Lorenz Crystal Ballz Delance to UM

Submitted by alum96 on

In yesterday's "Davis to Maryland" thread I had mentioned that the absence of Lorenz and Wiltfong - guys who are usually in on every highly pursued UM recruit - in the crystal ballz section for 247 was a bit head scratching.  Well, we finally saw movement on that end as Lorenz has finally broken for the good guys.  A few hours earlier some twerp who follows OSU put him in for Texas but I choose to believe in Lorenz. 

So that gives us 2 of the big 3 - Acian (Brace?) ... the combined ball of Brian and Ace, and Lorenz... one more to go.

($$) http://michigan.247sports.com/Bolt/Michigan-Crystal-Ball-Jean-Delance-4…

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alum96

December 29th, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^

 

Lanknows

December 29th, 2015 at 1:47 PM ^

In some cases they are, in others, not so much.  There is no confidence level: the ballz are a  gimmick and prone to echo chamber effects of guys reading each others posts.  Sometimes people are just making more of guesses than probably should be made.

People who get first-hand info (via talking with coaches or recruits) like Webb and Lorenz are typically good sources, but most of the people putting in predictions aren't doing that.

In other words, it's no "gut feel". 

For guys who don't talk much to the media, these things should be taken with a big grain of salt.

Magnus

December 29th, 2015 at 1:58 PM ^

The problem with that is that there would be no indication very much before an announcement. If prognosticators can't change their picks, then they're going to wait until a day or a couple hours before the announcement (if it's a planned announcement). So you go from having percentages on which to base your opinions throughout a recruitment, to a point where you have no clue until 24 hours beforehand.

Magnus

December 29th, 2015 at 3:48 PM ^

Michigan offered him early and pursued pretty hard. I haven't heard anything about grade issues, and I don't think that's a risk OSU would take, either, since they have their pick of athletes (in many ways). There's not much of a reason to pursue a good player/academic risk when you can get a good player/academic non-risk. 

Jordan is pretty quiet on the recruiting trail, so he never said very much. He just seemed to be enamored with Ohio State and their trend of winning lots of games. He ended things pretty early.

Lanknows

December 29th, 2015 at 2:22 PM ^

Because things change on the recruit's end and so on the 'insider''s end you'd get a lot of waiting around until close to signing day so that they can look right more often. 

In other words, your accuracy gains would be offset by less information and less entertainment - which is kind of the point of the whole gimmick anyway (clicks).

GoBLUE_SemperFi

December 29th, 2015 at 9:43 PM ^

...with the way it works right now. These guys get information and they forecast a commitment based on that. If they are 6 months out and get it correct, they get A LOT more points, than if they switch their prediction at the last minute.

The consuming public wins in this scenario, because we get the information as it's released, but we can also balance that against "recent" predictions and give the appropriate weight based current information.

If someone's crystal ball is say 73 percent, like Devin's was for FSU, you only had to look at the dates to realize that 75 percent of those were put in BEFORE Harbaugh's camp with Bush Sr.

No reason to change anything, just take the information for what it's worth.

BornSinner

December 29th, 2015 at 12:33 PM ^

Just noticed that Texas doesn't have a single top 20 recruit from Texas.

Has that ever happened before? 

Wow...poor Charlie Strong. 

alum96

December 29th, 2015 at 1:07 PM ^

No worries bro.... he is back in consideration for the Heisman next year; just needs to add 15 lbs btw now and next Sept.

I always did like his tape more than Kingston Davis' - well at least in the past 15 minutes.

 

Blau

December 29th, 2015 at 1:09 PM ^

How much legit stock do the recruiting gurus put into these things? Is it similar to the "gut feelings" Webb puts out or do they actually consult these players before assigning crystal ballz?

I'm just wondering if there is an actual trigger from the recruit himself or do the gurus figure they've been been high on one team for a while before making a judgement?

FreddieMercuryHayes

December 29th, 2015 at 1:35 PM ^

They can put a crystal ball in whenever for whatever reason. 247 makes it a competition for predicting accurately as well as farther in advance. More points of you pick farther out from the announcement. Webb's gut feelings are when a recruit tells Webb he's going to commit, or his sources on the staff say they got a commit from somebody basically.




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Farnn

December 29th, 2015 at 1:41 PM ^

Lorenz is usually pretty good on Michigan targets.  He doesn't use it unless he has knowledge that a team is a heavy favorite.  Wiltfong is also pretty good and more plugged in nationally.  The Ace/Brian account is solid and you can consider to be a combination of Scout, Rivals, and 247 info, along with occasional inside info.  

Outside of those 3 I don't pay much attention to specific guys but the general trend or percentage to a certian team is a good indicator.  But sometimes they are way off like with Delance, where most of the crystal balls are old but no one has had a great feel if he favors Michigan or LSU so they haven't put in thei votes.  

alum96

December 29th, 2015 at 1:56 PM ^

Farnn pretty much covers it.

I might have started the whole "ballz" nomenclature a few years ago here just because it was a bit tongue in cheek .  I do agree there is a lot of echo chamber stuff and some people who know little to nothing about a specific school tend to piggyback what "school experts" do and often at the last minute.

The "dialed in guys" are often 80%+ success which is quite good considering  these are 17 year olds who often make changes on a dime - see Mike Weber.  Then certain guys are dialed in to certain schools etc so you just sort of triangulate.  You can also reverse engineer a bit if a guy is dialed in for the recruits other "top 3" for example so with Bush Jr the version of Lorenz there (Brewster- whose dad is on the staff) thought he was going to FSU until 12 hrs before the announcement.  He is a good Noles informant so once he flipped Bush to UM you had to feel great.   Now was he "useless" because he had Bush to FSU for weeks?  Not at all - the FSU insiders and UM insiders both felt very good about that recruitment.

tl;dr not all ballz are alike - you really have to look at who it is and their connection to the school or for guys who are more regional/national like a Wiltfong.

Lanknows

December 29th, 2015 at 2:30 PM ^

not all recruits are alike.  Some don't share much.

I'll never forget how damn sure every insider was about Ronald "Rojo" Johnson to Michigan but nobody and I mean NOBODY ever got a quote from the kid directly.  In the abscense of info you had falt-out guesses (based on location I guess) turning into "things I'm hearing" turn into 'momentum' turn into basically a 'lock'. It was echo chamber all the way and nobody was 'triangulating' very well on that one.  It wasn't a Weber situation where there was a change of heart there was just a kid who didn't talk to anyone.

Sometimes we just have to admit we don't know until the kid says something, but the recruiting insiders can be reluctant to say that and/or get asked over and over and over again to say something about it and then eventually submit a guess which gets blown out of proportion.

Point is: yeah, context matters.

pfholland

December 29th, 2015 at 1:50 PM ^

Is that the OSU guy who seems to put in a crystal ball against Michigan just before every big recruit we're in on announces? Someone did it with both Bush and Walker.

Magnus

December 29th, 2015 at 1:49 PM ^

Delance is one of the four guys I want to finish out the class. I'm cautiously optimistic that he'll give us reason for a Hello post in a few days.