McBean Definitions

Submitted by Meeechigan Dan on

Note: On Monday, I posted Sylvester McMonkey McBean Helps Settle the Pat White Question Once and for All, complete with annoying HTML that I couldn’t edit out of existence without starting over. Won’t make that mistake again. What follows is the digested feedback for improving the McBean Rating System, the purpose of which, to quote myself, is to develop “a collaborative, ongoing post-recruitment rating system that will allow us to determine if, in the Rich Rodriguez era, perfect-fit three-stars are more desirable than random four-stars.” Our goal is to settle the Pat White Question once and for all.

Thanks all for the quality feedback. In the original post, I proposed that players be rated over their career at Michigan using definitions that approximated the spirit of the Rivals star ratings to see if, on average, players exceeded or fell short of expectations. The effort would span the later Carr years and, of course, the Rodriguez era going forward. How players performed relative to expectations would give the mgocommunity interesting information on the ability of a coach’s system to evaluate and develop talent. For more detail, the original post.

We began with these definitions.



These were found to be too loose. SanDiegoWolverine dabbled with the idea of a two-faceted rating system, but my IQ will not permit that level of complexity, so I used the following comments to revise the definitions above.

First, wolfman81:

I'm not sure that there is a 1:1 correlation between the Rivals rankings and the McBean rankings.

Example (5 star): Elite, Dominant player, Complete package. Projects to the highest level. vs. Stud. Multi-year starter. All-something. NFL player.

I'll take "All-Something" to mean First team All conference in a BCS conference. That is 6 conferences x 22 players per all conference team = 132 -- plus kickers -- 5 star players. Does Rivals hand out 100 5 star ratings that often?
UMFootballCrazy found some numerical guidelines in Rivals:
Players are also ranked on their quality with a star ranking. A five-star prospect is considered to be one of the nation's top 25-30 players, four star is a top 250-300 or so player, three-stars is a top 750 level player, two stars means the player is a mid-major prospect and one star means the player is not ranked.
It seems that unless there is some loyalty to the proportion of star ratings allocated, then the McBean Rating loses its credibility. For example, if we dole out twice as many McBean five stars, is that Michigan developing talent or is that rose-colored glasses? It seems the NFL draft can serve in an advisory capacity, part of a checks and balances system.

UMFootballCrazy develops this:
5 Star *****

This is a player who was drafted in the 1st round of the NFL entry draft and is thus regarded as one of the top 32 players in the nation (mirroring Rivals top 25-30 prospects) or baring that was an All-American and/or a 4 or five year starter (i.e. started as a freshman and started virtually every game they played at Michigan) and played at an "elite" level during their playing career.
He has more good stuff, but I steal so much of it down below, that I won't repeat it here.

Nedved963
cautions, however:
[M]oving forward with Rodriguez it's admitted his style is for college, and success in the Pros is not that great a correlation for the skill and effectiveness of Michigan's current players.
I think Colin boils it down:
How you determine those expectations could certainly be done incorporating NFL performance.

And I think that is key. We don't want the NFL draft or an NFL career to answer entirely the question as to whether a player fell short of or exceeded expectations at the University of Michigan (i.e., Tom Brady), but it can be a tie-breaker, if you will, a check against overrating our beloved players (Breaston a five-star?) and ensuring proportion to the Rivals system.

As a result, I offer for final review, the new McBean Rating System definitions. I use the Rivals definitions (d'oh!) for the Rivals definitions. Special thanks to UMFootballCrazy as I steal a great deal of his language, but shift the emphasis, using the NFL as sort of a tie-breaker for those players on the cusp in the McBean ratings. However, I move away from UMFootballCrazy's proposed definition for the lower star players because I think there is a potential hazard to mishandling the lower rated players*:




Thanks again. If we settle on these definitions, I will re-rate the 2002 through 2006 classes.


* Again, to quote myself: "To be honest, I think some of the most important rating will take place down at the bottom of the scale. If you look at the classes above, what drags down a class (and gives Lloyd's classes a slight "underperform" grade) is guys ending up as two stars...being "invisible."

That is an area that has more impact on this analysis than whether Breaston gets a fifth. Since Michigan almost never recruits two star position players, is it fair that so many recruits end up as two stars because they can't get on the field?"

Comments

The King of Belch

August 20th, 2009 at 10:33 PM ^

Two pretty good examples of why I believe you temper down NFL stuff.

First: Mario Manningham. I thought he lived up to expectations, even with some injuries, yet was a 6th or 7th rounder because he smokes pot (let's leave out any consideration of pot smoking in your criteria).

