Intra-Region Power Shifts
From my observations and what has been written on this blog and in the MSM, I believe that we have changed our recruiting focus from one that was more heavily focused on retaining all of the talent within the State of Michigan and capturing what we can get in the surrounding states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois) as well as a few athletes from certain talent hotbeds (Florida, Texas and California) to a greater emphasis being placed on recruiting from the talent hot beds. What are the ramifications of this philosophical shift? And how have coaching changes resulted in shifts in intra-region power?
- It is likely that MSU is going to recruit better within Michigan than they have in the past. My reasoning is that as RR draws greater numbers of recruits from outside of Michigan and the Midwest than the prior regime, more quality players will be available to the Spartans. In addition, Brian had a post some time back describing how the change in the type of players we recruit will lead to certain players that would have been a lock for Michigan, now being a better fit at State. I am not implying that we will not get the guys we are interested in recruiting. That will be dependent upon our continued success on the field and fostering relationships between the program and the high schools within the state.
- MSU will likely become more competitive in the Big Ten and nationally. The increased talent level will have the potential to move them up into the second tier of the Big Ten currently being fought over by Wisconsin, Penn State, Illinois and Iowa.
- Assuming that RR is able to land better talent from outside of Michigan than is available inside of Michigan, our overall talent level will rise, making us more competitive nationally. Hopefully, the relative talent level between us and MSU will remain constant. This should raise the absolute level of talent in the Big Ten at the expense of the SEC and ACC (assuming our recruiting focus has moved towards Florida and the south east).
The risk is that we chase
windmills and fail to land equal or better talent in the southeast and cede talent
within the State of Michigan
talent to MSU. The Spartans then gain an
ability to win the recruits we want and there is a possible shift in power. As I stated before, the mitigant to this is our
continued success on the field and fostering relationships between the program and
the high schools within the state.
Observations and Parallels:
Is RR’s focus on talent
outside of the home state due to his time at WVU where there was far less
instate talent than in Michigan? I’m not implying that Michigan is OH, PA, FL, TX or CA, but it is
clearly better than WV. One thing that
seems clear, is that the tenures of Bobby Williams and John L. Smith (and the
Spartans refer to us as slappies??) decimated the in-state recruiting at
MSU. While there were not great numbers
of Plaxico’s and Duckett’s at MSU there were some clear examples of players we
wanted but State got. BW and JLS seemed
to have killed this very nicely.
There have been some interesting changes in balance of power within different regions during the last 10-15 years that may provide interesting insight.
- The fall of Washington and the rise of Oregon. How much of the rise of Oregon as a national power have to do with the influx of Phil Knight / Nike money versus the missteps and poor coaching hires at UW? Has there been a re-routing of talent from Seattle to Eugene? Did the re-emergence of USC shut down UW’s access to southern California recruits?
- The fall of Notre Dame, Illinois and Michigan State and the rise of Iowa and Wisconsin (and Northwestern and Purdue to a lesser extent?). Did the inconsistency of ND and Illinois cede some degree of control over greater Chicago recruiting to other Big Ten School? A close analysis of the recruiting records (in particular recruit hometowns) for each school over the last 15 years would yield some interesting insight. Did the Spartans losing Nick Saban to LSU and the ensuing coaching chaos provide an opening to NU and Purdue?
- The fall of Nebraska and the rise of Oklahoma.
- The fall of Alabama and Tennessee (to a lesser extent) and the rise of LSU and Auburn.
This post is to generate discussion, as many of the ideas I have included have not been researched, rather are observations of mine that seem to fit together with some degree of logic.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:54 AM ^
August 8th, 2008 at 10:55 AM ^
August 8th, 2008 at 11:10 AM ^
August 8th, 2008 at 11:13 AM ^
I agree with you overall, but in your first #2 point, at least for this year and probably the next, UM will probably fall into the 2nd tier of the Big Ten, going to a bowl game, but not in serious contention for the Big Ten championship or a national title.
I think RR may be focusing more out of state because he and his coaches have already built up relationships with those out of state coaches. Of course, he's also quick to take advantage of a situation where there's a previous regime relationship and work it to his advantage, ie Cass Tech, Trotwood Madison, and Orlando Edgewater. I think that the more years RR is established in MI, the better his recruiting in MI will be, as more coaches will move over to the spread that he teaches, producing players that fit into his mold, et cetera. Until then, there's the potential for Sparty to land a few good classes of in state recruits.
As for this year, if you look at MSU's 4*'s, many of the offensive skill players don't fit RR's spread, 1 OL is from East Lansing, 1 OL was stolen from Iowa (zomg snake oil!), 2 RBs were offered and committed during the time that RR's staff was just getting onboard. The only matchup that UM clearly whiffed on was Chris Norman. We'll just have to see how Dantonio will do now. He has a couple of classes coming through now that are not highly regarded, if he can hold his own until the current recruits can start making a difference, AND the next 3-4 years are mediocre at UM, he might be able to turn it around.
Arg the formatting is still screwing up on me
August 8th, 2008 at 11:13 AM ^
August 8th, 2008 at 11:14 AM ^
Interesting points.
From the same theoretical stand point, it is no coincidence that the rise of MSU basketball coincides with the fall of Michigan basketball.
I do think that our recruiting out of state in football will be good enough to offset any gains MSU might make in-state. This is because we will still be able to cherry pick the guys we want instate and have a big enough brand name to get the guys we want out of state. I would say we are the biggest brand name running this type of offense so we should easily pickup the guys we need to run it from out of state.
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