It makes no sense to "re rank" recruiting classes. They are ranked at the time because they generally reflect how badly the players were wanted during that recruiting cycle.
Sure, some kids are underrated, etc, but in general star averages are good approximations of how well you did vs your competitors.
Everything else is coaching.
So it makes sense to rerank individuals but not classes?
It makes no sense to "re rank" recruiting classes. They are ranked at the time because they generally reflect how badly the players were wanted during that recruiting cycle.
Sure, some kids are underrated, etc, but in general star averages are good approximations of how well you did vs your competitors.
Everything else is coaching.
So it makes sense to rerank individuals but not classes?
Hmmmm.
Huh?
The Jesse Callier ratings are about assessing how much your program improved a kid. It's not really that complicated to follow...
Kids have some level of ability coming out of high school. Then they go to college and they either blossom a lot or regress, or stay about the same.
When you start seeing positive changes in Jesse Callier rankings (meaning they came in as a 3 and left as a 5 like Sid Jones) that implies two things that are impossible to fully disentangle: 1 - we got the kid to improve considerably and 2 - he was maybe better than his rating and we did a good job evaluating the kid.
Re-ranking classes makes no sense because you cannot disentangle those two factors by looking at performance on the field over 4 years.
The best information about a kid's abilities coming out of HS is how many experts (all the college coaches in the nation) feel he's worthy of a scholarship. So, re-ranking something that is effectively supposed to determine how good he was coming out of HS is dumb 4-years later.
Sure, sometimes coaches will miss and sometimes coaches will over-like a particular kid.
But the offers are still the BEST information about how good a kid is coming out of HS.
So - re-ranking classes is tantamount to saying coaching is not an important variable in development and that whatever a kid's 'talent-level' is was fixed during his senior year of HS. And saying that is FS.
Pete says fuck stars give me a kid with want to and heart these are our guys going forward whether we like it or not
Pete says fuck stars? Are you fucking stupid?
Here's who we've offered so far for 2018
QB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. RB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. WR - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. TE - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. OL - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. DL - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. BUCK - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. LB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. DB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
Once they start turning us down, we will go down the list to guys who are not wanted by as many big time programs and are easier to get. Fortunately Pete and staff have a good history of picking winners from those kids.
However, we offer 90% of the same kids that USC, UCLA, Stanford, Michigan, etc. does. If they all said yes, we'd have a class of top 100 players.
But because that doesn't happen, we don't get only 4 and 5 stars.
I can't think of a single kid in this last class who we offered in the first wave of offers who wasn't a 4 or 5 star kid. Not one.
Pete says fuck stars give me a kid with want to and heart these are our guys going forward whether we like it or not
Pete says fuck stars? Are you fucking stupid?
Here's who we've offered so far for 2018
QB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. RB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. WR - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. TE - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. OL - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. DL - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. BUCK - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. LB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. DB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
Once they start turning us down, we will go down the list to guys who are not wanted by as many big time programs and are easier to get. Fortunately Pete and staff have a good history of picking winners from those kids.
However, we offer 90% of the same kids that USC, UCLA, Stanford, Michigan, etc. does. If they all said yes, we'd have a class of top 100 players.
But because that doesn't happen, we don't get only 4 and 5 stars.
I can't think of a single kid in this last class who we offered in the first wave of offers who wasn't a 4 or 5 star kid. Not one.
Only ones possible I can think of are Rapp and Ty Jones, not sure if they were first wave or not?
Pete says fuck stars give me a kid with want to and heart these are our guys going forward whether we like it or not
Pete says fuck stars? Are you fucking stupid?
Here's who we've offered so far for 2018
QB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. RB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. WR - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. TE - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. OL - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. DL - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. BUCK - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. LB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars. DB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
Once they start turning us down, we will go down the list to guys who are not wanted by as many big time programs and are easier to get. Fortunately Pete and staff have a good history of picking winners from those kids.
However, we offer 90% of the same kids that USC, UCLA, Stanford, Michigan, etc. does. If they all said yes, we'd have a class of top 100 players.
But because that doesn't happen, we don't get only 4 and 5 stars.
I can't think of a single kid in this last class who we offered in the first wave of offers who wasn't a 4 or 5 star kid. Not one.
Only ones possible I can think of are Rapp and Ty Jones, not sure if they were first wave or not?