Second: Adrian Arrington. Not drafted? I thought he had a stellar career after a very near career-ending injury during his freshman season (I think he still has a metal plate in his ankle from that).

Sorry, I'm in a hurry here and haven't read this entire diary and all the replies, so I hope I'm not beating a dead horse.

GBOD79

August 20th, 2009 at 11:27 PM ^

How can a college player start for 5 years? The only way you get a 5th year of eligibility is if you redshirt. Redshirts can not start and can only see so much playing time before you cannot redshirt them. Please correct me if I am wrong here.

GBOD79

August 21st, 2009 at 10:55 AM ^

This is from the NCAA website:

"The term "redshirt" is used to describe a student-athlete who does not participate in competition in a sport for an entire academic year. If you do not compete in a sport the entire academic year, you have not used a season of competition. For example, if you are a qualifier, and you attend a four-year college your freshman year, and you practice but do not compete against outside competition, you would still have the next four years to play four seasons of competition.

Each student is allowed no more than four seasons of competition per sport. If you were not a qualifier, you may have fewer seasons of competition available to you. You should know that NCAA rules indicate that any competition, regardless of time, during a season counts as one of your seasons of competition in that sport. It does not matter how long you were involved in a particular competition (for example, one play in a football game, one point in a volleyball match); you will be charged with one season of competition."

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=420

So there is no way a student-athlete can start for 5 years.

wolfman81

August 21st, 2009 at 11:18 AM ^

Are a technicality.

As I recall (and I did spend a few seasons running D1 cross country...but no scholly) if you get injured in the first half (third?) of the season, and the injury prevents you from further competition, you may apply for a medical redshirt. So if you started week 1 and 2 and then got a season ending injury in week 2, you can come back next year, healthy, and with no less eligibility. But these have to be approved in some cases. So a five year starter is possible, but requires a season ending injury after you have started.

GBOD79

August 21st, 2009 at 11:30 AM ^

Technically that person would not be a 5 year starter. Especially since in order to have that 5th year of eligibility he would have had to have an injury so severe he was out of practice and games, which would make that season a wash. Experience wise that person is no better off. Also medical redshirts are not guaranteed and are hard to get. Many athletes suffer season ending injuries and do not get 5th or 6th years of eligibility.

wolfman81

August 21st, 2009 at 11:47 AM ^

From The NCAA site:

"In Division I, a student-athlete can apply for a hardship waiver if a season-ending injury or illness occurs in the first half of the season. The student-athlete, however, must not have participated in more than two contests or dates of competition or 20 percent (whichever is greater) of the institution's scheduled contests."

So you can play, get injured, and get a waiver that allows you another year of eligibility.

UMFootballCrazy

August 21st, 2009 at 11:44 AM ^

My Bad!

My appologies to everyone for the confusion. Here is what happened...I took the four star discription of a 3-4 year starter in the ESPN/Scout description and then just adjusted it upward to 4-5 year starter when I wrote my own synthesis of the two ranking systems. You hear so often about fifth year seniors that it just never clicked that, duh, you can't start five years. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

brad

August 20th, 2009 at 11:47 PM ^

There should be a way to differentiate this in a good ranking of players while they were here. No need to drop any names, but there have certainly been guys who started that actively hurt the team. Giving that guy the same ranking as a servicable starter seems unfair.

For example, Player X as a starter made countless mistakes during games that cost the team wins.

Player Y was not a particularly vocal or high profile starter, but rarely, if ever, came in for a beating at UFR time.

I think the current method ranks them both as three stars. However I would argue that Player X would fit better in the two star group. He started for reasons we can only guess at or was just part of a unit with extraordinarily poor depth or had great quantities of untapped potential, etc.

Meeechigan Dan

August 21st, 2009 at 6:10 AM ^

I would ask how much of that is perception and how much is reality. First, is it for the full career, or does Player X have a disastrous beginning and then become serviceable? Second, does Player X make some decent plays for every one or two which are bad? Third, does he provide depth at some point in his career?

Perhaps there is a very rare case where a player who gets a lot of playing time at Michigan really is a two star, but boy there would have to be extenuating circumstances.

Which, for Player X in your example, there were. It's a great example and you have class for not naming the poor guy.

