Open Season In Ohio
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FOLLOW ME TO FREEEEEEEDOM!
I'm stealing this from a guy who stole it from someone else on the internet with some refinements because… yeah. Brady Hoke is doing work in Ohio. Here's a list of Ohio recruits in Lloyd Carr's last six classes compared to Brady Hoke's first two:
Lloyd Carr, 2002-2007
Kickers. Zoltan Mesko, Bryan Wright.
[Separate category because teams generally have one scholarship max per slot; OSU did not compete for either guy because they weren't in the market those years.]
Three star types: Mark Bihl, Willis Barringer, Mister Simpson.
Three/four star borderline: Pat Massey, Brandon Harrison, Cobrani Mixon
Four star+ types: Shawn Crable, Prescott Burgess, Mario Manningham, Justin Boren.
That's 12 in six classes with four of them consensus four-star types. Only those four had OSU offers. If you want to add Carr's recruiting efforts in his final season that led to the hybrid class you can add two more borderline sorts in Brandon Moore and Elliott Mealer plus a consensus four-star w/ OSU offer in Kevin Koger. That doesn't change the math much.
Brady Hoke, 2012-2013
This is Hoke's first full class and the one Michigan is currently working on.
Three-star types: Willie Henry, Kaleb Ringer, Allen Gant
Three/four star borderline: Jaron Dukes, Deveon Smith, AJ Williams
Four-star types+: Gareon Conley (just needs Rivals to update to be consensus), Ben Gedeon, Mike McCray, Taco Charlton, Dymonte Thomas, Chris Wormley (minus Rivals), Kyle Kalis, Jarrod Wilson, Tom Strobel, Joe Bolden, Jake Butt.
Gedeon, Smith, Thomas, Wormley, Kalis, and Strobel had OSU offers, and Urban Meyer tried to get in on Joe Bolden after he was hired.
Open Season
Michigan's gone from a four-star-plus recruit from Ohio twice every three years to five per year. Tressel implosion and the scholarship restrictions that caused is obviously a major reason for the sea change. Hoke is just as important in that equation, however, and given Meyer's increased focus on "national" recruits that's a trend that should continue into the future. Ohio State's obviously doing well for themselves with this strategy, but in the process they're giving Michigan bonus recruits from Ohio in addition to their usual in-state, regional, and national recruiting.
Oh, right: now we can beat Notre Dame head to head, too.
------------------------------
[What about Rodriguez? RR added more borderline 3/4 sorts to the hybrid class in Mike Shaw, Taylor Hill, and Roy Roundtree plus sleeper Patrick Omameh.
The next year RR got the two kids out of Liberty (Isaiah Bell, a three star, and Fitzgerald Toussaint, a 4 four star) and Justin Turner, a four star sort with an OSU offer.
In 2010 Michigan recruited a ton of dudes from Ohio, 11 in all, but all(!) were generic three stars except Jerald Robinson and Jibreel Black, who were borderline. None had OSU offers. Six haven't made it through two years in the program.
That pattern repeated in RR's final class. He picked up Jack Miller, Greg Brown, and Chris Rock, all three-stars. Hoke came in and added Antonio Poole, Frank Clark, Keith Heitzman, and Tamani Carter, also all three stars.
So while RR was a lot better at pulling players out of Ohio, he was a lot worse at getting the players big time programs want, and worse yet at keeping them. His total tally of H2H wins against OSU was one, and that kid never played. A lot of his success-type activity can be attributed to going after guys with crappy offer lists.
FWIW, the hybrid classes weren't included because a scrambling month to pick up the pieces at a new job is not representative of long term recruiting trends.]
