TomVH: How Michigan's Recruiting Compares
The questions about whether the Michigan position was an elite job for a coach presumably sparked the same question about recruiting. Whether high school athletes were still viewing Michigan as an elite program, and what the reason was that the Wolverines were getting passed up for other schools.
Magnus at Touch the Banner recently diagnosed where Michigan's offerees signed, and I wanted to expand on that. In his article he shows where kids ended up signing that had a Michigan offer. I wanted to look at how many total prospects Michigan was extending offers to, how many of those offered prospects ended up committed, and how those numbers compared to other top programs in the country.
There will definitely be some faults with these numbers, because I'm assuming that Rivals offer lists are 100% accurate, which they're not. To be fair though I will just go off the numbers that Rivals reports to give a consistent analysis. The chart below shows the numbers for the 2011 recruiting season, how many total offers were extended by each school, the total commitments they received, and the percentage of commits they received to the number of offers extended.
| School | Total Offers | Total Commitments | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio State | 64 | 23 | 35.93% |
| MSU | 75 | 21 | 28% |
| Penn State | 63 | 16 | 25.3% |
| SDSU (Hoke) | 108 | 23 | 21.29% |
| FSU | 138 | 29 | 21.01% |
| Iowa | 110 | 23 | 20.9% |
| Alabama | 108 | 22 | 20.37% |
| Auburn | 161 | 24 | 14.9% |
| Wisconsin | 142 | 20 | 14.08% |
| Florida | 140 | 19 | 13.5% |
| Michigan | 175 | 20 | 11.42% |
Again, this is all dependent on the fact that this information is either accurate, or consistently inaccurate. Either way, I don't think the numbers are that far off for each school to make a dramatic difference in the numbers. Magnus reported in his article that Michigan actually handed out 190 offers, which would drop their percentage even lower to 10.5%.
Florida State and Florida's higher offer numbers can most likely be attributed to the amount of talent and competition they have in close proximity. Rivals says there were 508 recruits in the 2011 class reporting offers from the state of Florida. That's a lot, and it explains some of their numbers. Auburn likely extended a lot of their offers before their season started, and there were still question marks about how it would turn out. I would expect their number of offers extended to somewhat decrease, although they are in heavy competition with Alabama and the southern schools.
Probably the best comparison to show where Michigan has gone is with Ohio State. Both schools recruit locally as a foundation, but have a large national presence. Ohio State has done an outstanding job, from what these numbers look to tell us, evaluating the talent that they want and getting those prospects to commit. Ohio State landed almost 36% of the prospects that they offered in 2011, which is a huge difference between the 11% from Michigan. These numbers say a few things about what has happened to Michigan's recruiting efforts. Either the Michigan coaches didn't land the prospects that they initially wanted, or that their game plan was to cast a wide net and hope to reel in some of the kids that they gave offers to.
To be fair, the argument can and should be made that there is historically more talent within Ohio, which might make it easier for Ohio State to land the kids they want. The same argument can be made that there's enough talent within the midwest that Ohio State and Michigan could each get some of the kids they offer. Let's then compare where Michigan used to be compared to Ohio State.
| Year | Total Offers | Commitments | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005* | 56 | 23 | 41% |
| 2006 | 79 | 19 | 24% |
| 2007 | 102 | 20 | 19% |
| Year | Total Offers | Commitments | Percentages |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005* | 54 | 18 | 33% |
| 2006 | 67 | 20 | 29.8% |
| 2007 | 65 | 15 | 23% |
*I'm assuming that the numbers from 2005 are probably not very accurate because of the information that was available then. However, I'm still assuming we're comparing consistently inaccurate info for that year.
You'll notice that the numbers are much more similar, and this even given during 2007 when there was a lot of noise about Lloyd Carr retiring. That was somewhat of a tough year for Michigan recruiting wise because of the negative recruiting, yet the gap still wasn't more than 4% from what Ohio State was landing. You see the highest number of total offers given out by Michigan was in 2007 with 102, which is nowhere near the 175 RIvals reports for 2011.