Tim

August 21st, 2009 at 8:21 AM ^

A 5-star contributor won't be able to start for 4 years if he's stuck behind a prior 5-star contributor for 1-3 years, even if he's teh rawks.

bouje

August 21st, 2009 at 8:37 AM ^

He didn't start any more than I think 2 years but I wouldn't necessarily call him a 3* in the ratings. I agree that if someone is stuck behind Brandon Graham and then comes in the next year and rocks that you can't really hold it against that player (See USC QB'S still getting drafted in the pro's even if they are career backups)

wolfman81

August 21st, 2009 at 11:58 AM ^

If you really want to get picky about the 5 star rating and tying it to All-American status, do Rivals and Scout try to proportionately fill their 5 star slots? 5 O linemen, 4 D linemen, 1 (or maybe 2) QBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 3 LBs, 4 DBs etc. so that it mirrors what an AA team looks like. (I ask this because I really don't know.) I will say, going from 22 All Americans to 30 5 star players gives us some flexibility to include someone on the border. I have a feeling that the recruiting services stack their 5 stars to the skill positions, and there is always the 5 star ATH to consider, who may not be used in a manner that warrants All American attention.

I'm not as rigid in my mind about 4 year starter for many of the reasons listed below. This may be pure fiction*, but let's pretend that this new position is nearly perfectly suited to Stevie Brown's talents and he leads the nation is sacks and Tackles and gets put on the All-American team. I would say he should warrant a 5 star rating BASED ON THIS SEASON ALONE. Part of what you want a player to do is improve and develop while at Michigan. Perhaps a player is thrust into a starting role too quickly because of a lack of depth at his position. I don't think that the player should be punished for that.

*Disclaimer: This should in no way, shape, or form, be interpreted as a prediction for what I think is going to happen this season. I am merely providing an unlikely scenario to illustrate my point.

Oh, and I don't think that a kicker/punter should ever be a 5 star. Sorry Zoltan. Just one man's opinion. Now the legions from space will attack my down arrow, decimating my MGoPoints with utter impunity.

[EDIT: I guess that they do put punters and kickers on the all American team (fail on my part), so they should be included in the 5 star group. I retract my blanket exclusion of Zoltan from the 5 star group. He still needs to be an all-American before I put him into that group though. Which is, of course, possible, especially when you consider an emperor from space...]

UMFootballCrazy

August 21st, 2009 at 11:54 AM ^

First off, I like what Dan has done here, even if I am biased towards my own proposal. He has made a, dare I say it, scholarly synthysis of the various proposals.

That said there are so many varibles and exceptions to the standard template.

I think if we keep the main criteria descriptive words that ESPN/Scout uses and the national criteria numbers that Rivals uses then we go a long way to cover most of the situations. we have to remember that the star rating system is not an internal metric, that is, how do we think/feel about a Michigan player's development and contribution in isolation from the rest of football. The best example of this is Mike Hart whom we all love, whose contribution to the program is in a class of its own, and whose heart was second to none. Many times he took the team on his back and carried them. In isolation he is a five star in terms of his contribution to the program. But the star system is not about our program in isolation.

The star rating system is a measure of an athlete's talents and abilities and potential measured on a national scale. In this sense the NFL draft plays a similar role in projecting which college athletes will succeed at the pro level and is thus a very similar system to the Rivals and ESPN/Scout rankings as the kids come out of high school. The point here is not whether or not to use the draft, but to recognize what the draft means. The draft is a national comparison, a national measure of the athletes.

To use the Mike Hart example, although his contribution to our program was without question, how would he have stacked up if had had played at Arkansas with Darren McFadden? Likely he would have been the number 2 back. The Razorbacks would have been absolutely loaded at back, but this just underscores the essence of the star system. It is the national comparison of the athletes. How would our guy fair if he had to play at Florida or Texas or OU or USC? The metric one uses to assess that is irrelevant. The draft is a convenient and more or less fair metric, as teams are looking for the best players they can get their hands on and not necessarily grads of a particular program.

The draft also measures well those late bloomers, such as Thomas Mack who did not really blossom until his senior year but then went on to become the best O-Lineman to ever play the game at the pro level. Here is a guy who likely would have come in as a high 2 or low 3 star, graduates as a 4 star and becomes a 5 star at the next level.

The big question, then, has to remain: "How do our athletes compare nationally?" "How is our program doing in terms of developing talent when we compare ourselves on a national level?" Unless we have that national focus, I think the natural tendency will be to grade our guys up.

