Evaluating Recruiting Evaluations: Are all 3 Stars created equally?

[Swamp Donkey]

But the truth is, "we" waited too long and the damage was done and we're going to have to slowly dig ourselves out.

No, WE didn't.

 

[Ancient Reptile]

(1) The Saban/Mac approach is DESIGNED to get better in-house evals of potential recruits, because it's staffed with a BUNCH of people whose 100% job is to do exactly that. They have the resources to look intensively at high school juniors, and then use that advance knowledge to get a head start on the herd and wooing the prospects they find most interesting. Clearly it works for Saban. We don't have enough of a track record yet to know if Coach Mac has successfully replicated that aspect of the franchise. (We also don't have enough of a track record to conclude that he hasn't. Saban didn't get it all going in 1 or 2 years either.)

(2) We see lots of comments about the rating that such & such player had, and how he performed. Or how 5/4/3 do, on average, in NFL drafts. But have we seen any DATA on how good and/or stable the ratings on high school JUNIORS are, before they even hit the summer camps before their senior years ??? Not that I have seen.

If you have any background in statistics, it is obvious that the entire ratings process is very much a Bayesian approach. Each rating service puts out its initial assessments. (Some watch film, some go to camps, some make phone calls to a few college scouts, some probably just roll Dungeons & Dragons dice.) That's the prior belief. Then more information comes in .... like whether Alabama or Florida offered a kid, or whether his best offer to date is from San Mateo Junior College ... and the ratings are amended. Eventually the ratings converge to something of a weighted consensus, just before NSD.

The evolution of star ratings is the point I was trying to make when I pointed out that Cam Newton started out as a three star.

 

[Ancient Reptile]

Too be fair, I think he was 7-6. Not sure you want to brag about that.

Yeah, I think CSU got better in his third year. I think he is aiming for his third year here. That is why he blew the bowl game off. This coming year may be worse than we are expecting.

 

[soflagator]

No, WE didn't.

I believe our positions on that matter are well chronicled.

 

[T REX]

Yeah, I think CSU got better in his third year. I think he is aiming for his third year here. That is why he blew the bowl game off. This coming year may be worse than we are expecting.

Honest question...how does blowing off your bowl game in year one help your success in year three? Especially, when you are trying to rebuild your brand and you want the kids to see a good product even if it is just for recruiting purposes.

 

[TheDouglas78]

Honest question...how does blowing off your bowl game in year one help your success in year three? Especially, when you are trying to rebuild your brand and you want the kids to see a good product even if it is just for recruiting purposes.

Because he gave practice time to kids that would be back the following year, didn't remove redshirt from linemen we could have possibly used this year... and it was the Citrus Bowl, not a BCS or a playoff game. He worked to develop talent and save talent for the future instead of wasting a few games.

Spurrier did this a number of times in his early years, but we were a much deeper team at the time.

 

[rogdochar]

If a recruit were truly "on the fence" at choosing UF versus choosing another high-profile school,
then a foul performance like getting so crushed in a nationally televised bowl game IMO would
convince him not to go to UF. The announcers of that bowl game had to have done some negative PR
on the Gators during that game. Mac & crew should have fought to win that game.

 

[BMF]

Yeah, I think CSU got better in his third year. I think he is aiming for his third year here. That is why he blew the bowl game off. This coming year may be worse than we are expecting.

AR, I agree that year 3 "should" be the best of his first 3 years....but I'm not sure year 2 will be "worse" than we are expecting. I'm not expecting 10 regular season wins...but I'm expecting a better product on the field (i.e. we don't get blown out 3 times....we don't go to overtime vs a 3-9 team, etc).

 

[TheDouglas78]

AR, I agree that year 3 "should" be the best of his first 3 years....but I'm not sure year 2 will be "worse" than we are expecting. I'm not expecting 10 regular season wins...but I'm expecting a better product on the field (i.e. we don't get blown out 3 times....we don't go to overtime vs a 3-9 team, etc).

I'm expecting a better product on the field, but possibly a worse record. We had a lot of things break right for us last year, similar to 2012. Don't know if that will happen again.

 

[BMF]

I'm expecting a better product on the field, but possibly a worse record. We had a lot of things break right for us last year, similar to 2012. Don't know if that will happen again.

Agreed, and that was my point. I'm not expecting us to win 10 regular season games. Honestly, the schedule is pretty tough and if we go better than 8-4 McElwain should be SEC COY again (unless Kentucky or Vandy manage to win 10 games). If we get by Tennessee, I think we could have a big year.

 

[T REX]

Because he gave practice time to kids that would be back the following year, didn't remove redshirt from linemen we could have possibly used this year... and it was the Citrus Bowl, not a BCS or a playoff game. He worked to develop talent and save talent for the future instead of wasting a few games.

Spurrier did this a number of times in his early years, but we were a much deeper team at the time.

Are you trying to convince us that a week or two of a little extra practice matters in year 3? IMHO, that bowl game was bad for recruiting. And which lineman did he "save"?

 

[TheDouglas78]

Are you trying to convince us that a week or two of a little extra practice matters in year 3? IMHO, that bowl game was bad for recruiting. And which lineman did he "save"?

Again it was the Citrus Bowl... if it was a BCS national televised game where it was the only game on or a Playoff game, then I would agree. But it was the Citrus bowl, the 3rd or 4th best SEC bowl game. Which was competing television wise against 4 or 5 other bowl games at the same time.