Ohio State has consistently stayed below the 100 total offer mark, and has been able to land a good percentage of prospects offered. The numbers displayed by 2011, and even 2010 show us that Michigan's recruiting efforts have not only changed, but the way recruits are perceiving Michigan has as well. The data is too vague to determine if the blame lies within the people selling the program, the pitch made for the program, the overall recruiting plan, or if prospects see a better opportunity elsewhere at this time.
If Brady Hoke wants to get Michigan back to where they were, he needs to have an exact recruiting plan in place. Not only do they need to identify the needs position wise, but they need to fully evaluate each prospect before an offer is given out. That can be done through academic evaluation, athletic evaluation, junior days, unofficial visits, and what questions are asked by the coaches while talking to prospects. The recruiting game has become harder than it ever was, and the coaches need to find the battles that they can win. They need to find the prospects that fit what they're looking for athletically and academically, and focus on that specific group. Casting a wide net and spreading out your time amongst a large group often leads to recruits that haven't fully bought into the idea of your program, or are left wanting more from the relationship that is being built. Recruits want to know that they're wanted, and they also want to know that they're headed into a winning program, which leads us to the other way that Hoke can bring back the recruiting perception. On Saturdays.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:12 AM ^
Tom do you feel this is more of a perception issue? i.e. it looks bad to throw out a ton of offers and strike out a lot?
What was your overall impression of RR's recruiting ability? We'll never know what would have happened had he stayed, but if RR keeps Dee and a few others isn't that a top 15ish class?
I guess what I'm saying is do you feel that building Michigan's recruiting prestige back up is a long term project? or something that could be "fixed" with 1 or 2 excellent classes?
February 9th, 2011 at 3:38 AM ^
If BH can go 10-2 and play in a BCS bowl, then I think it will be a quick fix. If we finish 6-6 it may be a long term project!
February 9th, 2011 at 3:51 AM ^
That's a very ambiguous view of success. 6-6 would be a disappointment but even if we go 7-5 or 8-4 (which I'd personally be happy with), you're going to have to view how we lost the games we lost and how we won the games we won. How did players progress? What's the team's attitude overall? etc.
Many teams have gone from a 7-5 season to competing for a national title in one year (not that I think we will, but it happens). The process of evaluation has to stretch out over a couple of years and includes a plethora of factors. You can't really see how long it will take before a team is great based on one season's record.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:13 AM ^
I agree with you but I think we're talking about two different things. I'm not talking about can the team itself be successful in the short term, but can we get back to competing at a top 10 recruiting class every year level?
Yes success on the field will affect recruiting positively in the long term, but can Hoke, Mattison and Co. hit the ground running before success on the field comes, or after one 8-4 season? or will it take multiple years of 9-11 win seasons to convice the elite high school teenagers to come back to Michigan?
February 9th, 2011 at 7:37 AM ^
As someone else has already mentioned in this thread, there are plenty of schools who don't win that much AND who don't have as much to offer students in other facets like academics, facilities etc... that pretty consistently bring in top recruiting classes, Clemson for example.
Uncertainty breed uncertainty. The disruption to the program in the last few years did not help with recruiting, though RichRod did a pretty good job in that time, offers aside. If there is termoil in a program, it makes it less attractive to potential recruits. Drama is not good for development.
I think Hoke has shown so far that with the right tools ( a can of Snake Oil and Ray Lewis' DC) that he can get us strong recruits. With a full year to work on these kids, I fully anticipate a top 15 recruiting class next year. There is simply too much talent in the midwest this year for Michigan to drop much below that.
Now, if we go 6-6, that might make things a bit tougher. Our schedule is pretty favorable however this year and I think we should be able to go 8-4 or 9-3. We WILL get at least one win against our three biggest rivals.
Put it on your calendar. UofM over Sparty in East Lansing on October 15th!
February 9th, 2011 at 11:01 AM ^
When you compare a school like Clemson to Michigan, I think you're off. One would argue that a school like Clemson has a lot more talent in close proximity to the school. We all know that a lot of kids' decisions have a lot to do with proximity to home. In addition, the weather conditions at a school like Clemson are far more favorable to Michigan, let's face it. Michigan just doesn't have the "intangibles" that most SEC or west coast schools have (girls, weather, blah blah blah).