The key words, then, on a national comparison basis, is would this player of ours, having been in our system for four years, could they go to any top BCS program and still be considered to have the following impact:

"Elite" = 5*

or

"Significant Impact" = 4*

or

"Solid" = 3*

I think that you will find, that baring a few exceptions, most of those that get that fifth star will be first rounders or high second rounders; the second group will get drafted; and the third group will make up the bulk of the rest of the starters.

SanDiegoWolverine

August 21st, 2009 at 12:09 PM ^

but I disagree about a few things. I don't think the NFL is that relevant in the sense that how our players perform in the NFL shouldn't change our perception of their value/production when they were at Michigan. I'd rather have Rod recruit players that dominate while they are at Michigan and underperfom at the NFL than vice versa. If Rod recruits great players for our scheme. Graham Harrell was obviously a 5 star McBean for Texas Tech even though the NFL didn't take him to seriously. I'll take 10 players on Michigan who are that productive whether or not they have an NFL future.

So I do think NFL draft can reflect sometimes how productive the player was it's more often a projection of potential and how will they project to the next level.

UMFootballCrazy

August 21st, 2009 at 12:21 PM ^

Which underscores why winning percentage is the most important metric for a coach. Player development means nothing if you can't win. Winning while alowing your player to under achieve relative to their potential seems a waste. The idea is that you win because you are maximizing the potential of every person in your program.

One interesting artice that either ESPN or SI did was to comapare the class ranking of recruits verses the final poll ranking of the team over a ten year period. Lloyd Carr averaged something like 12th in terms of recruiting and 10th in terms of poll rankings, so it gives the impression he was doing more or less what was expected with the talent he had. Rich Rodrigues over the same period had classes ranked in the mid-30's in terms of recrruiting and his average team rating in the polls was something like 15th, if I remember correctly. He has a history of doing more with less.

And in favouring the NFL draft as a metric to compare our athletes to other athletes in other programs nationally, I am not concerned with how much success they have at the next level, but rather how these players are ranked at this slice in time, at the end of their college careers.

CPS

August 21st, 2009 at 11:37 AM ^

Something that caught my attention in your previous diary was the comparison of Rivals ratings and McBean ratings for punters/kickers. I didn't see any comments on this point in the last diary (maybe I missed it), and rather than bump that thread, I thought I would comment here.

I recall from another discussion many months ago that punters and kickers almost never get more than 3 stars. Sure enough, aside from 2002 (which had five 4 star kickers/punters), every subsequent K/P recruit was no higher than a 3 star. However, it would seem that 3 star K/P recruit is not necessarily a player that is a "solid prospect, but with questions about how the player projects." He could actually be much better than 3 stars, but will never get that 4th or 5th star simply because of his position. I don't recall the reason for this bias, if there was ever one given.

Nonetheless, if your goal is to rate players "over their career at Michigan using definitions that approximated the spirit of the Rivals star ratings to see if, on average, players exceeded or fell short of expectations" P/K recruits should almost be rated on a different scale, weighted or left out entirely. For example, Mesko was the #2 P/K recruit in the nation in 2005, but was rated a 3 star under the Rivals rating system. He's turned out to be a 5 star under the McBean rating system (which I don't disagree with), but he more or less never had the chance to be rated higher under Rivals simply because he was a P/K. As such, it seems difficult to meet your goal when it comes to punters and kickers.

Perhaps someone with greater insight into recruiting can give a reason for this bias in Rivals that justifies rating them no higher than 3 stars, but still allows them to justifiably be rated a 4 or 5 star under the McBean system. In the long run, it might be statistically insignificant, as there will likely be only one or no kickers/punters recruited for a given year, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Edit: I note that wolfman81 briefly touched on this in the time I was writing this comment, but it's still worth considering if this is an issue and if it's something that needs to be resolved.]

UMFootballCrazy

August 21st, 2009 at 11:48 AM ^

But Mesko will likely have the same problem in the draft. Can anyone remember a kicker getting taken in the first or second round of the draft? Likely he will get drafted, which would earn him a fourth star. There is the same debate for the hall of fame. Should Gramatica be inducted into the hall? There are a lot of guys who argue that they are not every down players and thus don't deserve to get into the hall. It is a bias against kickers that is very much real, in spite of their importance to the game.

wolfman81

August 21st, 2009 at 12:04 PM ^

The draft is to be used as a "tiebreaker" for someone who is on the border, so it isn't the primary factor.

As far as 1st round draft picks go...I think Sebastian Janikowski was the only kicker (or punter) taken in the first round ever.