April 24th, 2012 at 12:06 PM ^
Hoke is changing the tide in the rivalry
April 24th, 2012 at 12:13 PM ^
Hell, people in Ohio are starting to believe in him.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:50 PM ^
Ya, selling jerseys is a great start.
to a new board topic, gentlemen.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:05 PM ^
While I understand that "trends" are hard to identify in CFB because we always tend to have very small samples at high levels of analysis like year-by-year recruiting by a single program, but I don't know if I would feel very comfortable saying that two years could be representative of long term trends, either.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:17 PM ^
That's very true. I think the point Brian was making was more in the sheer numbers rather than trying to extrapolate two years to the long term. If instead of thinking of one year as n simply look at one player as n and the numbers are staggering as far as the amount of pull Hoke has had compared to Carr during his final years. It's tough to say if it will continue but clearly the recruiting philosophy of Meyer is very different from that of Tressel. Tressel built a wall around Ohio and owned it for a decade. Urban, for whatever reason, doesn't mind his backyard being cherry picked.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:15 PM ^
I think we can all agree Hoke can recruit his ass off. He's done a great job in Ohio when many thought his chances were not very good. He's got some breaks, but they are minor to what his sheer will has been able to accomplish.
On the Flipside.
To not include Lloyds entire carreer seems like cherry picking. Not sure if Brian picked those just because of better recruiting data or we're getting too far away from relevance, but those years were right smack in the middle of Tresselmania where no one left Ohio.
RR simply never had any momentum in recruiting. The only time RR had any traction in recruiting was from the time he was hired until his 1st game. After that the negative press surrounding the program( he holds blame as well just saying it existed) made recruiting very difficult. We'll never know what he would have been able to accomplish with some success and backing. From a pure offensive perspective you started to see the seeds being planted with Fischer, Hart, Watkins Gardner being committed or close to commiting. The last 2 years would have been interesting to see what Denard and RR would have pulled in skill wise as the offense exploded.
Hoke may not own Ohio yet but he's making extra payments on the principal.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:24 PM ^
And a great addendum to what Brian wrote.
And while the selected years for Carr might not be totally representative, I recall an earlier comparison of Schembechler-Moeller-Carr that showed the statistically significant falloff in Ohio recruiting under Carr. Nobody (not Moeller, Carr or Rodriguez) recruited Ohio like Bo, until Brady Hoke.
IIRC, Moeller cleaned up in Illinois
April 24th, 2012 at 12:24 PM ^
We never have. We just need to get a few of the condo penthouses to make living really nice.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:30 PM ^
I have to agree with you here. You can't say there isn't any correlation/ subsequent causality between the stability of OSU and the level of UM recruiting success in the state of Ohio.
1. The talent pool is deep in the state, arguably more now than ever before. Mixed with loss of OSU scholarship availability, for many Ohio kids, Michigan is still a highly attractive choice, due to football history+academics. Thus, Ohio kids will flock to UM now more than ever.
2. A number of those recruits went to UM during the instability, which despite Urban's successes in recruiting and accompanying optimism, is still going on. Guys like Thomas and Kalis have publically discussed how they were pushed towards Michigan by the events of the previous year/s.
But overall, yes. Hoke is a hell of a recruiter, and he realizes that Michigan won't be the state that will feed him all his top guys. He could easily sit back and leach the entirety of Cass Tech and still have reasonable success with those guys, but he's striving for a level of football that hasn't been consistent at UM, and if you share a border with arguably the midwest's most talent-rich state, you'd better get to taking advantage.
He's taking some of Ohio targets not just their leftovers. Write it down: we beat Ohio this year at Ohio, Urban will lose all credibility and the Michigan reign over the B10 will begin. Can't wait.
Because one game negates two national championships and 4 BCS bowl victories? I don't think one game is going to make Urban lose all of his credibility.
April 25th, 2012 at 10:06 AM ^
"but he's striving for a level of football that hasn't been consistent at UM for a number years"
Implying that UM hasn't had a consistent high level of quality ever is inaccurate. Even at the first few years of the 7 yr drought, UM was putting together great teams and just ended up on the wrong end of a very close game (reference 2006). The pendulum swings both ways (reference The Cooper Years).
I don't know if Brian had other reasons, but that is the earliest that Rivals and I believe Scout as well have info still posted online. Going back in time beyond that would require a lot more work, and 6+ classes is a pretty big sample size.
I know I'm making an assumption about Brian's intent, but I don't think he was trying to compare coaches specifcally. In other words, this isn't a writeup trying to say, "Hoke is awesome, RR and Lloyd Bad". It's more about and observation of, "hey recently Michigan is grabbing a lot of high quality talent from Ohio, and at a level greater than the previous 10 years.