Yep - those guys were both 'first-wave' offers, but if you look at it they had other offers from top schools. For whatever reason Scout/Rivals/247 were just behind on both of them. They were obviously both big time kids.
It makes no sense to "re rank" recruiting classes. They are ranked at the time because they generally reflect how badly the players were wanted during that recruiting cycle.
Sure, some kids are underrated, etc, but in general star averages are good approximations of how well you did vs your competitors.
Everything else is coaching.
I'm surprised to see DDY make such a silly argument. I guess he's indeed drinking again.
It makes no sense to NOT rerank classes based on performance, that's how you know if your evaluation processes are working or not.
Pete's are.
The problem with relying on stars because they reflect interest is that there are differences in how coaches evaluate. Pete watched the same film as USC on pili, you don't think it makes sense to check in in a few years to see who was right?
Re-Ranking recruiting classes down the line is a reflection of the coaches ability to coach. I love it for that, that's what the whole Jesse Callier thing is all about.
Brandon Pili sucks right now, if he gets good at USC it tells me they coached him up really well.
It's not just the coaches ability to coach. It's also their ability, as recruiters, to identify talent and identify players who will work thrive in their system.
Yup, and I trust them so much at their ability to evaluate talent that that is one of the reasons I hate to see us miss guys that they offered before the guys we offered late.
I love all the guys we got late, they are all really talented kids and with the way we coach they should develop great. But I can still wish we could've seen them coach up the elite guys that we missed on, that's all.
You and I are in agreement on this point. However, no school is going to get every top kid. I do think part of "recruiting" is being able to find guys that might be a little under the radar, but you recognize their potential in your system
Sidney Jones is a great example. We didn't have to fight off USC or Bama for him. We were his best offer. A couple years of coaching was not the difference between him being a bust and a first round NFL prospect. He had that potential from the get-go. Lake gets "recruiting kudos" for recognizing that.
This staff best at evaluating talent I wonder if they may hold out on those under recruited guys they identify early on to keep those salesmen (Nansen) off their nuts
I saw a video where Pete said that they do this on some kids. So yes they do.
It makes no sense to "re rank" recruiting classes. They are ranked at the time because they generally reflect how badly the players were wanted during that recruiting cycle.
Sure, some kids are underrated, etc, but in general star averages are good approximations of how well you did vs your competitors.
Everything else is coaching.
So it makes sense to rerank individuals but not classes?
Hmmmm.
Huh?
The Jesse Callier ratings are about assessing how much your program improved a kid. It's not really that complicated to follow...
Kids have some level of ability coming out of high school. Then they go to college and they either blossom a lot or regress, or stay about the same.
When you start seeing positive changes in Jesse Callier rankings (meaning they came in as a 3 and left as a 5 like Sid Jones) that implies two things that are impossible to fully disentangle: 1 - we got the kid to improve considerably and 2 - he was maybe better than his rating and we did a good job evaluating the kid.
Re-ranking classes makes no sense because you cannot disentangle those two factors by looking at performance on the field over 4 years.
The best information about a kid's abilities coming out of HS is how many experts (all the college coaches in the nation) feel he's worthy of a scholarship. So, re-ranking something that is effectively supposed to determine how good he was coming out of HS is dumb 4-years later.
Sure, sometimes coaches will miss and sometimes coaches will over-like a particular kid.
But the offers are still the BEST information about how good a kid is coming out of HS.
So - re-ranking classes is tantamount to saying coaching is not an important variable in development and that whatever a kid's 'talent-level' is was fixed during his senior year of HS. And saying that is FS.
Jesus dude, it's an offseason bullshit article that ranks players by their production in college vs their rating in high school. It makes perfect sense.
They do the same thing in pro sports with the draft.
Of course coaching, development, injuries, off field issues, etc are factors.
You must be hanging around Tequilla's too much and trying to be the smartest guy on a board full of dummies. And the tl,dr post.
When you start seeing positive changes in Jesse Callier rankings (meaning they came in as a 3 and left as a 5 like Sid Jones) that implies two things that are impossible to fully disentangle: 1 - we got the kid to improve considerably and 2 - he was maybe better than his rating and we did a good job evaluating the kid.
Re-ranking classes makes no sense because you cannot disentangle those two factors by looking at performance on the field over 4 years.
We have imperfect data, many variables, etc.