However, the main attraction to Michigan is that it is the winningest program in all of college football, period. And when you don't win anymore, all the luster is gone. We can all say, "well the academics!", and you may be right, but to a recruit, it's splitting hairs. Is there really that much of a difference? Regardless of what school it is, getting a degree from a large program is going to carry weight when you apply for jobs whether its Michigan or (insert BCS school here).
Look at a school like Texas (sans last season): it is a winner (it actually competes for national championships!), it usually isn't deathly cold and snowing, girls!, and academics comparable to Michigan. You can see overall that it would be more attractive to a recruit.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:26 PM ^
I was at U-M for a while and I think I remember seeing a few girls through the daily blinding snowsorms.
February 9th, 2011 at 5:44 AM ^
...I could never be happy with an M team going 7-5. This would likely mean losing to MSU, OSU and dwelling at the bottom of the B10 again. This result would make the program a much tougher sell to kids who look (arguably, too much) at wins and losses and if the program is on the right track.
At first blush, TomVH's stats are indicative of a program that seems to have a perception problem. The big question is, how much of this perception problem relates directly to the instability and negative PR of RichRod versus a less identifiable reason.
My quarter says that the RichRod media circus was the largest reason for recruits shunning the program to the degree they have. I'll go even further by saying many of these kids weren't so worried about whether RR would remain in the program as they were worried about becoming tarnished themselves.
To me, this is to some degree verified by the relative success Hoke had as a handicapped coach coming in and salvaging a pretty damned good class. Had RR stayed, I'm not convinced he would have faired as well.
As always, I qualify my remarks with a big, "But what the hell do I know??"
February 9th, 2011 at 12:45 PM ^
In Braveheart, Edward Longshanks points out that no one will fear the English unless they can subdue their own island. So it is for UM: Sparty must be put back into his little green place for us to be feared and respected as we used to be.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:53 AM ^
I think the advantage that you mentioned OSU having is a huge advantage. The state of Ohio would probably be considered the fourth most talent rich state in the country football-wise, yet there is one BCS school in the entire state. That situation exists no where else. Michigan will still recruit well in Ohio, and this staff has a chance to get a top five guy from Ohio to come to Michigan in Chris Wormley. But it'll always be a huge advantage in OSU's favor.
As far as the previous coaching staff, they had a lot of in-roads in Florida and the south in general. That's where many of RR's best players came from, and even when we weren't playing very well he held the interest of many of Florida's better players. Some postera have stated that we are not the attraction we used to be, which is a very short-sighted view. Recruiting success can change completely in a year, and there are no constants that you can rely on pertaining to recruiting. It's the most fluid, obvectively cluster-fucked situation in all of sports, which is one of the reasons we love following it.
Obviously winning works wonders when it comes to recruiting (i.e. Auburn's finish this year), but even on a smaller scale like a school such as UCF, who was literally the worst program in the country a few years ago and who are now winning 9-10 games a year and pulling in three of four 4* recruits every year, you can make a relatively quick turn around. Michigan has a much higher chance of a quick bounce back than UCF. Winning obivously isn't the only factor (i.e. Clemson, UNC, Miami), though, and Michigan has great pull in other areas of recruiting (Big House, academics, facilities, Ray Lewis' coach, etc.). I think we'll really see Hoke and co. go out into the midwest, pitch those aspects, and pull in a class that competes with OSU's, and a class that's made up of mainly midwestern guys in 2012.
Michigan doesn't have an obligation or a right to be good, but I mentioned in a thread yesterday that coaches can walk into a kid's house and say "we have academics, tradition, facilities, fans, etc. We have all of the tools to be great again, but we need players like you in order to do it." That's a very good pull for kids and parents, and by all accounts, Mattison and Hoke are the kind of coaches who know how to convince recruits that UM is a great opportunity. The downfall of a program in any facet can't be accomplished in a matter of three years, so we're going to have to wait and see what happens over the first few years of Hoke's tenure before deciding where exactly Michigan stands.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:13 AM ^
It's a huge advantage and they often have a number of kids locked up very early. So the remaining offers are really for very few spots. That throws the math off. LSU is in a very similar position to OSU.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:57 AM ^
February 9th, 2011 at 11:10 AM ^
Also, Brian Kelly went into Cincinnati and turned them into a winning team.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:59 AM ^
Yeah I completely forgt about Cincy. It doesn't look like they'll be competing for any of Ohio's top guys any time soon, though.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:34 AM ^
I grew up in Columbus and from my perspective, here is the deal. tOSU has absolutely NO competition. Ohio has 2 professional football teams that haven't been good/consistent for years, they have 1 professional basketball team that had Lebron for a few years and was horrible all other outside a couple in the Dougherty/Ehlo years, they have 2 MLB teams that have been inconsisten to poor recently, and 1 bad NHL team. Suckeye football is the only game in the state.