A big factor in this is the change from Tressel to Meyer, and so things might change. The thing that lines up for me is that Michigan only beat Tressel once in the entire time Tressel coached. That happens to line up with a time where Michigan did not bring in talent from Ohio, but Ohio State did. If you go back to a secret ingredient of Bo's success, it was in parallel to his success to recruit Ohio.
Something not mentioned by Brian was that Dave Brandon stated that finding a head coach who could recruit the local footprint was critical to team success. I think some of Hoke's choices have trended toward an athlete who "fits" versus overall raw talent measureables. Other factors into this "fit" are academic ability and team/family values. An easy way to find kids who feel they fit in to the Michigan family is to recruit in Michigan and the bordering states. Sure you can find a kid like Ondre Pipkins, who clearly has decided he fits at Michigan, but it's far more likely if you stay within driving distance of the family home.
Football, more than any other sport, is a team game, and does require talent to excel, but equally requires a strong team bond. I don't think Meyer is increasing his chances at team bonding by collecting all the prima donnas scattered about the Nation. I'm sure he disagrees in the approach of Hoke, but I'm excited to watch the competition of these style going forward.
and I'm clearly biased.
Overall Lloyd Carr was a great coach, and a great teacher to his teams. But even he admitted in his retirement press conference that he had "lost it" in regards to staying focused to doing his job at the appropriate level.
"An easy way to find kids who feel they fit in to the Michigan family is to recruit in Michigan and the bordering states."
...and make sure their last name isn't Boren.
I know I'm making an assumption about Brian's intent, but I don't think he was trying to compare coaches specifcally. In other words, this isn't a writeup trying to say, "Hoke is awesome, RR and Lloyd Bad". It's more about and observation of, "hey recently Michigan is grabbing a lot of high quality talent from Ohio, and at a level greater than the previous 10 years.
A big factor in this is the change from Tressel to Meyer, and so things might change. The thing that lines up for me is that Michigan only beat Tressel once in the entire time Tressel coached. That happens to line up with a time where Michigan did not bring in talent from Ohio, but Ohio State did. If you go back to a secret ingredient of Bo's success, it was in parallel to his success to recruit Ohio.
Something not mentioned by Brian was that Dave Brandon stated that finding a head coach who could recruit the local footprint was critical to team success. I think some of Hoke's choices have trended toward an athlete who "fits" versus overall raw talent measureables. Other factors into this "fit" are academic ability and team/family values. An easy way to find kids who feel they fit in to the Michigan family is to recruit in Michigan and the bordering states. Sure you can find a kid like Ondre Pipkins, who clearly has decided he fits at Michigan, but it's far more likely if you stay within driving distance of the family home.
Football, more than any other sport, is a team game, and does require talent to excel, but equally requires a strong team bond. I don't think Meyer is increasing his chances at team bonding by collecting all the prima donnas scattered about the Nation. I'm sure he disagrees in the approach of Hoke, but I'm excited to watch the competition of these style going forward.
and I'm clearly biased.
Overall Lloyd Carr was a great coach, and a great teacher to his teams. But even he admitted in his retirement press conference that he had "lost it" in regards to staying focused to doing his job at the appropriate level.
I don't think this myth about midwestern morality and team cohesion trumps the buzzsaw that is Bo's bowl record. He went 2-8 in bowl games and 3-10 in all BCS-level games (Woody was 2-5 in the same time period as well). Was it because the other teams had smarter coaches or because they better embodied all those heartwarming values you espoused? Or was it because those teams from outside Michigan and Ohio had guys like Jim Plunkett, Warren Moon, and Bo Jackson?
We don't win nearly as many games without guys like Brady (California), Navarre (Wisconsin), Henne (Pennsylvania), and Denard (Florida). Or Hutchinson (Florida), Lewan (Arizona), Anthony Thomas (Louisiana), Mike Hart (New York), or Junior Hemingway (South Carolina).
If you think those guys don't "get it", then you are out of your mind. If you would rather have guys who happened to grow up as Michigan fans or in close proximity to the stadium, then you are basically saying you would rather not win as many games.