But I think your premise -- that coaching/talent can't be disentangled -- is incorrect. Especially when it comes to elite players.
Coaching matters, but no coach in the world is turning a tub of lard into a first round draft pick. Those players have elite talent the second they show up on campus. It's not magically discovered because coach lake can teach quick twitch muscles how to engage.
Sydney jones XVXIII being a 1st/2nd round pick categorically means he was underrated in the star system. There's no way around that.
Which again, shows that (thankfully) our staff is exceptional at actually evaluating teen boys. And three years in we have lots of data points that show Pete is skilled at finding "5 star" athletes who are not recognized as such by teen boy stalkers and other coaches.
This is crucial because we are never going to excel at recruiting the recognized 5 stars (even though we make runs at most of them), so we need the competitive advantage of being able to identify 5 star talents that are undervalued by the star system.
And jones is a perfect example of that and a caution that tbs ratings are just one factor in identifying elite players.
When you start seeing positive changes in Jesse Callier rankings (meaning they came in as a 3 and left as a 5 like Sid Jones) that implies two things that are impossible to fully disentangle: 1 - we got the kid to improve considerably and 2 - he was maybe better than his rating and we did a good job evaluating the kid.
Re-ranking classes makes no sense because you cannot disentangle those two factors by looking at performance on the field over 4 years.
We have imperfect data, many variables, etc.
But I think your premise -- that coaching/talent can't be disentangled -- is incorrect. Especially when it comes to elite players.
Coaching matters, but no coach in the world is turning a tub of lard into a first round draft pick. Those players have elite talent the second they show up on campus. It's not magically discovered because coach lake can teach quick twitch muscles how to engage.
Sydney jones XVXIII being a 1st/2nd round pick categorically means he was underrated in the star system. There's no way around that.
Which again, shows that (thankfully) our staff is exceptional at actually evaluating teen boys. And three years in we have lots of data points that show Pete is skilled at finding "5 star" athletes who are not recognized as such by teen boy stalkers and other coaches.
This is crucial because we are never going to excel at recruiting the recognized 5 stars (even though we make runs at most of them), so we need the competitive advantage of being able to identify 5 star talents that are undervalued by the star system.
And jones is a perfect example of that and a caution that tbs ratings are just one factor in identifying elite players.
So, you think you just disentangled coaching and talent, huh? Man, you should sell this!!!! Amazing job.
Jones' offer list was UW, San Jose St, and Utah. So the coaches of the world were basically all a hard "no thanks." I believe that would make him a DDY 1?
But that's if the only things considered are stars/offers, which is an incomplete picture.
Was Jones really a below average corner? No, of course not. Coaches -- elite coaches -- whiffed on their evaluation.
Not sure why you think it doesn't make sense to go back and acknowledge that actually Jones was a 5 star caliber player who, for whatever reason, was overlooked. Except by Washington.
Jones' offer list was UW, San Jose St, and Utah. So the coaches of the world were basically all a hard "no thanks." I believe that would make him a DDY 1?
But that's if the only things considered are stars/offers, which is an incomplete picture.
Was Jones really a below average corner? No, of course not. Coaches -- elite coaches -- whiffed on their evaluation.
Not sure why you think it doesn't make sense to go back and acknowledge that actually Jones was a 5 star caliber player who, for whatever reason, was overlooked. Except by Washington.
Jones' offer list was UW, San Jose St, and Utah. So the coaches of the world were basically all a hard "no thanks." I believe that would make him a DDY 1?
But that's if the only things considered are stars/offers, which is an incomplete picture.
Was Jones really a below average corner? No, of course not. Coaches -- elite coaches -- whiffed on their evaluation.
Not sure why you think it doesn't make sense to go back and acknowledge that actually Jones was a 5 star caliber player who, for whatever reason, was overlooked. Except by Washington.
I hate scout and others and all their rankings. It's stupid, but as a whole, when they give stars out to 1000's of prospects, the numbers work out pretty good. Of course they'll have misses, no one is arguing that.
Jones' offer list was UW, San Jose St, and Utah. So the coaches of the world were basically all a hard "no thanks." I believe that would make him a DDY 1?
But that's if the only things considered are stars/offers, which is an incomplete picture.
Was Jones really a below average corner? No, of course not. Coaches -- elite coaches -- whiffed on their evaluation.