February 9th, 2011 at 5:16 AM ^
Where they were giving out scholis like it was candy on Halloween. Yikes. From what I can see on the surface, Hoke and his staff have a huge task to rehabilitate Michigan. The UM brand has been damaged and is in need of repair.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:01 PM ^
Brady Hoke: "This is Michigan for God's sakes".
Rehabilitation complete.
February 9th, 2011 at 6:14 AM ^
Up until recently, I believed Michigan sold itself as far as recruiting. Academics, the Big House...say the name "Michigan" and the pearly gates open and the recruit walks in. The numbers say otherwise. OSU has two huge advantages. The first, its location, is what it is.
The second is winning...three years of sub par performance has shot us in the foot and, obviously, helped OSU greatly. The RichRod factor is also what it is....simply don't know the type of sales job that was being done.
Hoke can do a lot to improve things, but better W-L's will help a ton. I also think the new style of offense may help too.
The number of offers relative to the number of recruits is very sobering and another reason to dispell the sense of security that we once had. The brand sells itself, but only so far.
February 9th, 2011 at 6:25 AM ^
A couple thoughts/inquiries jump into my head when I look at this data:
- What caused the significant jump in offers tendered from '05 to '06
- Why the apparent "offer palooza" following the very successful '06 season
- How does MSU come out with the 3rd lowest offers while closing at 28%
- When you over lap OUR offers with those of MSU/OSU/ND, how many kids did we offer that weren't offered by THOSE schools.
- How many kids that WEREN'T offered by those other schools excelled for us
Some of these questions would be difficult to answer without intimate knowledge of the entire process. However, on the surface? Ugh.
I do believe, thought, that Hoke will buck this trend.
February 9th, 2011 at 7:51 AM ^
Not sure if the nmbers are exact but directionally they tell a story.....
February 9th, 2011 at 9:10 AM ^
Thanks Tom! I think this confirms what we've all known for some time. But keep in mind that We are looking at these numbers after a historic 3 year run which ranks right up there with the worst on field Michigan football results ever endured by the program. I don't think it's a surprise that these recruiting numbers would reflect our on-field fotunes. If you go back just 5 years and look at the 2006 numbers I suspect you'd see a very different picture. The bottom line is Michigan recruiting has slipped (and the slip started before Rodriguez fot here btw). Winning cures all. Brady Hoke needs to take a long hard look at these numbers and implement a plan to counteract the trend. I would also add that Cornflakes Brown might have helped in this area. Not considering him is an opportunity missed...
February 9th, 2011 at 9:12 AM ^
One thing to consider is that both in 2007 and this year we were going through coaching changes. I suspect that when RR arrived he added 20 or so offers in the last few recruiting weeks of 2007. Hoke probably added a dozen this year.
I realize that that wouldn't make a significant difference, but it does skew the numbers.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:31 AM ^
The 2007 recruiting class that TomVH is talking about was Lloyd Carr's last recruiting class, which is why he says "there was a lot of noise about Lloyd Carr retiring"--not that it was a year of a coaching change. The Carr-to-Rodriguez coaching change class was 2008.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:21 AM ^
I seem to recall that a big difference between Carr and RR was that Lloyd made a lot of offers through the camp process, while RR was working the out of state pipelines, beating the bushes and workig a lot of recruits. This points to a difference in recruting strategy. Note that Sparty numbers look a lot like OSU-- Dantonio recruited with Tressel and likely built his strategy on the OSU model.
Seems likely that Hoke will be more like Carr. He can "touch" more kids and their coaches by developing a strong camp model. This helps in a number of ways-- provides an evaluation opportunity, helps develop local talent, improves network among coaches, provides young players with an awesome experience at Michigan. All of these factors should point to a lower offer/acceptance ratio and a more consistent talent base.
