Recruiting Math: Michigan Coaches Head to Head

Does 90 points in 2002 mean the same thing as 90 points in 2012?

Also, what happened in 2002 that Carr's class was so much weaker than all of the other years?

that there were players higher ranked than green coming to uofm back in the day. but i guess i never followed recruiting as closely back then

I'm an accountant, but I can only comprehend the graphs you ' put up on this about 50% of the time. This made more and more sense to my simple brain as I saw the subsequent examples. Hoke's depth in the middle can clearly be seen and felt I think by us observers. I'm sure we all feel and hope that Hoke (and Mattison) have dime Beilein magic with average players and are now getting more elite talent that will make Michigan national contenders soon.

My question is how do you accout for the fact that there are more recruiting services as the years have gone on?  I ask because ESPN didn't start ranking until 2006 according to their database I can find, and 247 is relatively new as well.  So back in 2002 and the early years, you've only got 2 services ranking recruits, but in 2012 you now have 4 data points to take into account. 

I'm currently thinking of Derrick Green who was top 10 to both Rivals and Scout who would have, I'm guessing?, put him up in the 90 area with Prescott Burgess.  But instead 247 ranks him in the 60's or something and ESPN in the 30's, and now he's just 80 in your scoring.  On the same token, could the more evaluations and data points cause the general higher average around the middle recruits?  Kind of a 'regression to the mean' thing were one bad evaluation can't devalue a player in the point system so much.

In 2011 Hoke had just been hired and was scrambling to salvage the recruiting class and fill what needs he could. In hindsight I don't think it's fair to call that one the worst recruiting class in nine years given the circumstances.

By comparison, 2010 is much worse because Rodriguez was multiple years into his career as Michigan's head coach. It's one thing to have some recruiting fall-off when you've literally been hired six weeks prior to signing day, and it's another when you've had all offseason to get the recruits you've been targeting.

have much of a choice with the RR regime based on 2010 and 2011.

I know there were a lot of factors that hurt our recruiting (rumors of firing, internal turmoil, etc), so the "blame" gets spread widely.

However, we were clearly headed to talent purgatory and it will likely limit our ceiling for another year or two. Hats off to Hoke for recruiting a lot of depth to rebuild the roster as quickly as possible.

(or thinking I remember) making one of my first posts here about how Lloyd's average 8.5-9 wins a year were going to look mighty good when the roll was called up yonder.

Does 'losing interest in recruiting' really cover all that was going on there during his last year? You might give the average annual rank of all recruits as another way to compare. 

Math is meaningless.  Hoke laughs at math.  Mattison barks at math and it blitzes for a 10 yard loss.  Meechigan.  I'm geeked for spring football.

...The most important thing is that the low end of the graph is BY FAR, the least meaningful part of the graph.

If you are interested in winning Championships (Michigan pre-2008, post-2010), you have to have quality 4 and 5 star players.

EVERY great team will "fill out" (not insult intended) with 3 star players for half the team.

It's the upper half of the recruits that should be focused on. Dramatically.

is that FACT that this coaching staff is FAR SUPERIOR in developing the fundamentals of football in these players.   Anybody want to compare Greg to GERG ?   Hoke is building a foundation (read O-line and D-front 7) that will provide the basis for a these new recruits to be FAR more successful than previous coaching regimes (including Carr in the later years).  IMO Carr's offensive coordinators in the latter years were the limiting the talent ... I pray I am not saying this 5 years from now (though Al ... does leave me with a lot of head scratching, ugh).

Go Blue!

Weird how the data fits so well with the pre-existing Conventional Wisdom. In my experience, that almost never happens.

Much of the difference at the top could have to do with Carr taking over a long time successful program as an assistant with all the recruiting infrastructure, system and recruits in place.  i.e the recruits were familiar with the coaches and what scheme would be used.  Hoke  took over for a program that was obviously in decline and great turmoil, with a different staff and new system. All things that my be hard for a top recruit to ignore.

I am much more interested in the attrition that Rodriguez experienced compared to the others because in my view that was his downfall more than anything else. Quickly off the top of my head Sam McGuffie, Demar Dorsey, Boubakar Cissoko are three of the surprisingly large amount that Rodriguez seemed to have when I was scannin the recruiting rankings on Rivals one day.

I think most people know (yet like to forget) how well Lloyd Carr recruited but think that what he did with the talent through his game plan cost us wins more than we would have liked. Explosive players yet conservative calls on both offense and defense. Dislike.

This is not (repeat not) an attempt to revive the RichRod wars -- that said, I wonder what the 2010 class would be have been like if RichRod had stayed.  As I recall, we lost Dee Hart and Jake Fisher (not sure if we definitely had him) after RichRod was fired, and it seems like there were a couple of others in that.  Wasn't Hart the highest ranked player RichRod recruited?  In any case, I know that there's no way of knowing what would have happened, but that said I think it's a bit unfair to both Hoke and RichRod to include 2010 without an asterix.