Not sure why you think it doesn't make sense to go back and acknowledge that actually Jones was a 5 star caliber player who, for whatever reason, was overlooked. Except by Washington.
In literally any system there are errors. Do I think Scout could be better? Yes.
Do I think college coaches are smart and offer all the right guys? No.
Do I think Sid was a 4-star level prospect at the time? (Yes and I said so on here and dawgman possibly)
Do I think our coaching brought him from a 4 to 5 star level? Yes.
All of that does not say that the errors are particularly systematic; that rankings at the end of the class aren't a decent indicator of where you are relatively speaking (I have always favored a tiered approach rather than a rankings approach); or that the year Sid came out, we wouldn't have taken other guys in front of him.
Part of this is a misunderstanding of numbers. Everyone roughly agrees on who the top 10 guys are on the west coast at CB. But beyond that, there are a bunch of guys that have vastly different abilities. Our staff is good at identifying those guys I guess.
But let's understand two things:
1) We aren't pumping out a bunch of first rounders who were 3 stars at RB, WR, TE, OL, DL or LB. Which shows you that Lake's coaching effect might be pretty impressive (in which case it makes no sense to re-rank given that coaching was the reason for the difference).
2) Lake would've rather had Adoree and Adarius Picklet than Sid.
So you can't really disentangle them once they've had 3-4 years of coaching, can you?
There are a million kids with the ability to be in the NFL. If they go to a system where they get coached up and fits them, they will have a much better chance at reaching their potential.
If they sign with Ty and get shit coaching, you will hardly have a clue they had any potential at all.
In the end, coaching is like (at least) a multiplier. If Sid's ability is a 1, and your coaches are a .7 or a 3.0 it makes a gigantic difference how he comes out.
It is truly impossible to tell what Sid's original number was and our coaching number is until we have a good amount of data.
Right now, my guess is we have great coaching and certain coaches of ours do a great job of coaching kids up to their maximum potential.
I agree with all of this, so not sure what we are arguing about.
All I am saying is Pete should get credit for recruiting elite players that are under appreciated at the time by his competitors. It's a good skill to have.
Jones' offer list was UW, San Jose St, and Utah. So the coaches of the world were basically all a hard "no thanks." I believe that would make him a DDY 1?
But that's if the only things considered are stars/offers, which is an incomplete picture.
Was Jones really a below average corner? No, of course not. Coaches -- elite coaches -- whiffed on their evaluation.
Not sure why you think it doesn't make sense to go back and acknowledge that actually Jones was a 5 star caliber player who, for whatever reason, was overlooked. Except by Washington.
In literally any system there are errors. Do I think Scout could be better? Yes.
Do I think college coaches are smart and offer all the right guys? No.
Do I think Sid was a 4-star level prospect at the time? (Yes and I said so on here and dawgman possibly)
Do I think our coaching brought him from a 4 to 5 star level? Yes.
All of that does not say that the errors are particularly systematic; that rankings at the end of the class aren't a decent indicator of where you are relatively speaking (I have always favored a tiered approach rather than a rankings approach); or that the year Sid came out, we wouldn't have taken other guys in front of him.
Part of this is a misunderstanding of numbers. Everyone roughly agrees on who the top 10 guys are on the west coast at CB. But beyond that, there are a bunch of guys that have vastly different abilities. Our staff is good at identifying those guys I guess.
But let's understand two things:
1) We aren't pumping out a bunch of first rounders who were 3 stars at RB, WR, TE, OL, DL or LB. Which shows you that Lake's coaching effect might be pretty impressive (in which case it makes no sense to re-rank given that coaching was the reason for the difference).
2) Lake would've rather had Adoree and Adarius Picklet than Sid.
So you can't really disentangle them once they've had 3-4 years of coaching, can you?
There are a million kids with the ability to be in the NFL. If they go to a system where they get coached up and fits them, they will have a much better chance at reaching their potential.
If they sign with Ty and get shit coaching, you will hardly have a clue they had any potential at all.
In the end, coaching is like (at least) a multiplier. If Sid's ability is a 1, and your coaches are a .7 or a 3.0 it makes a gigantic difference how he comes out.
It is truly impossible to tell what Sid's original number was and our coaching number is until we have a good amount of data.
Right now, my guess is we have great coaching and certain coaches of ours do a great job of coaching kids up to their maximum potential.