The piece that will put us over the top in my view will still be the abiility to recruit nationally and fill in some elite talent. I like the model of building your foundation first-- much like buiding your team from the line. Without the program consistency, there will be no big draw from elite players.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:40 AM ^
All that matters is winning on the field. We get to beating teams up , fix the defense also and things get back to norm. Let's go and kick Ohio State's ass this year !
February 9th, 2011 at 10:00 AM ^
February 9th, 2011 at 10:13 AM ^
Tom, I usually love your posts. I appreciate the hard work you put in. But, this attempt at statistical analysis to draw a conclusion about perceeption of the program is just too fundamentally flawed to be reasonably relied upon or even posted about.
First, obviously RR's method of throwing out "offers" was much different than Carr's approach. Apparently, RR was more like Florida and the SEC (and often went down there to compete for recruits). He threw out a blanket of offers.
That is similar to the method for Auburn, Florida, Alabama....are you saying those programs have lost perception amoung recruits? We competed in the south for the same kids that got those SEC offers, so why should our blanketing of offers be seen as a negative, while theirt strategy is fine and their perception from all accounts is strong?
Which makes me wonder why you compare us with OSU? The other teams you list have recruiting classes better than OSU (typically). OSU and PSU just do things the way Lloyd Carr did...focus on a handful of recruits.
I really don't see how acceptance rate shows how recruits perceive a school, especially since your chart shows that the HOTTEST schools in the country right now have about HALF the acceptance rate of OSU and MSU. Seriously, if the acceptance statistic were reliable at all for the conclusion that it reflects how kids see a program, then Michigan is in the same type of national failure in perception as Auburn, Alabama and Florida. Your attempt to distinguish each of those schools is weak, especially in light of the competition in this area and the fact that Michigan was part of the competition down south too.
(Plus, the 500 lb gorilla in the room is that many some schools offer the best kids regardless, and others only target those who they think reciprocate interest from the begining. PSU's accpetance rate may be high (and by your conclusion, their perception as well) simply because they go after kids they know already have a good perception of them. That variance in how schools approach offers makes the idea of an acceptance statistic almost meaningless....Also, some schools may make it clear to kids that a verbal offer is not the same as a written. Other schools may not.)
If the point of your post is that RR tried to recruit like an SEC school, then we can agree on that. If the point of your post is that acceptance percentage has any correlation to perception or reputation, then I think you are WAY off base.
I am not saying Michigan's perception is great or horrible, just that these stats don't answer the question better than a wild guess.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:54 AM ^
I agree completely. There certainly isn't a cause and effect between percentage of offers accepted and perception of eliteness, and I'm not even sure there's a correlation.
I know the recruiting board isn't exactly up to date and there are names that have been eliminated, but I'd be shocked if all 175 offerees were ever part of the board. Meaning even those in the know knew that there was no shot at some kids with offers, I'm willing to bet the coaching staff knew that too. I think the only thing that is clear from the data is that to the Rodriguez staff, an offer didn't amount to full on recruiting, whereas, if Ohio State makes a kid an offer, they're going to do all they can to get that particular offeree to commit. They are just different styles. One can argue that one method is better than the other, but it's hard to draw any conclusions beyond that.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:07 AM ^
This wasn't really meant to say yes the perception has changed because look at the number of offers they handed out, which is why I said in the post that the numbers are too vague to draw a specific conclusion from.
I think these numbers are interesting to look at what changed and what happened. Something wasn't working on one end or the other. I don't know what conclusion you want to draw from all this, but the fact that 175 (190) offers were extended by Michigan is somewhat strange.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:56 AM ^
I guess I just don't see it as all that strange. The recruiting road was tough because of coaching uncertainty, it would make sense that the staff would assume that they might have to look at a deeper pool of prospects this year. Last year we offered 146, according to Rivals, a jump to 175 doesn't seem out of ordinary considering the circumstances. I also wonder how many of the 175 or 190 was a result of the coaching change. You probably have a feel for this, but how many guys got offers from Hoke that didn't and wouldn't have from Rodriguez?
