In-state recruiting

Submitted by mghorm on
So all of this talk about Dantonio dominating RR at in-state recruiting and how can you contend for national championships when you don’t win your own state got me to thinking how could in-state recruiting could be quantified. I know that it's mostly state slappies but I'm bored, I’m an engineer and I like using numbers in an arguement not just,"We got Will Gholston." I couldn’t just show total in-state commits because Michigan casts a much bigger net than State does. To combat this I decided to compare in-state recruits that they competed over and take that back a couple of years just see if there is any pattern to prove or disprove Sparty’s latest claim. 

I used Rivals' commit lists and looked to see which recruits had offers from both schools. Some of the 5 star recruits didn't show if sparty offered but it's a safe guess that they did so i counted them, otherwise if it didn't show one of the schools I didn't count it. 

Year      Competition recruits        M Wins          MSU wins  
2010*                  5                           2**                   2  
2009                   6                           2                      4  
2008                   6                           4                      2  
2007                   4                           4                      0  
2006                   2                           2                      0  
2005                   3                           3                      0  
*not complete    
** maybe 3 doesn't say whether or not Jeremy Jackson was offered by MSU

sorry i don't  know how to make tables look pretty 

2010
M Wins: DG and Austin White (again not sure about Jackson but he had offers from most of the Big Ten so…)
MSU Wins: Will Gholston and Mylan Hicks

One trend I noticed while doing this is the number of in-state commits for state has increased dramatically in Dantonio’s tenure

Year      # of commits
2010*            8
2009            12
2008            13
2007             7
2006             5
2005             6
*still not complete

So basically, John L. Smith was useless. He barely tried to compete and failed miserably when he did. Dantonio decided to fight back and has been mildly successful. He won last year but that wasn’t unexpected. Smith wouldn’t have but Dantonio is a much better coach. Right now, it’s neck and neck and it will take this year and at least next to determine who’s winning in-state recruiting. Even with Danonio apparent focus on in-state recruits and M coming off the worst season in its history we are still borderline winning. Once M gets back to its winning ways I think most years it will look like the 2008 class. With M getting most of the recruits but Sparty stealing one or two, and you know what I’m ok with that.


I know it's pretty shoddy statistics and I am welcome to feedback, but I hope i made your work day more enjoyable.

Comments

Chrisgocomment

August 5th, 2009 at 9:37 AM ^

yeah JLS was an epic fail at recruiting in the state, which was a mistake because I really think that's the best strategy for MSU right now. Getting kids who grew up familiar with the program is important and honestly they don't have the national reach that Michigan has just yet.

jrt336

August 5th, 2009 at 10:10 AM ^

Michigan has produced good players the last two years. Wait until the talent level drops to where it normally is. MSU will need to try to find talent out of state.

me

August 5th, 2009 at 10:15 AM ^

I am almost positive Cameron Gordon had an MSU offer. I know it doesn't show up in Rivals but it does in Scout. I thought I remember reading about that in his final decision. That would give UM three from 2009.

Not that it really matters though

lhglrkwg

August 5th, 2009 at 12:50 PM ^

no i think you had it right. iirc state had offered him and they loved him till they all got the impression that state wasn't really recruiting him anymore and then gordon's praises eroded down to 'haha sloppy seconds'

Magnus

August 5th, 2009 at 11:28 AM ^

Michigan offered Dion Sims. MSU got him. We lost the battle. If you go and say, "Well, he didn't want to play at Michigan because he wanted to be a tight end," well, yeah, that's THE REASON why you lost the battle...but you lost the battle.

To put it into war terms (since we're calling it an in-state "battle"), if you're fighting for a piece of land but the opposition has the higher ground and fends you off, do you go home and say, "Well, we didn't actually lose the battle because they had the higher ground. We didn't win. We didn't lose. There simply was no battle."

Anyway, Rodriguez recruited Baker.

Carr had offered Caper, but Rodriguez didn't want him.

We got Thomas Gordon, Teric Jones, and William Campbell.

wolfman81

August 5th, 2009 at 11:48 AM ^

We were fighting for this piece of ground, but then our battle plan shifted and we focused our effort onto another piece of ground. The opposition won that first piece of ground as a result of our shifting battle plan.

The FannMan

August 5th, 2009 at 11:28 AM ^

Isn't this just really State finally being competitive again after years of epic, epic fail in John L. Smith and Bobby Williams? Sure the numbers are improving for State because they are a presence again. You know, like they were before they decided to hire Williams and Smith and ruin their program for a decade? I don't have the time or the inclination to look all this up, but I seem to remember there was always competition for in-state kids when Sabin and Pereles were at State. Then State hired two lousy coaches and paid the price, particularly since Smith decided to ignore the State and try to compete for kids who weren't as aware of Sparty as in-state kids are.

My point here is that State is getting back to where it was in the 80s and 90s. This is not dominance or "turning the tables" - just returning to competitiveness. Dantonio is doing a very good job, no doubt. But being competitive again in-state doesn't mean that State is a dominating recruiting program.

Also, what happened to the "Michigan is slow and fat and can't get fast kids from Florida" theme that we heard so damn much about during the Carr years?

wolfman81

August 5th, 2009 at 11:46 AM ^

And it isn't even a big deal. At least, not until the NCAA mandates that all players must be from your home state.

Recruiting is a global process, not an individual process. One 5-star QB does not an entire team make. The finished product is always more than the sum of its parts.

Saying, "We got more recruits from the state of MI than you" is like saying, "We got more rushing yards than you did." Maybe it matters, but maybe it doesn't. In the end, the scoreboard is more important than the stat sheet.

Blue in Yarmouth

August 6th, 2009 at 10:06 AM ^

Quote: Saying, "We got more recruits from the state of MI than you" is like saying, "We got more rushing yards than you did." Maybe it matters, but maybe it doesn't.

In most cases having more rushing yards than your opposition will matter far more than whether you have more recruits from a given state than another school does.

I think a better comparison would be "I have more BBQ chips than you have Doritos"....You see, I didn't want BBQ chips so the fact that they have more of them than I do means nothing.

This debate is getting stale IME. The OP made the reference to the statement "how can you win NC's if you can't even win your own state?" Well, when your home state is Michigan and the best players in the country are from Texas, Florida, Cal etc, than the answer to that question is: You win NC's by recruiting the best players from those states.

Honestly, there is only one player from Mich. that I would like to have that we don't and that is Gholston, MSU beat us in that sense and it hurts a bit. Other than him, there isn't anyone from Mich. that I would rather have than the guys we currently have or at least have great shots with (Cullen, Grimes, Thurman etc etc etc). I may get lynched for saying this as well, but I would rather have the db's that we are currently courting than Mathis, so again, the in-state thing is a meaningless debate IME.

AC1997

August 5th, 2009 at 11:58 AM ^

The bottom line is that too many people are reading into this in-state situation too much either way:

MSU - Dantonio, while probably focusing too much on the rivalry with UM, is taking a good strategy. He's aggressively going after the in-state guys during a transition period for Michigan and he's going after guys that don't fit as well in Michigan's offense. He has a plan and he's executing it well.

UM - They're always going to go after the best players in the state and get more of them than MSU does. They're going to target more nationally. Nothing much has changed.

MSU is hoping to build some pipelines to programs, build their team, and fuel the rivalry. If it works, Dantonio hopes that in the years with lots of in-state talent he can get more than his share. Michigan hopes that with success on the field they'll maintain their ability to get most of the top talent when they want it.

We'll see how it works out. I think Dantonio is doing the right thing. I don't think it matters at all to what Michigan is doing.