If we can consistently stay within the Top 50, then I think we can continue the slow but steady improvement in our program. A big equalizer for our program that is reflected on the field and not biased rankings is the 5th year and lack of dropouts.
Recruiting is going well
- Thread starter Mr Wickerpark
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You could argue that having many 5th years means we have a lot of redshirts not bringing anything to the program. It is the difference between an 80 man active roster and a 100 man active roster. That being said the fact that we don't lose guys due to drop outs and dismissals means they have time to develop.
I think what you meant to say is, the difference between an 80 man active roster and a 60 man active roster. Scholarships are capped at 85 each season.
For what it is worth it appears the Timmy Beckman effect is over. Looks like Lovie Not Hate Smith has grabbed at least 7 of the top 30 in the State.9 of 20 from Illinois and a decent class focusing on o-lineman and wide receivers. I know none of this predicts nothing but seems to be a better class than recently and seems to have established Illinois as a recruiting base. Surprising ,no one from his home state of Texas.
I think being a minority head coach, the only one besides Franklin in the BIG and one of the few in the country, is helping him along with his pro credentials. If he's stays with it, Illini could be more formidable. Certainly a big upgrade from Beckman. Credit their AD with the hire, especially taking advantage of Tampa Bay subsidizing a good part of his salary this year.
Of course, Lovie is a significant upgrade from Becky/Cubit regime when it comes to recruiting potential. Under the circumstances of coming in late, he's done a respectable job. However, of the 9, Illinois prospects only one is a top 10 in the state and a four star. We have zero. I certainly don't think he hauled in the cream of the crop in IL or that these mid tier IL prospects will change the direction of the West Standings. At any rate, IL's class is much better than recent classes, Lovie will need to take a few big boys out of Florida and Texas to really have an impact.
It's been like in forever since we lost a recruit we went after hard to IL. I think the 2017 class is better and we have some NU offers to the top guys. So does Lovie, so it will be a good test to see if we should fret over an IL offer to someone we want. I haven't done that in years. I fret when I see a ND offer( despite their lack of recent success) or even a Whisky or Sparty offer. Lovie makes them better, but they are still far from a powerhouse.
The luster will come off even more next year. Not a lot of talent in that program.
We've had top 50 classes largely since Fitz has been our coach. Top 50 isn't much to shout home about. Let's start getting top 30 classes like Barnett did on a few occasions. Including the last guys who got B1G rings.
Please. Barnett was the last NU HC to win two championships. He also took over a program so deeply dysfunctional that they were a joke. You are way off base here criticizing one of the two best coaches in NU history. The other one was Parseghian.
So What? You're missing willy's point, about which he's quite correct. (You're too young to know any better!)
I'm very aware of the history, both because I was there (albeit as a child) and because it was literally at one point my job to know the history.
It's just always interesting to me that Barnett gets all the credit for getting NU to the top of the mountain (which he earned), but none of the blame for literally bottoming out THREE YEARS after the Rose Bowl (blame that he also earned). The list of excuses for the terrible performances in his last two seasons at NU makes me laugh almost every time it's bandied about. The phenomenon is particularly strong with a handful of longtime posters.
Your nonsense makes me laugh too. Did you enjoy the Rose Bowl? I know the history too, but it wasn't part of my job. The history is available on the internet and can be absorbed in about 2 minutes. Hope you didn't have to study too long!
I did enjoy the Rose Bowl, which I was lucky enough to attend in person. I did not enjoy being repeatedly embarrassed in 1998, when I was still at every home game.
Why is it that, again, all credit is given but none of the blame is doled out?
It is my understanding that potential (and eventual) basketball coach Kevin Oneill was offered a bigger salary than Gary Barnett after all he had done for us when Oneill was hired.
I canoot imagine a bigger slap in the face.
Imagine you are Gary Barnett. You are reading the newspaper at your home one morning with you hot tea and you read that the school has hired a basketball cpach, and will pay him a lot more than you. Remember you are Gary Barnett who just lead the Cats to a Rose Bowl and a Citrus Bowl.
How would you feel?
I would being doing cartwheels because the AD just de facto got me a big raise.
I wasn't following all that closely in 1997 but how does the salary offered to the B Ball coach explain a winless conference season for Barney ?
Tribune has a nice feature on recruiting in today's paper - looks at the top ten local kids from the last 5 years and assesses how they ended up doing or are doing - re enforces how hit or miss it is. Really the only miss listed for NU is aviliti and I wouldn't call him a miss and if you think about it, if he wasn't a miss, then thorson would be. I don't follow recruiting much anymore but the article also listed the top 20 local kids this year - NU only has 1 and that is number 20. I was surprised as duke had 2 and Yale 1 so you would think kids who would qualify
We only offered 4 kids in IL in 2017 class. We got 2 of them. Just because the kid qualifies doesn't mean we are interested. We typically grab 3-4 IL kids a year. We have a couple of PWO's too and hopefully they can be the next JB Butler.
As a point of comparison, we have already offered 9 IL kids in the 2018 class and I am betting it gets to a dozen before it is all said and done. IMO much better talent in 2018 for us to go after. I like getting locals, but overall I think this 2017 class is strong.
Why did the team go south so fast after those two great seasons? Was Barnett distracted by other jobs, and recruiting suffered? Was it the loss of assistants like Vandeinden?
Losing that Fitzgerald character might have made things a little harder as well.
All true, but I was expecting something a bit more systemic. Lots of teams graduate good players but still don't crater, including NU.