It is interesting information, and I remember the subject coming up on another school's message board.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:09 PM ^
It was strange to me because this was Rich Rod's third year with the program. In 2009, his first full class, they only extended 121 offers with 22 commits, then that number went up to 146 in 2010 with 27 commits, and now we're at 175-190 in 2011. That is probably the opposite of what it should have been.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:24 PM ^
RR said multiple times that there is a dearth of D-1 DT talent (I don't have a link for that). I also think that D was a hard sell for him. Given the spread targets on O and the D issues - that might explain his net being cast so wide.
I do think Hoke will trim this down - overall offers will probably increase for all programs.
There is just a ton of information available that wasn't even last year.
February 9th, 2011 at 7:18 PM ^
February 9th, 2011 at 12:35 PM ^
I think Peter's right. Tom's trying to get at something subjective via empricism, but there's too much subjectivity embedded in the numbers, which reflect variations in recruiting philospohies and needs as much as they could reflect perceptions of any given program. The commitment rate is a pretty meaningless derived metric because, given the range of the number of offers programs make, the variable of class size is insignificant. Compared to the variance in offer numbers, everybody's basically signing the same-sized classes. So the raw numbers of extended offers consitute the useful dataset here. How many offers does a school have to make, or how many is it willing to throw out there, in order to fill its slots?
What you could possibly make of these numbers is:
1. Michigan has clearly been less discriminating about extending offers in recent years.
2. Michigan has extended offers to a lot of players they never had any chance with (the inverse of OSU's situation, which is, alas, selective and effective). But you could come to the same conclusion just by looking at where the Top 100 have committed over the past 10 years.
It would be more telling to look at the how many Top 100 recruits U-M has offered over each of the past 10 years, and how many of them have we landed.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:03 AM ^
every coach has a network of HS coaches that they talk to routinely. Extending large amounts of offers preserves, starts and builds these relationships I would think.
Do the athletes really look at the perception of the program wrt to how many offers are on the table? I honestly don't know. I understand stretching the coaching staff - but much of the recruiting biz is now online - or progressively is getting there. Extending large amounts of offers doesn't tax a program like it would have in 2005. I would imagine this varies still by the tech chutzpah of individual coaching staffs.
As mentioned above - we are changing the style of play (again) which probably adds some offers to the pot with regime change.
The key stat, I would think is how many athletes you get on campus - either at Jr days, unofficials or as one of their 5 officials. I would like to see that stat. The coaches, I'm sure, are tracking their work vs. success ratio - but so much goes on under the radar - even with the enormous change in media coverage on recruiting.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:20 AM ^
I'd like to give some input here... perhaps the reason why our recruiting hit rate took such a large hit from 2005 to 2006 (and then 2007), it was said that Les Miles was telling recruits we were going head to head with that Lloyd Carr had Parkinsons and would be retiring soon.
A top recruit CB Jai Eugene who flipped from M to LSU, was supposedly told this by Miles, and supposedly for it, Bo was beyond irate, and told Miles he was never welcome back in Ann Arbor because of it. And if Miles was telling recruits this, this can be catastrophic in recruiting if it spreads among the top recruits since many of them talk. It'd be interesting to know how many recruits we were going head to head with LSU that year, that signed with LSU. Going from 41% to 24% is quite significant.
| Year | Total Offers | Commitments | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005* | 56 | 23 | 41% |
| 2006 | 79 | 19 | 24% |
| 2007 | 102 | 20 | 19% |
February 9th, 2011 at 10:30 AM ^
"there is historically more talent within Ohio, which might make it easier for Ohio State to land the kids they want."
Tom, but is only marginally true, that Ohio tends to have more talent than our state. BUT what is far more remarkable, is that OUR STATE OF MICHIGAN has two major programs in UofM and MSU, then a bunch of mid-majors like Central Mich, Western Mich, Eastern Mich. What does the State of Ohio have? One major in OSU, then Cinci and Toledo. WHOOPEE ! Fact is, if our state only had one major program like Ohio has, we'd crush them, and then the perception of the talent in Michigan would go WAY up.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:59 AM ^
Well....Ohio, in addition to having OSU, Cinci and Toledo, also have Akron, Kent St., Ohio and Miami...Xavier too if we were talking basketball....but that's all beside the point.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:34 AM ^
I admit that it's apparently not that difficult.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:51 AM ^
Felt like I was forgetting one. And even though I've been by Bowling Green's stadium/campus numerous times, I always associate Bowling Green State University with Bowling Green, Kentucky. Needless to say there's a shit ton of mid majors in Ohio.