Part of the point of this scale (if I understand the OP correctly) is to make a unique measurement of a player's college career. In a world where there is no NFL, this is how we would still evaluate college careers.

wolfman81

August 21st, 2009 at 1:15 PM ^

Punters and kickers have always been minimized. I know at my HS, we had a good kicker. He routinely got touchbacks, and even had some 30-40 yard FG makes. But he played on the soccer team first and foremost. So he'd practice kicks only after soccer practice.

According to some, a kicker is a football player lite. They don't really do any hitting. They are protected (as they should be) by the rules. Many (NOT ALL) punters and kickers don't fit into the paradigm of prototypical football players. So it is easy to overlook them. Also, their success is often a result of mediocrity. For example, Jason Hanson would not be the great FG kicker he is if the Lions offense was not allergic to the end-zone. (Angry rant: PUNCH IT IN DAMMIT!!!! ok I feel better now.) It is the QB, the RBs (greatly aided by the OL), and the WRs that make the ball move up and down the field. It is the defense that stops the opposing offense from moving the ball downfield. Kickers kick field goals only when the offense fails to score a TD. Punters try to put the defense in the best position possible.

BlueBulls

August 21st, 2009 at 11:58 AM ^

I understand the motive behind using NFL performance for tie breakers (and I was initially a big proponent of it myself), but I think that it has some serious drawbacks.

The first 2 tie-in together
1. It will take too long to really analyze their performance on the next level. Yes there are outliers like Woodley, but I would say that in order to get a meaningful sample, it requires 2, if not 3, years of NFL play.

2. If we want to have relevant data, I don't think we want to wait 3-4 years after someone graduates to finally have a definitive grade.

3. Performance on the next level is affected by too many variables to give proper data. Woodley was put into a perfect situation where there was a good to great defense before he got there. He was surrounded by great players and coaches that taught him and took up a significant amount of attention from opponents, putting him in a better position to succeed. His development, and therefore his performance were greatly affected by variables that skew the data. For the opposite example think of Leon Hall: incredible player, first round pick, horrible team/situation/coaches/on field performance. He shouldn't be deducted stars for that.

I would say that the draft is a better way to analyze player development. Although M players may be hurt by the fact that RR doesn't use a pro-style offense, it evaluates the players on their accomplishments, talent, and potential, which directly corresponds to their college performance, and therefore the ability of M to develop them as players.

wolfman81

August 21st, 2009 at 1:43 PM ^

I think that the point of this is to have a uniquely "college" player performance rating system. This should work "in a world with no NFL". That being said, the NFL can help us decide in a borderline case to help us evaluate a player's skill. Consider these 2 borderline cases.

Case 1: Tom Brady 3 star or 4 star? (He wasn't All-American...he wasn't even close.)

Reasons for 3 star: Not always consistent. Couldn't keep Drew Henson on the bench. Not All-Conference

Reasons for 4 star: Did you see his Orange Bowl performance against Alabama? Team MVP. Team Captain.

Tiebreaker: In the NFL he has shown himself to be one of the best QBs in the league. Also, he was drafted (albeit in the 6th round). Definite 4 star. (NB: This cannot move him into the 5 star category. We weren't having this discussion before realizing he is God's gift to QBs. Also, the NFL, when discussing his hall of fame candidacy, will not consider his college career)

Case 2: Drew Henson 3 Star or 4 Star?

Reasons for 3 star: Not All-Conference. Not a Captain. Success was due to the talent he was surrounded by, not him.

Reasons for 4 star: Saw significant PT for 3 seasons, starting as a Junior. 11th on all time passing yardage list. Competed with Tom Brady for playing time as a Freshman and Sophomore.

Tiebreaker: NFL FLOP. Can't even stay on the Lions Roster. Definite 3 star.

UMFootballCrazy

August 21st, 2009 at 2:29 PM ^

Using NFL performance defeats the purpose of trying to answer the question of how well the Michigan program is developing their players, not the Michigan program plus the New England Patriots. You do not decide how good a person was in high school by measuring their college experience; nor can you measure how good a person was in college by how good they were in the pros. Tom Brady should remain a low 4 star athlete upon his exit from Michigan, in large part because at the time he was drafted, when compared to other athletes from other programs at that moment in time, he was only a sixth rounder. What he did since then should have no relevance for what he had accomplished up until then, and what he was expected to achieve afterwards. This is not an exercise in hindsight, that is, where should this guy or that guy have been drafted; but rather an exercise in evaluating whether or not an athlete lived up to expectations, exceeded them or fell short during his collegate years. If there is a trend of guys over or underachieving during this slice in their football career we may be able to make the assertion that the coaching staff is doing a good or poor job of developing talent.