He had a replacement lined up that wen to Mich when he departed and he led Walker to look at Kustock. Don't see that as the problem Lot of those guys on the OL moved on at about the same time and their replacements were not ready for Prim Time. In 2000 they were
Re the original premise, I think recruiting is going "well enough: but is not yet conference champion caliber. We keep being bridesmaids on some A list talent at QB, while we are clearly not getting A list offensive line talent, which bothers me. Hairball has five OTs on his plate, all very good ones. Even Indiana has 3 in its 2017 class. Guys like Walker Little, who verballed Stanford, make me drool. But the Tackle Nazi always seems to say "No more zoup for you!"
We have made some inroads in GA, which is great. But now the DC area, which is FULL of talent, is being roped off by Durkin at Maryland. It's harder for us because the in state talent pool is declining over time. 2018 offers a good crop, so I hope we can strike it rich with guys like Jones, Blake, O'Rourke, and Patterson. We won't have exceptional classes like 2014 without a bumper crop of in-state players.
We have made some inroads in GA, which is great. But now the DC area, which is FULL of talent, is being roped off by Durkin at Maryland. It's harder for us because the in state talent pool is declining over time. 2018 offers a good crop, so I hope we can strike it rich with guys like Jones, Blake, O'Rourke, and Patterson. We won't have exceptional classes like 2014 without a bumper crop of in-state players.
Not so much...Barnett had Barry Gardner in the middle. IMO, it was the inability to recruit a replacement for Schnur and difficulty finding and developing OL and DB's. The "Fab 5" were only RSFreshmen then. The 1995 class was also a disaster, with Dyra being the only starter out of the entire class.
Based on recollection, Barnett was entertaining other offers annually after that breakthrough season which probably resulted in recruiting falling off. At the time, I was pissed but I realize now that NU was not giving him the support he deserved such as payraises for the assistant coaches or better facilities to make the initial success sustainable.
Some of the interviewing he was doing may have been a failed negotiation tactic to get more support.
Exactly. And the dip that happened, also happened with Alvarez. It takes time to build a sustainable program, and with the talent that Barnett largely brought in in 2000, I think he would have turned NU into the power that Wisconsin became under Alvarez had he stayed. I guess we'll never know.
What do you mean legend? He was a 3 year starter at Michigan and was drafted and played for the Cardinals for 3 years.
For that matter, we lost a bunch of future starters from recruits who decommitted (or didn't eventually commit that we would have likely have gotten) and who transferred later.
That's part of the legend -- John Navarre and his recruiting class would have surely brought national titles to NU!
Still not clear how John Navarre or any of his "stud" classmates would have prevented NU from going 0-fer in 1998.
They wouldn't have. I was just commenting on your comment re: his legend. I don't know about a national title, but I do believe we would have been far more competitive and had sustained success similar to what Wisconsin saw after their first run to the Roses and the subsequent dip, had they come and if Barnett had stayed. Again, I guess we'll never know.
We did not have a decent QB in 1998. Tim Hughes was our QB. Lloyd Abrahamson quitting football hurt us along with failing to recruit anyone else after him because Barnett thought he would be a 4 year starter. And as Glades pointed out, the 1995 recruiting class (prior to reaping the rewards of our championship titles) was really a complete dud, including some bad luck (career ending disease and injuries to certain players).
The low point of Alvarez's "dip" was 3-4-1 and 3-5. Worst finish was 7th in the conference. Just a tad better than an 0-fer, no?
Sure, it was. But, the pattern is still the same. Barnett recruited on the basis of a fresh start and national championship rings, which lost some luster 4 years in. Hence the dip. Then recruiting exploded when he got the two back to back championships. When he left for CU, there was talk at the time that the 1998 class (yes, the one with John Navarre) was on it's way to being ranked higher than the 1996 #16 ranked class. There was much in the cupboard when Walker took over. Not nearly as much when Fitz took over. Which is one reason Walker got a ring.
We're seeing the same pattern with NU hoops. The first few classes were definitely the strongest, with Collins selling hope and his national championship rings. 4 years in, we are having our weakest recruiting class in his tenure. When we make the NCAAs (and possibly win a B1G title) this year, watch recruiting explode to a new level next year. Similarly, although hoops is different given the impact and number of players you have, we will be good for the next few years, but we may have a little bit of a dip when Gaines is a senior, unless perhaps we land Smith on the heels of our run this year (even then, we don't have any bigs in this class).
Alternative facts have my head spinning, starting with Hughes being our QB and not Hoffman and Kreinbrink.
Gary Barnett produced a college football miracle in 1995. It was his first college head coaching gig and like any sudden success, it can be hard to process. In addition, he may not have thought he could keep it going at Northwestern, with the facilities disadvantages, not to mention coaching pay scales. Fitz seems to be getting the necessary support to sustain the success he's had so far even with the bar raised to a much higher level in terms of overall competitiveness in the Big Ten.
That 0-and-8 league season may have added to Gary's insecurity, but he still wasn't going to leave until his "dream job" of Colorado opened up suddenly. Unfortunately for him, the dream job turned into a nightmare and a coaching dead end for him but that doesn't take away from what he accomplished here. As ECat stated, he did not leave the cupboard bare and what's more, he removed the stigma of "losers" that had been attached to the program, something Chris Collins is trying to do right now on the basketball side. That, and not the academic restrictions, has been the hardest thing for Northwestern to overcome.
That 0-and-8 league season may have added to Gary's insecurity, but he still wasn't going to leave until his "dream job" of Colorado opened up suddenly. Unfortunately for him, the dream job turned into a nightmare and a coaching dead end for him but that doesn't take away from what he accomplished here. As ECat stated, he did not leave the cupboard bare and what's more, he removed the stigma of "losers" that had been attached to the program, something Chris Collins is trying to do right now on the basketball side. That, and not the academic restrictions, has been the hardest thing for Northwestern to overcome.
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