February 9th, 2011 at 6:49 PM ^
Or at least there was. I used to stop there when driving south on I-75 back when Taco Bell was less common.
Yes, that's the big reason why I remembered them (that and last year's game).
February 10th, 2011 at 8:05 AM ^
I would be remiss if I didn't come to the defense of my wif'es hometown. Bowling Green is a nice small town with a downtown that has the old historic quaint feel to it. They have a historically good/great hockey program at the high school level. It is also the birthplace of THE Scott Hamilton! When we were dating (my wife and I, not Scott and I) Josh Harris led BGSU to a national ranking in 2002 and 2003 and would have been the best QB in the MAC if it weren't for a Miami-OH QB by the name of Ben Rapelisberger. (sp?)
February 9th, 2011 at 10:31 AM ^
Good idea Tom, but what are you trying to show? That a large number of offers and correspondingly low number of commits makes a program "sub-elite?" Don't the Auburn/Florida/Wisconsin percentages defeat that argument from the start?
If that were the case, lower-ranked schools would have offer/commit numbers like Michigan. USC had 142 offers, per Rivals. Miami(FL) had zero. Nebraska lists 158 offers, Arkansas lists 212, Stanford had 176. EMU has 66. I think there are more variables to consider in addition to the ones you picked out. This one seems to be statistically insignificant.
-As you said, how many of those offers were to out-of-state kids? You know, the "I really want to go to Ann Arbor, but it's really cold" offers.
-what was the ranking of the kids they offered? If MSU offers a bunch of 3-star in-state kids, then yeah, I wouldn't be surprised that many of them would accept. But firing at the top 5-stars from Texas/where ever doesn't hurt anything, and you might just talk one of them into coming. Michigan had offers out to almost all the #1s at every position, just to see. That's about 10 offers right there that I'd be willing to bet they didn't expect to pan out. I don't see anything wrong with that. If it opens the door, so much the better.
I like the idea of trying to quantify a signing percentage, but I think there's too much other data to try to make a correlation. Michigan offered 142 in 2010, 121 in 2009, and 125 in 2008, so this year isn't evidence of any pattern by the coaching staff. I think all you can say with the data presented is that the RichRod staff had a different approach than Lloyd's staff, and had lots of holes to fill. But it doesn't seem out of line with other team's approaches.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:26 PM ^
This would need to be done on a wider basis and include a larger number of top programs, but a comparison with two others--Notre Dame and Florida--shows that for the 2011 class Michigan made a similar number of offers to recruits ranked 4 or 5 stars per Rivals but substantially more offers to those ranked 3 stars and below:
- Michigan: 4 or 5 stars: 92; 3 or below: 83
- Notre Dame: 4 or 5: 86; 3 or below: 38
- Florida: 4 or 5: 101; 3 or below: 39
There's also a pattern over the last several Michigan classes of an increasing number of offers to recruits ranked 3 stars or below (again per Rivals):
- 2007: 27 of 102 total
- 2008: 33 of 125
- 2009: 43 of 121
- 2010: 74 of 146
- 2011: 83 of 175
Over those five classes, the number of 4 and 5 star recruits offered was fairly consistent, ranging from 72 to 92, so the increase in the number of overall offers stems from an increase in the number of offers to recruits of 3 stars and below.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:42 PM ^
...because there are a lot more 3 stars to offer.
Actually, I have been thinking about it and the way to measure perception should be based on whether high-quality recruits are sought after and whether they decide to go to your pgroam. This is most simply measured by looking at..... Rivals and Scout class rankings.
Those services evaluate the level of talent a school gets. If a schools gets a lot of top talent, then it is safe to say kids have a high perception of that program. if a school only manages one three star and the rest two stars, then it is probably less desirable.
The number of "offers reported by kids" (no matter how seemingly accurate) is ridculously immaterial.