LB Lawrence (light in the ass)
OL McCoy
OL Ivie (light in the ass)
OL Buchanan
OL Givens (light in the ass)
OL Villano

All players at positions of need the last 4-5 games of the season.

 

[soflagator]

AR, I agree that year 3 "should" be the best of his first 3 years....but I'm not sure year 2 will be "worse" than we are expecting. I'm not expecting 10 regular season wins...but I'm expecting a better product on the field (i.e. we don't get blown out 3 times....we don't go to overtime vs a 3-9 team, etc).

I'm in agreement with most of what you said. But I think the whole "blown out 3 times" thing is overstated. We hung in about as well as could be expected--given the circumstances--against fsu and alabama. No excuse for the bowl game, or Vu (though some of our better teams have struggled with the Commodores) or FAU. Just ugly performances.

But we were down 11 to the noles with 6 minutes left, and down 15 to the Tide with 9 minutes left. Not much different than the ut game, where we were down 13 with 4 minutes left. The considerable difference in that contest is that our D still held out hope that we could win because we actually had a QB on offense. The team element was completely different. I do expect that to be much improved this season.

 

[TheDouglas78]

I'm in agreement with most of what you said. But I think the whole "blown out 3 times" thing is overstated. We hung in about as well as could be expected--given the circumstances--against fsu and alabama. No excuse for the bowl game, or Vu (though some of our better teams have struggled with the Commodores) or FAU. Just ugly performances.

But we were down 11 to the noles with 6 minutes left, and down 15 to the Tide with 9 minutes left. Not much different than the ut game, where we were down 13 with 4 minutes left. The considerable difference in that contest is that our D still held out hope that we could win because we actually had a QB on offense. The team element was completely different. I do expect that to be much improved this season.

Difference is that both Alabama and FSU and most of us knew the game had been over for over a quarter at that point, where we were still playing and moving the ball against Tennessee. Also we knew Tennessee would be Tennessee. When FSU D linemen said after the game they knew as long as Harris didn't get out of the pocket there was no threat... explains exactly where we were. The score might have been closer, but the actual play on the field wasn't.

 

[Bernardo de la Paz]

Difference is that both Alabama and FSU and most of us knew the game had been over for over a quarter at that point, where we were still playing and moving the ball against Tennessee. Also we knew Tennessee would be Tennessee. When FSU D linemen said after the game they knew as long as Harris didn't get out of the pocket there was no threat... explains exactly where we were. The score might have been closer, but the actual play on the field wasn't.

We actually had more offensive yards and first downs than the clowns late in the 4th quarter. If we had a serviceable kicker we probably would have beaten them despite our terrible offensive line and quarterback.

 

[TheDouglas78]

We actually had more offensive yards and first downs than the clowns late in the 4th quarter. If we had a serviceable kicker we probably would have beaten them despite our terrible offensive line and quarterback.

In the 4th quarter, but they knew we couldn't score. They knew we were desperate but we couldn't score. If we could score it might have been a different game, but everyone watching that game knew we couldn't. So what was the harm in playing prevent, when they knew they could run their base defense when we got close and nothing would happen.

 

[Bernardo de la Paz]

In the 4th quarter, but they knew we couldn't score. They knew we were desperate but we couldn't score. If we could score it might have been a different game, but everyone watching that game knew we couldn't. So what was the harm in playing prevent, when they knew they could run their base defense when we got close and nothing would happen.

We had more offensive yards and first downs total for the game until late in the 4th quarter. They weren't playing prevent.

 

[TheDouglas78]

We had more offensive yards and first downs total for the game until late in the 4th quarter. They weren't playing prevent.

Watch the game again, late in that game. no pressure, defensive backs off the ball... they knew they had us, and were running a basic form of quarters prevent. Their DE even said in the post game, they knew they didn't need to rush because the offense was inept.

 

[Bernardo de la Paz]

Watch the game again, late in that game. no pressure, defensive backs off the ball... they knew they had us, and were running a basic form of quarters prevent. Their DE even said in the post game, they knew they didn't need to rush because the offense was inept.

We're not arguing about what happened in the last few minutes after our defense quit and it was a 3 score game. They sure as hell weren't playing prevent when it was still a close game with the outcome in question.

 

[TheDouglas78]

We're not arguing about what happened in the last few minutes after our defense quit and it was a 3 score game. They sure as hell weren't playing prevent when it was still a close game with the outcome in question.

They were playing loose coverage for a lot of the second half, and were not rushing the qb except when they blitzed. Once they shut down Taylor which was by the second quarter, they were playing off, and the game was still close then. Because we were inept. Their qb did have the game of his life (which isn't saying a whole hellva a lot) against us. The game was over at when they reached double digits, and we all knew that. To pretend that all the sudden we thought we were going to have an offensive explosion is just revisionist history. We needed overtime to put on 20 points on FAU, and that is ****ing FAU.

I'm not saying the defense didn't play well, because they did. The defense played a magnificent game with what they had to deal with on the other side of the ball. But there was also a reason that FSU ran it 30 times, because they knew all they had to do was run out the clock. If we showed any offense at all, would their game plan have been different?

They played us like they would have played against a Muschamp team, get to double digits and run out the clock.