But I don't think it's a matter of "getting it". Guys from elsewhere can get it. It's more a numbers thing. You're naturally going to have more guys from the region who grew up loving Michigan, whereas there are some of those around the Country, obviously not as many. Many become interested in Michigan because it's a big time football program offering them. That happens regionally too, but what happens when things might get a little rough, or turn south? Someone who truly loves Michigan is going to stick it out, and work his way through it, or contribute any way he can. Those who are looking for playing time and stardom, anywhere, are probably leaving and heading home. If you're from the area and want to leave Michigan...you're already home. And probably can't transfer to someone equivalent in the area anyway. So it's not so much that you can't find guys who fit and love Michigan anywhere...it's just that there are a lot more around here. That holds true for any program, anywhere. What was said about Wisconsin recruits holds true to some extent for anyone not in a big talent state...(paraphrasing) "our hearts and minds will come from right here in Wisconsin...but our arms and legs will come from Texas, and Florida and California". You build a team in your area, and you fill in spots and pepper it with elite talent from everywhere.
Blue in Seattle--I remember watching bowl games when Bo was still coaching. That was when Big 10 teams were getting penalized roughly 15-1, with the one penalty against the PAC-10 team coming when an PAC-10 OL would literally tackle (or some other form of molestation) a DL from behind and they had no choice but to call it.
The Rivals DB only goes back to 2002.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:18 PM ^
Isn't the fact that Hoke has been recruiting post-scandal a large boon to his cause as well? Post-Championship Tressel locked the state up for good.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:19 PM ^
But by going after those guys, they might not be any worse, but they're making us better. The age old danger that guys you don't recruit or get nationally will never come back to bite you, but those in your backyard you don't get you're probably going to see again...on the opposite sideline.
I hate to use this example, but look what Sparty was able to put together while RR was recruiting nationally - the national talent wasn't better enough to offset the improvement Sparty realized by picking up a larger share of top local talent.
Actually, Brian's written about the dearth of top talent within Michigan prior to the last two years, going back to 2005 or so...
But the point being that even the top 3 guys in MI not being great fits, or 3/4 star types, well, yeah, get 'em and keep 'em from the other guy. Not in dispute.
(Of course, if there are "Michigan Men" steering that talent to the other guy, what could any coach do?)
Michigan State didn't put anything together because Rodriguez was recruiting nationally. They built a program on the strength of under the radar guys like Cousins, Worthy, and Greg Jones who picked Sparty before Rodriguez arrived. Look at the highly rated guys in Michigan that Rodriguez was chastized for not going after hard enough in his first recruiting class and then look at the guys we landed from outside the state.
Would you trade Fitz and Vincent Smith for Baker/Caper (Baker did have a nice sophomore season but fell off and has already left MSU)? Would you trade Denard (or even Tate) for Maxwell? Would you trade Lewan or Schofield for Blake Treadwell? Donald Spencer and James Jackson (who went to MSU) haven't done anything, while Jeremy Gallon was 2nd on our team in receptions and played a huge part in beating ND. The gem of that haul for MSU is Chris Norman who we definitely offered, but he chose to go to MSU (from a high school whose only UM signees in the years leading up to that were Carson Butler and Andre Criswell).
MSU has been successful recently because they had great classes in 2007 and 2008, fueled by the overachievers I mentioned above (and later pick ups like 2-star Le'Veon Bell). Michigan had success last year and will be better than MSU this year because while they were "cleaning up" in-state, Rodriguez signed guys like Denard, Fitz, Lewan, Schofield, Roh, etc. and those guys are now all seniors or RS juniors.
...for a full sixty minutes.
But I am saying MSU has a bit more talent than they would have otherwise had because we weren't competing head to head for as many recruits.
Recruiting nationally is a bit of a high risk, high reward approach, since you're just not going to pull that many away from their local powerhouses. You find some good sleepers (Denard) but also some flameouts (Dorsey).
The thing is, those trades are required if you are going to stay under the limit. You can't sign everybody. Saying, "go after the midwest kids" requires keeping a place for Treadwell while telling Lewan or Schofield that there's no room at the inn. And if not them specifically, then somebody else. Since it isn't really fair to assume perfect hindsight is possible for any coach, you have to look at the body of work. On the whole, MSU might not be as good if they had to replace some of the guys they got with lesser rated guys, but we would definitely be worse without Denard and Co.
