What happens when you take a head coach who is an ELITE evaluator and developer of talent and give him access to a reasonable helping of top tier talent annually? We are about to find out.
Despite the FS takes on Petersen as a coach and recruiter that were being propagated by Griswold and his merry band of retards, there was ample evidence that Petersen was in rarefied air as an evluator and developer of talent before he even set foot on campus at UW.
The 2009-2011 Boise State teams are three of the top 4 Sagarin rating teams from outside the Power 5 conferences of all time. Focusing on just the 2010 team, which Sagarin rates as the best non-Power 5 team ever, the four recruiting cycles leading up to that season had BSU ranked #63,#87, #69, & #110 nationally, per 24/7 Sports composite. Over that period, BSU signed 75 recruits, of which 46 were 3-star ranked. The rest were 2-star or unranked.
Yet the 2010 BSU squad finished #6 in the Sagarin rankings and #4 in Sagarin's "pure points" Predictor ranking. It also finished #9 in the AP and #7 in the Coaches' Poll.
Of the players on the roster during that season, 11 were selected in the NFL draft (including four who were selected in the top 3 rounds),17 went on to appear on an NFL roster, and 10 were on NFL rosters in at least four separate seasons.
Looking beyond just the 2010 team, Petersen's teams produced NFL draft picks at a rate that was far in excess of what one would expect based on recruiting rankings.
Looking only at players that were recruited during Petersen's tenure as the head coach and spent the majority of their careers with Petersen leading the program, there were 14 draft picks, including 8 in the top three rounds. Of them, only a single player (a JC recruit) was ranked 4-stars or above. Half were ranked as 2-stars, or unranked.
The odds of this being some kind of random chance event are essentially zero.
More recently, the 2016 and 2017 Washington teams have massively overachieved compared to the talent (on paper) on the teams. Based on the 247 Composite rankings for the talent on hand, the Huskies have been essentially in line with the Power 5 average, yet Petersen has a 22-5 record overall (15-3 in P12 play) for the past two seasons, with a CFB Playoff appearance in '16.
Sure, the Pac-12 has been dreck during that period (especially in 2017) and we are all chapped by each and every one of those losses, but that is still a record of over-achievement vs. "on paper" talent that is pretty extraordinary.
But here is the best part...
After a few struggles during the 2015 and 2016 recruiting cycles (not to mention a difficult transition class in 2014), Petersen appears to be figuring this recruiting shit out:
We all are waiting on pins and needles to see if Petersen can pull off the incredible coup of closing on Tuli and Martin, but whether that happens or not, things are coming together incredibly well in a big picture sense already.
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If he could somehow do that with only 4 and 5 star guys, which is basically impossible assuming the ratings are accurate, UW would win every year barring disaster.
Just a thought.
And now it's really happening.
That was at a time when a lot of dumbfucks were arguing CP was Hawkins/Koetter redux and one special man child was continually emphasizing that CP wasn't in the WAC anymore!
Short of hiring Nick Saban or Urbans Myer, I can't imagine a coaching hire for the UW that could have been more obviously a home run. And it wasn't very difficult to see at the time.
It's almost as if rigorously examining evidence can help you make better predictions about the future.
It’s amazing how the TUFF people that demanded better when we sucked can’t hamdle tough conversations or opinions when they doog the fuck out that everything will be ok until it isn’t
But you think it is worth it
And then Texas' recruiting started to drop off.
Herman has a monster 2018 class. He better make something of it.