I don't disagree with any of this. What I would also say is that I think our staff does a well above average job of identifying talent/system fit/desire/whatever they are looking for in a recruit when the recruit isn't elite.
We might not be pumping out a ton of 3 star draft picks from other positions but we're not doing that at DB either (just Jones and King so far). But we are producing some 3 star draft picks at DL (Vea and Gaines), WR (Pettis), LB (Azeem, Bierria) and maybe OL (not sure if Eldrencamp gets picked but I think he will, not sure about Shelton either but he's certainly developed better than I ever imagined...I think he was actually a 2 star IIRC).
Lake's a superstar, not arguing he's not, just saying as a whole it seems we do a very good to great job of development and a very good job of identification (I know some of those draft picks listed weren't recruited by this staff). You put those two things together and you can produce elite results even without a ton of elite kids.
The challenge, of course, is keeping the staff together and/or replacing them with equal talent. We're going to lose Lake at some point, and who knows how long until someone plucks Bush for OC (like Lake he's going to be a HC one day).
It makes no sense to "re rank" recruiting classes. They are ranked at the time because they generally reflect how badly the players were wanted during that recruiting cycle.
Sure, some kids are underrated, etc, but in general star averages are good approximations of how well you did vs your competitors.
Everything else is coaching.
I'm surprised to see DDY make such a silly argument. I guess he's indeed drinking again.
It makes no sense to NOT rerank classes based on performance, that's how you know if your evaluation processes are working or not.
Pete's are.
The problem with relying on stars because they reflect interest is that there are differences in how coaches evaluate. Pete watched the same film as USC on pili, you don't think it makes sense to check in in a few years to see who was right?
Re-Ranking recruiting classes down the line is a reflection of the coaches ability to coach. I love it for that, that's what the whole Jesse Callier thing is all about.
Brandon Pili sucks right now, if he gets good at USC it tells me they coached him up really well.
It's not just the coaches ability to coach. It's also their ability, as recruiters, to identify talent and identify players who will work thrive in their system.
Yup, and I trust them so much at their ability to evaluate talent that that is one of the reasons I hate to see us miss guys that they offered before the guys we offered late.
I love all the guys we got late, they are all really talented kids and with the way we coach they should develop great. But I can still wish we could've seen them coach up the elite guys that we missed on, that's all.
You and I are in agreement on this point. However, no school is going to get every top kid. I do think part of "recruiting" is being able to find guys that might be a little under the radar, but you recognize their potential in your system
Sidney Jones is a great example. We didn't have to fight off USC or Bama for him. We were his best offer. A couple years of coaching was not the difference between him being a bust and a first round NFL prospect. He had that potential from the get-go. Lake gets "recruiting kudos" for recognizing that.
It makes no sense to "re rank" recruiting classes. They are ranked at the time because they generally reflect how badly the players were wanted during that recruiting cycle.
Sure, some kids are underrated, etc, but in general star averages are good approximations of how well you did vs your competitors.
Everything else is coaching.
I'm surprised to see DDY make such a silly argument. I guess he's indeed drinking again.
It makes no sense to NOT rerank classes based on performance, that's how you know if your evaluation processes are working or not.
Pete's are.
The problem with relying on stars because they reflect interest is that there are differences in how coaches evaluate. Pete watched the same film as USC on pili, you don't think it makes sense to check in in a few years to see who was right?
Re-Ranking recruiting classes down the line is a reflection of the coaches ability to coach. I love it for that, that's what the whole Jesse Callier thing is all about.
Brandon Pili sucks right now, if he gets good at USC it tells me they coached him up really well.
It's not just the coaches ability to coach. It's also their ability, as recruiters, to identify talent and identify players who will work thrive in their system.
Yup, and I trust them so much at their ability to evaluate talent that that is one of the reasons I hate to see us miss guys that they offered before the guys we offered late.
I love all the guys we got late, they are all really talented kids and with the way we coach they should develop great. But I can still wish we could've seen them coach up the elite guys that we missed on, that's all.
You and I are in agreement on this point. However, no school is going to get every top kid. I do think part of "recruiting" is being able to find guys that might be a little under the radar, but you recognize their potential in your system
Sidney Jones is a great example. We didn't have to fight off USC or Bama for him. We were his best offer. A couple years of coaching was not the difference between him being a bust and a first round NFL prospect. He had that potential from the get-go. Lake gets "recruiting kudos" for recognizing that.