Given those options, I am always going to prefer the one that makes Michigan better, no matter what it means for our competition/rivals.
More talented National > less talented local.
Equal talented Local > equal talented national.
Good post, Purple. Glad to see the facts behind that lazy narrative laid out like that.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:24 PM ^
FOLLOW ME TO FREEEEEEEDOM!
Also: Subway.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:52 PM ^
state trooper truck behind that sign post. perfect speed trap, ohioians love subway.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:39 PM ^
i remember having several sober long discussions about how the best way for michigan to get good talent was to totally rebuild the state's current culture of high school football and reap the benefits in 20 years. it never occurred to me to go get players from another state.
REBUILD THE STATE'S CURRENT CULTURE!!!
April 24th, 2012 at 12:53 PM ^
Out of curiousity, what do you mean?
Although I have to admit it does seem strange that a state with Michigan's population doesn;t produce more high-level prospects.
Well Michigan has been suffering population drain for about two decades now and it is definitely impacting college recruiting and talent bases. There was actually a paper a few years ago that tracked the relative decline of "football recruits" from the midwest industrial states and relative increase from places like Oregon, Arizona and other states experiencing population increase.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:44 PM ^
Hoke is doing a heck fo a job in Ohio, but I think it needs to be more clearly mentioned that this isn't exactly harming Ohio State. We badly wanted Dymonte Thomas, but really the rest of the guys you have got from Ohio weren't going to be at OSU anyway.
The people truly harmed by Hoke's success in Ohio are Michigan State, Penn State, Notre Dame, and the other schools who traditionally reach across the border into Ohio. It also goes to show just how great high school football in the state of Ohio is since it provides talent to so many D1 universities.
If Herb Enmeijer had Eleven of ESPN's Top 150 already committed to Ohio* there would be a parade down High Street to celebrate the inevitable string of consecutive national titles. But ... because Michigan is having sucess taking top talent from Ohio while Ohio* seeks "national" talent in places Riverside, CA, these are all Michigan recruits that "Ohio* doesn't want"
You simply have to love the flexibility of the Ohio* fanbase and the adaptability to the circustances du jour.
I don't think I was being unreasonable, there are just guys on Ohio State's board that were higher.. My point is that Hoke's recruiting in Ohio will not have an impact on Ohio State so long as Ohio State is able to follow its recruiting plan. It will have a huge impact on the other regional schools trying to establish themselves in Ohio though.
Dantonio and Boeckman have stated that their recruiting will rely heavily on their Ohio connections. If we steal who we want from Ohio and pick up the guys they think aren't worthy because of bigger name national prospects, we will be sticking it to a couple other programs as well. Yeah Blue.
Since Ohio State has a different recruiting strategy than Michigan now, we won't traget nearly as many of the same players. For this cycle, as far as Ohio kids are concerned, I would say that Thomas (who committed to UM before Urban was hired) and maybe Gedeon would be the only players that Urban would like a do over on. I say maybe on Gedeon because I don't know if he fell above or below Neal on Ohio State's board. I know he would have been below Anzalone and Jaylon Smith. Deveon Smith was always going to be behind Elliott, D. Green, Williams, J. Green, etc. on Urban's board.
Where I am most impressed with Michigan is outside the state of Ohio. Bosch, Fox, and LTT were all players that OSU would take.
Think about your first paragraph. If you were a Michigan fan, how would you interpret the first paragraph. Smith and Gedeon had offers. Just as Anzalone had a michigan offer. Disregard the other news.
Unless you are a coach at OSU, not sure what was on urbans's board.
"We badly wanted Dymonte Thomas, but really the rest of the guys you have got from Ohio weren't going to be at OSU anyway."
Correct me, if I am wrong. Didnt Gedeon and Smith, Ohio guys have offers from OSU.
Yes, football in Ohio is SOOOO good that half of your last 5 classes come from out of state.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:45 PM ^
Question: What is the comparative strength of the classes coming out of Ohio? This may also have something to do with the number of high-quality recruits leaving the clutches of the Buckeyes.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:58 PM ^
I think it's at least questionable whether to give RR a head-to-head victory over Tressel for Omameh. The rumors that he was offered at the eleventh hour persist. [...] Not that that changes much about the complexion of this argument.
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