BlueBulls

August 21st, 2009 at 3:10 PM ^

How can you use performance in the NFL, which can be directly attributed to many many many non-college factors to determine how well a player played in college? The fact remains that the M coaches developed Brady to the point where NFL teams evaluated him as a 6th round talent.

Does the fact that Rashaan Salaam or Eric Crouch were terrible in NFL change the fact that they dominated in college? Should we take their Heisman's away? Would you make them 4 stars instead of 5?

To your example:
What would have happened if Henson didn't go play baseball and was put in Brady's position. What if he received coaching from the best football minds of the decade (or longer) and was mentored by one of the top 10 passing leaders of all time? Meanwhile Brady leaves football, returns and gets thrown into an NFL training camp with little time to prepare. All of the sudden he's starting. Is that a recipe for success?

The bottom line is that if you want to properly assess a player's development in college, the data you can look at has to be from college only.

wolfman81

August 21st, 2009 at 3:50 PM ^

These guys aren't a borderline case. They won the freaking Heisman. They are 5 stars. Done. So the NFL doesn't matter.

The NFL "tiebreak" is only to be used when ambiguity exists.

To your complaint about my example:
We don't need to play games with "what if" examples. We can only concern ourselves with what actually happened. I tried to pick an example where there was some ambiguity as to where you would put the players based on their college careers. Perhaps you could propose a better borderline case?

UMFootballCrazy

August 21st, 2009 at 4:21 PM ^

Mike Hart. Doug Flutie. Joey Harrington. Pick any college stud/NFL bust. Pick any late bloomer/NFL Pro Bowler. You have to stop at a moment in time and look at this player up to that moment and no farther. Hence the usefulness of the draft, but not what they did after the draft.

After the draft they are no longer being devloped by Michigan. It has zero relevance.

[EDIT: It just occured to me that one wicked blind spot of the draft is the undrafted Heisman winners. Do they get that fifth star even though they were won the Heisman or does their lack of draft status relegate them to 3 stars? There has to be other criteria for obvious college stars, stars who are stars on a national scale but fall short in the NFL draft metric. That said, this is not an open door to pad upgrade every player whom you like that got panned in the draft. This upgrading should be limited to the few who really stand out. For example there have only been 3 undrafted winners

2003 Jason White, QB, Oklahoma
1993 Charlie Ward, QB, Florida State
1958 Pete Dawkins, RB, Army

Source: http://www.fftoolbox.com/nfl_draft/heisman_trophy_winners.cfm

Whereas there has been 46 first rounders among the Heisman winners. I am sure that a similar list could be made for All-Americans and 4 year starters who did not get drafted. Those are exceptions and it is much simpler to debate only the exceptions than to have every player be an open debate based on stats, emotions and memories of individual game perromances; rather than use the simple metric of the draft first then debate the exceptions after that.]

BlueBulls

August 21st, 2009 at 4:59 PM ^

I think that you're saying that only in "borderline situations" should the NFL be taken into account. This may make it harder to provide examples to make an opposing argument, but the fact remains that everything that happens after the NFL draft includes non-Michigan development, which is what we are trying to measure.

Although those Heisman winners are extreme cases, your response makes the opposing argument. They played college football and their performance has been examined, the NFL doesn't matter. You said that you don't want to look at "what ifs," but because of all the variables after the draft, everything that follows is a "what if."

If we are trying to determine where to place borderline cases, we need to look closer at their college career. We will learn more about them by seeing HOW they got their stats, what affect they really had in games.

Looking at the NFL will allow us to see what their potential was, but the fact remains, to see how well M developed the players, we can't look at them once they've been developed by others.

EDIT: What's the deal with the negs? If you disagree, post so I can respond. We're having a good debate and exchange of ideas, at least I think so.

wolfman81

August 21st, 2009 at 5:08 PM ^

If you go back to Meeechigan Dan's original post you'll see that he intends this only as an evaluation of a player's college career. As he points out:

Note: This Diary comes with the standard disclaimer that recruiting ratings are subjective, and that this amusing exercise is not intended to answer the fourteen unanswerable questions.

However, he does not wish to put forth mere debate, but instead:

How do we move this question from the realm of water cooler optimism to something more analytical?

Also as UMFootballCrazy said:

To me it just has a simple elegance...but unfortunately does not allow for endless beer fueled debating...dang

Which is exactly what you want since we want analysis in an attempt to measure some effect.