The credit for recruiting Sid Jones belongs to Sark and his DB coach. Jones was really contrived to them even though he was committed to Utah.
It makes no sense to "re rank" recruiting classes. They are ranked at the time because they generally reflect how badly the players were wanted during that recruiting cycle.
Sure, some kids are underrated, etc, but in general star averages are good approximations of how well you did vs your competitors.
Everything else is coaching.
I'm surprised to see DDY make such a silly argument. I guess he's indeed drinking again.
It makes no sense to NOT rerank classes based on performance, that's how you know if your evaluation processes are working or not.
Pete's are.
The problem with relying on stars because they reflect interest is that there are differences in how coaches evaluate. Pete watched the same film as USC on pili, you don't think it makes sense to check in in a few years to see who was right?
Re-Ranking recruiting classes down the line is a reflection of the coaches ability to coach. I love it for that, that's what the whole Jesse Callier thing is all about.
Brandon Pili sucks right now, if he gets good at USC it tells me they coached him up really well.
It's not just the coaches ability to coach. It's also their ability, as recruiters, to identify talent and identify players who will work thrive in their system.
Yup, and I trust them so much at their ability to evaluate talent that that is one of the reasons I hate to see us miss guys that they offered before the guys we offered late.
I love all the guys we got late, they are all really talented kids and with the way we coach they should develop great. But I can still wish we could've seen them coach up the elite guys that we missed on, that's all.
You and I are in agreement on this point. However, no school is going to get every top kid. I do think part of "recruiting" is being able to find guys that might be a little under the radar, but you recognize their potential in your system
Sidney Jones is a great example. We didn't have to fight off USC or Bama for him. We were his best offer. A couple years of coaching was not the difference between him being a bust and a first round NFL prospect. He had that potential from the get-go. Lake gets "recruiting kudos" for recognizing that.
Seems like the elite programs year in and year out (Top 10) get most every kid they want or a close clone.
Then they tell the 3 stars to fuck off about a week before the LOI's are faxed.
Comments
Hmmmm.
The Jesse Callier ratings are about assessing how much your program improved a kid. It's not really that complicated to follow...
Kids have some level of ability coming out of high school. Then they go to college and they either blossom a lot or regress, or stay about the same.
When you start seeing positive changes in Jesse Callier rankings (meaning they came in as a 3 and left as a 5 like Sid Jones) that implies two things that are impossible to fully disentangle: 1 - we got the kid to improve considerably and 2 - he was maybe better than his rating and we did a good job evaluating the kid.
Re-ranking classes makes no sense because you cannot disentangle those two factors by looking at performance on the field over 4 years.
The best information about a kid's abilities coming out of HS is how many experts (all the college coaches in the nation) feel he's worthy of a scholarship. So, re-ranking something that is effectively supposed to determine how good he was coming out of HS is dumb 4-years later.
Sure, sometimes coaches will miss and sometimes coaches will over-like a particular kid.
But the offers are still the BEST information about how good a kid is coming out of HS.
So - re-ranking classes is tantamount to saying coaching is not an important variable in development and that whatever a kid's 'talent-level' is was fixed during his senior year of HS. And saying that is FS.
Here's who we've offered so far for 2018
QB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
RB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
WR - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
TE - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
OL - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
DL - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
BUCK - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
LB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
DB - A bunch of 4 and 5 stars.
Once they start turning us down, we will go down the list to guys who are not wanted by as many big time programs and are easier to get. Fortunately Pete and staff have a good history of picking winners from those kids.
However, we offer 90% of the same kids that USC, UCLA, Stanford, Michigan, etc. does. If they all said yes, we'd have a class of top 100 players.
But because that doesn't happen, we don't get only 4 and 5 stars.
I can't think of a single kid in this last class who we offered in the first wave of offers who wasn't a 4 or 5 star kid. Not one.
They do the same thing in pro sports with the draft.
Of course coaching, development, injuries, off field issues, etc are factors.
You must be hanging around Tequilla's too much and trying to be the smartest guy on a board full of dummies. And the tl,dr post.
But I think your premise -- that coaching/talent can't be disentangled -- is incorrect. Especially when it comes to elite players.
