Tom Loy crystal balls and new 247 feature
Tom Loy went on a crystal ball run this morning putting in crystal balls to Michigan for RB Donovan Edwards, DL George Rooks, and ‘22 targets Tyler Morris and Kaleb Brown.
However, 247 has a new feature where you can see the confidence of each crystal ball to differentiate between random placeholders and legit future destinations. So for all of Loy’s 4 picks, he puts a low confidence rating meaning that it’s a random shot in the dark with little meaning about where the recruit is trending.
So far this feature is free and seems like a useful addition to the crystal ball feature.
Why would anyone care about someone’s “low confidence” pick? That sounds little better than a guess! Kind of a silly feature, IMHO.
Right! I think it’s dumb to put in a low confidence pick, but if someone puts in a crystal ball with average/high confidence, I’m more inclined to pay attention
Yeah I agree. People will put in low confidence picks, feel free to switch them around often, and if they miss it'll be "whatevs, I said it was low confidence".
It will mean more picks overall, and therefore more "excitement", and more clicks for 247. That seems like the real goal. It's a pretty good site, I subscribe, but can't escape the army of hired MBA grads plotting to remove every dollar possible from bank account it can reach.
I look at it from this perspective:
The "old way" you would just see a crystal ball and think "ooo, that's great news". This new "confidence" feature lets the average Joe see which crystal balls are actually something to be excited about and which ones are just guesses.
Seems kinda neat to me
Doesn't that defeat the purpose of issuing a "Crystal Ball?" Like, the term is shorthand for predicting the future... As was said earlier, why would anyone make a prediction about the future that they had little confidence in? Obvious clickbait, and now it makes me feel like the "Crystal Ball" has even less meaning than it did before.
Agree. This is getting out of hand.
In principle I agree with you. That being said, over the past several years Crystal Balls have been submitted and yet consistently change up though signing day. Because of this, I've started taking a Crystal Ball as more of an indication of where the recruit is headed, rather than a 100% guarantee...thus the "usefulness" of this newest "feature".
Overall you're correct, it's all just click-bait to get people to follow recruiting. But what else are we going to argue about during the off-season?
Thank you!
I've always assumed that was the case before as well, when you'd see some random guy from a fan site put in a crystal ball for a recruit and it felt a bit random. It's weird for a national guy to say he has weak confidence, but I guess there's a bit more transparency than the more binary nature of balls beforehand. But yeah, "I don't know, UM's got a chance"-type vibe from a low-confidence ball seems useless except to get cli...oh, that's the reason.
Would you rather have a three tier system of:
- no pick
- pick without relevance
- pick, but I really mean it guys
Creating a tool which aggregates up kind of requires a pick with low confidence option.
Yeah I have no problem with this. Sure, someone putting in a low confidence crystal ball to us isn't as good as a high confidence one, but it's far from meaningless. This means Tom Loy doesn't feel strongly enough to put in a high confidence pick, but if he were to guess where these guys would go as of whatever knowledge he has today, he'd pick Michigan. Considering even the most confident crystal ball isn't written in stone, I think this is good. "Hands to the fire, I'd pick _____, but I'm not super sure about it" is still more useful to us as fans than him not putting a crystal ball in at all.
I can say that there have been quite a few cases where I've seen tons of kids crystal balled ridiculously early to osu for no reason whatsoever just to have an early pick in that makes it look like osu is the favorite. Clever marketing if kids are glancing at other kids crystal balls and start to think "oh, osu is in on this kid too". I don't know why we don't start doing it.
This had me curious. Looked at Rocco Spindler’s crystal balls predictions. 50/50 between Michigan and Notre Dame, but 7 are high confidence for ND and 3 are low confidence for the good guys. Keeping my fingers crossed
Notre Dame has always been overconfident.
You hit the nail on the head.
I have been listening to a lot of CFB podcasts in this downtime period including some MSU and ND pods (OSU is too depressing). Just this week I was listening to an episode of "One foot down" and they were talking about how ND fans will "forget all about Will Shipley" if they land Donovan Edwards. They spent 5-10 minutes on this ----- all the while I am thinking that I have never even heard ND mentioned when it comes to his recruiting and despite what they may think - they aint Bama, Clemson or OSU in regard to coming in a grabbing a kid late in the process.
Don’t worry about that. A lot of the Notre Dame Crystal Balls are from some mediocre insiders like Tom Loy who thinks every recruit offered is going to Notre Dame. And Bill Kurelic who likes to play follow the leader when putting in crystal balls.
Loy's trying to reverse-Loy us.
Ole Tom Loy basically telling us what we already know about his crystal balls.... They don't mean much.
Regarding this new "confidence" meter, Josh Newkirk just put in a crystal ball for Drew Kendall to UM with a confidence of 9. So we got that going for us.
So there should be no more "Foggy", I guess.
They can now just rest it on a school with a "2" like Trieu did with Buddin to PSU, but not like the "10-Lock" Newkirk just did for Kendall to Boston College.
A "6" must mean that a school is leading and has some steam but they're still taking visits.
An "8" means a school is leading and no more visits.
I imagine this new development is going to make recruiting somewhat more strenuous on the recruits with the sites fishing for info. Wondering what info someone might have gotten to give a higher number than someone else.
Brilliant move for them from a business standpoint for all the constant buzz it's gonna create. A+
__________
I'm so glad this came after the Christopher and Todd ordeal. I'm guessing they would have been an "8" to Michigan and made the fallout that much worse.
Edit: Just that quick, Newkirk switched Kendall from a "10-lock" to BC to a "9" for Michigan.
Newkirk's is a 9 to Michigan for Kendall
If what you're saying is right (Newkirk switched Kendall from a "10-lock" to BC to a "9" for Michigan) how useful is this?
If someone is a "lock" the site should prevent you from switching, by definition. Might make you more cautious about using it wrongly (as it appears to have been, in this case).
When I went to check it out, it had that Buddin one and Kendall to BC. After I commented I saw the comment before mine, checked back, and it had the Michigan one.
Maybe it just said BC before the conversion to the new format and that's what it converted to, then he just switched it.
The BC prediction was an accident
I mean if we’re going to base a system on the whims of 17 year old kids, “lock” shouldn’t even BE an option 7 months before they can sign a LOI.
Yes
No
Maybe So!
Seems like a bad and arbitrary new feature.
I don't think the Edwards ball means much, but Tyler Morris and George Rooks are probably both indictments that they don't think hell end up at Notre Dame.
A low confidence crystal ball, especially from Tom Loy, doesn't mean much to me
Nice way to differentiate your balls!
I woulda gone with:
clean = low confidence
dirty = high confidence
Blair Angulo the Midwest Recruiting Director for 247 put his Quintin Somerville Michigan CB confidence at a 8/10. Wiltfong put his Andrel Anthony Michigan CB at a 6/10 confidence. Sam Webb put his Jaydon Hood Michigan CB at a 7/10 confidence. Biggins put his Cristian Dixon Michigan CB at a 4/10 but Webb put his at a 6/10 confidence. Finally Allen Trieu put his Garret Dellinger CB to LSU confidence at 5/10. Trieu recently said that while LSU does have the lead that it’s not a very big lead.
The New Feature is for click bait. By putting in a ball for low confidence it peaks our interest. But doesnt hold the baller accountable. Stupid and smart.
What a dumb feature. Report on the facts. If you got a sense of directional wind, call it that and leave it be. All that really matters is the signed LOI. Everything else is drama.