I can understand that TomVH prefers Michigan to hand out less offers, because then it cuts the number of phone calls and posts he has to make in half. (It's not like he is paid differently if Michigan has 60 offers to report on or whether they have 175 to report on). So, without any support his post says that the "2011 numbers" show that recruits perception of Michigan has changed and that Hoke needs to "get back on track."
But, in reality, the 2011 numbers (of offers) means nothing.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:41 AM ^
that came right to mind...
1. Seems pretty obvious that teams with the larger pool of recruits to select from tend to have more offers on the table. Even SDSU (in my opinion, not on the same level as the other listed schools) offered 108, but again, look how much talent is in California.
2. 175 is still a lot! That number blows my mind. Imagine how busy the staff must have been. Trying to recruit mid west for "Tradition" yet RR had to tap the south for Speed & Spread guys to fit his system.
3. I know somebody in an aforementioned post mentioned the fact that schools like PSU recruited guys that were heavily interested in their school. I also agree with this statement. That came to mind when first looking at Tom's table and stats.
4. I think the status of the current program in place has much to do with it. Teams with solid recruiting over the course of 3-5 years, have less need for totally revamping one or more phases of the game. Teams like OSU/FL have been consistent for so long because they had a recruit-and-develop program with natural attrition. We did not have that luxury over the past few years, much to do with the transition. I was on board, and I do believe RR was capable and beginning to put some continuity in place, but I was still not totally convinced.
Again, I can't wrap my brain around why we had 175 offers on the table??? Although there are many different scenarios out there and the statistics are pretty ambiguous...this seems tangible enough to base the assumption that the status of the program may have not been as far along as originally thought. Regardless, I’m happy with Hoke & Staff, to be recruiting in the Midwest again, and to have a foundation of strong, competitive guys with natural leadership qualities. And Denard…
February 9th, 2011 at 11:40 AM ^
I suspect that's the reason behind the large number of offers. It could also be style, as other posters have alluded to.
I don't think we have enough information to see what's really going on, though. I'd think you'd want as much data as you can get on BCS conference teams. I'd be particularly curious to see what's going on with Notre Dame, as they've also gone through a coaching change recently.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:05 PM ^
i guess the more offers you give out, the less time you can spend with each kind. creates a self-reinforcing cycle downward.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:35 PM ^
Great breakdown Tom. I do think that recent trends have worked against UM in terms of recruiting, but that is likely due in large part to having so much instability at the head position these past few years. Hayes to Cooper to Tressel has worked so well recruiting because none of them have really had to rock the boat - they grab the best talent in Ohio, always win enough games, and identify a couple of highly-rated kids nationally and then bring some of them in. That worked for UM too, but the danger (as we saw with Carr and what happened toward the end of Cooper's time) is that you become complacent and if the next guy doesn't come in and keep the gravy train going, it can jump off the rails. For better or for worse, RR showed up and tried to change the way things were done at UM, and because he inheritted a tough situation and didn't keep on winning (I think a first season of 7-5 probably would have kept recruitng up), recruits turned off UM a bit. Now, that can change at any time, and I think Hoke and particularly Mattison will help immensely with getting more kids into UM. But while I personally liked RR and what he was trying to do here, his hiring disrupted the recruiting cycle enough that we are now seeing the negative results nationally.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:57 PM ^
It's like my NCAA09 Dynasty (though later versions may be different I'm assuming consistently bad data from this post) - It's the year 2036 and if I try to recruit 30+ 5* prospects then I can only quick call them a few times before they want to visit and I don't have time to figure out what they want. There's really only 5 minutes to talk and then offering the damn scholly takes 15 min. Hoke can't possibly get a kid on the hook in 5 minutes.
I think Hoke should try my method: 18 5* recruits and 2 4* (only if you must). 20 Is a managable number each year. Then just hard sell them on whatever they already like for 20 minutes and invite them to a Rivalry game you dominate (thank god for the Little Brown Jug!) and you're solid. Yeah once in a while you'll miss out on a 5* this way but then there's always that damn 5* who ends up being a 79 overall and you wish you hadn't wasted the time promising him a MNC his first year.
I don't mean to sound like I have all the answers but I have won every MNC for the last 25 years so... well, yeah.
EDIT: Yes it's on Hiesman mode so this should be even easier for Hoke in the real world
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