Coaching matters, but no coach in the world is turning a tub of lard into a first round draft pick. Those players have elite talent the second they show up on campus. It's not magically discovered because coach lake can teach quick twitch muscles how to engage.
Sydney jones XVXIII being a 1st/2nd round pick categorically means he was underrated in the star system. There's no way around that.
Which again, shows that (thankfully) our staff is exceptional at actually evaluating teen boys. And three years in we have lots of data points that show Pete is skilled at finding "5 star" athletes who are not recognized as such by teen boy stalkers and other coaches.
This is crucial because we are never going to excel at recruiting the recognized 5 stars (even though we make runs at most of them), so we need the competitive advantage of being able to identify 5 star talents that are undervalued by the star system.
And jones is a perfect example of that and a caution that tbs ratings are just one factor in identifying elite players.
Sydney jones was the 84th ranked corner in the country according to scout.
But by all means pick this as your hill to die on in defense of Brandon huffman's talent evaluation skills.
@CokeGreaterThanPepsi put me and DDY in the octagon and let us fight to death over stars on the pod. No wheelchairs allowed.
Jones' offer list was UW, San Jose St, and Utah. So the coaches of the world were basically all a hard "no thanks." I believe that would make him a DDY 1?
But that's if the only things considered are stars/offers, which is an incomplete picture.
Was Jones really a below average corner? No, of course not. Coaches -- elite coaches -- whiffed on their evaluation.
Not sure why you think it doesn't make sense to go back and acknowledge that actually Jones was a 5 star caliber player who, for whatever reason, was overlooked. Except by Washington.
Do I think college coaches are smart and offer all the right guys? No.
Do I think Sid was a 4-star level prospect at the time? (Yes and I said so on here and dawgman possibly)
Do I think our coaching brought him from a 4 to 5 star level? Yes.
All of that does not say that the errors are particularly systematic; that rankings at the end of the class aren't a decent indicator of where you are relatively speaking (I have always favored a tiered approach rather than a rankings approach); or that the year Sid came out, we wouldn't have taken other guys in front of him.
Part of this is a misunderstanding of numbers. Everyone roughly agrees on who the top 10 guys are on the west coast at CB. But beyond that, there are a bunch of guys that have vastly different abilities. Our staff is good at identifying those guys I guess.
But let's understand two things:
1) We aren't pumping out a bunch of first rounders who were 3 stars at RB, WR, TE, OL, DL or LB. Which shows you that Lake's coaching effect might be pretty impressive (in which case it makes no sense to re-rank given that coaching was the reason for the difference).
2) Lake would've rather had Adoree and Adarius Picklet than Sid.
So you can't really disentangle them once they've had 3-4 years of coaching, can you?
There are a million kids with the ability to be in the NFL. If they go to a system where they get coached up and fits them, they will have a much better chance at reaching their potential.
If they sign with Ty and get shit coaching, you will hardly have a clue they had any potential at all.
In the end, coaching is like (at least) a multiplier. If Sid's ability is a 1, and your coaches are a .7 or a 3.0 it makes a gigantic difference how he comes out.
It is truly impossible to tell what Sid's original number was and our coaching number is until we have a good amount of data.
Right now, my guess is we have great coaching and certain coaches of ours do a great job of coaching kids up to their maximum potential.
All I am saying is Pete should get credit for recruiting elite players that are under appreciated at the time by his competitors. It's a good skill to have.
We might not be pumping out a ton of 3 star draft picks from other positions but we're not doing that at DB either (just Jones and King so far). But we are producing some 3 star draft picks at DL (Vea and Gaines), WR (Pettis), LB (Azeem, Bierria) and maybe OL (not sure if Eldrencamp gets picked but I think he will, not sure about Shelton either but he's certainly developed better than I ever imagined...I think he was actually a 2 star IIRC).
Lake's a superstar, not arguing he's not, just saying as a whole it seems we do a very good to great job of development and a very good job of identification (I know some of those draft picks listed weren't recruited by this staff). You put those two things together and you can produce elite results even without a ton of elite kids.
The challenge, of course, is keeping the staff together and/or replacing them with equal talent. We're going to lose Lake at some point, and who knows how long until someone plucks Bush for OC (like Lake he's going to be a HC one day).
Then they tell the 3 stars to fuck off about a week before the LOI's are faxed.