrap, I think we all realize how important the 2020 class is for recruiting and helping Fitz get more elite players to continue the upwards trajectory. As stated many times over, if we can land an incremental 2 or 3 elite players on our A list (and coincidentally 4 stars), that would help our chances greatly. The stars are aligned, so to speak -- new Fitz Carlton facility, B1G West championship, 3 straight bowl wins, new 5 star QB taking the reins -- the table is set perfectly for an outstanding recruiting class. It's off to a great start, too. Let's see if we can land some of our top targets now.
It's a good start, and I'm happy with the class so far. Now we need to land some of the other big targets, especially on the OL - Skoronski, Persi, etc. That's when we'll know we are getting traction from the Fitz Carlton, the new OL coach, B1G West championship, etc.
At one point, I believe they removed the requirement for Music Majors to be in band. It has gone downhill in size since. Doesn't help that first 2-3 games are often before students are on campus
How are our chances with the other recruits offered so far? Seems like we’re still in the running for at least a few?
Looking over our 2020 offers list in the recruiting DB, there are definitely some impressive athletes on the list, although there are every year. For some reason, or maybe 260 million reasons, I have a higher degree of hope for our chances to land a higher % of our A-list guys this cycle. However, I still find it odd that we are so selective in our offering. Just to throw out some comparisons, according to the DB, here are 2020 offer counts for related programs:
Northwestern: 47
Notre Dame: 116
Stanford: 35 (oddly low)
Michigan: 257 (ahh, Har-bage)
Duke: 144
Vanderbilt: 171
Wisconsin: 113
Nebraska: 277 (Frosty tells Har-bage, "hey, hold my beer")
Minnesota: 98
Purdue: 208
Illinois: 68
Now, Fitz has proven to find and land kids that truly fit the program's ideals and his graduation rate is even more impressive than what he has accomplished on the gridiron. But, sometimes I do wish that there was a bit of a wider net on the top athletes. There seems to be a lot of concern among the purple faithful that Purdue and Nebraska are going to be coming on strong in the very near future; they will be a threat to NU's recent string of success in the B1G West. Do we expect them to consistently out-recruit NU in the next few cycles and how much of this might you attribute to approach?
Anyway, let's go Fitz and co, go get yourself some of these young studs with offers. One thing is for sure... if you are going to fish with a spear, you better hit your shots or risk starving to death. 4 in the bag, but some big ones still swimming nearby.
Northwestern: 47
Notre Dame: 116
Stanford: 35 (oddly low)
Michigan: 257 (ahh, Har-bage)
Duke: 144
Vanderbilt: 171
Wisconsin: 113
Nebraska: 277 (Frosty tells Har-bage, "hey, hold my beer")
Minnesota: 98
Purdue: 208
Illinois: 68
Now, Fitz has proven to find and land kids that truly fit the program's ideals and his graduation rate is even more impressive than what he has accomplished on the gridiron. But, sometimes I do wish that there was a bit of a wider net on the top athletes. There seems to be a lot of concern among the purple faithful that Purdue and Nebraska are going to be coming on strong in the very near future; they will be a threat to NU's recent string of success in the B1G West. Do we expect them to consistently out-recruit NU in the next few cycles and how much of this might you attribute to approach?
Anyway, let's go Fitz and co, go get yourself some of these young studs with offers. One thing is for sure... if you are going to fish with a spear, you better hit your shots or risk starving to death. 4 in the bag, but some big ones still swimming nearby.
Those offer totals reflect an offer now and sort them out later mentality. NU does not do that. We only offer kids we are prepared to take a commitment from as soon as the offer is extended. Therefore you better be sure when you offer a player that there isn’t another player that is also interested in you that you may like better. Based on NU’s Approach, they have to be sure of a kid as a prospect on an absolute and relative basis before they offer.
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Seems to reflect that Stanford under Shaw is the most similar program to NU. High academic standards, very selective rather than shotgun recruiting, desire to maintain a certain close knit family culture and fit etc... If NU can recruit close to the way Stanford has he past decade we’d have talent to compete with top 10 programs and can beat top 25-40 programs with some margin for error. Right now we are winning by the skin of our teeth against those teams.
So what is your suggestion that gets us to recruit on that Stanford level of the last decade?
No suggestions as I don’t know what it takes. But I use Stanford’s Shaw era as a barometer of what our talent ceiling might be given high academic standards, small classes and ethical recruiting practices. I believe they pull in top 25 classes with regularity and sometimes top 15-ish. Stanford has enormous built in advantages so if we can pull in top 25-ish classes with some consistency that would be remarkable.
The band at my area state university, which has no music major, is the biggest its been in years and just got back from a successful concert tour in Italy. The biggest problem in our area has been the decline in high school bands. Kids either have the time or desire to participate, or they don't.
Lat year 7 of their 21 recruits were from CA. Helps to be in a talent rich area of the country. Year before they had 2 of 15 but both were 4 stars
As I mentioned they have many built in advantages so that’s why I see what they are doing in terms of recruiting as a sort of “ceiling” of what we could do ideally. But it’s much easier for them for many reasons.
Yep, as I've said before not a coincidence that 2014 was a stellar class for NU when it had Westphal, Thorson and Jackson in IL. Heck, for all his ups and downs, you could throw Hance in there, too.
Realistically, roughly how many of the current offers are we in the hunt for? I'm seeing maybe 4 or 5. It is frustrating that Notre Dame had a strong year... makes recruiting against them in IL just that much harder for guys like Henning and Mills...
Duke, Vandy are not peer institutions as regards academic requirements for revenue sport athletes (using this metic anyway ).
What are Duke's academic requirements for football? I've never seen any clear data on this.
Oh yes, definitely, was just referring to the Illinois recruits specifically. Three 4-stars just from in-state alone.
1) Recite the alphabet
2) Sum a series of five integers
3) Write a paragraph describing your favorite Xbox game.
Any of the mavens can better opine, but what seems to be clear is that they’re not comparable to NU’s.
