Old Analysis That is Timely: Lag between Success on Field and Recruiting
I suspect a fair number of you today (based on the posts I'm seeing) are trying to assess why UM didn't "win" more recruiting battles based on this season. While some of that may be due to assessment of the market/competition (coaching carousel, etc), poor expectation management by recruiting analysts (I don't really follow it that much so that may be possible), it strikes me as most logical that the dividends from seasons like this one tend to pay off down the line far more than in cycles that are just finishing.
Since this is in many ways an empirical question (ie what is magnitude and lag, if any, of a bump from success?), I happened to find a nice piece from a UW (Washington) blog that did some nice analyses.
https://www.uwdawgpound.com/2017/2/3/14458520/mythbusters-the-recruiting-lag-uw-huskies-football-recruiting-analysis
While one must always treat findings that reinforce ones priors with extra caution, I think that the authors assumptions were reasonable (look at big jumps in wins to control for randomness, etc) and I think this does make a lot of sense. To use a dating analogy; if your forever crush reaches out to you a month before your wedding, yeah it might make you think but for most people they are already too far along to turn back and/or in a different direction.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:15 AM ^
Stop bringing alternative facts into the signing day discussion. This season should have resulted in the #2class to match our ranking
December 15th, 2021 at 9:28 AM ^
They had a 2 win season last year. So, these kids have heard how bad Michigan is and all the negative pitches for close to a year. In most cases, you always get the bump in recruiting the year after success and a down year after a terrible season. If you are stargazing next season is probably going to be your year.
December 15th, 2021 at 9:48 AM ^
I guess the sarcasm wasn't obvious
December 15th, 2021 at 10:54 AM ^
This is the internet, you forgot one key element. /s
December 15th, 2021 at 9:49 AM ^
Don't forget.........Oakland is in play.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:16 AM ^
That doesn’t explain why we seem to be losing recruits who were nominally committed to Michigan this year, or not winning tossups, based on the grim reports in other threads. You would think this year’s success would have tipped those borderline cases in Michigan’s favor.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:18 AM ^
This is my concern as well. I understand the general proposition that there is some lag on a macro level, but on a micro level it seems like we are losing a lot of recruitments we shouldn’t be and there is always some different excuse as to why it hasn’t tilted our way.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:26 AM ^
Sure, but at least the cases I can think of there are good reasons for this. It's not like players are just going to random crappy programs with no possible rationale. Recruiting is national but proximity to talent is better for programs. Burke is from Texas and probably flipping to them. Dent is from Florida and getting more attention from Florida teams. Morgan was a big part of Henry's recruitment and now Morgan is at Washington, which just happens to be where Henry will probably end up.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:29 AM ^
The carousel giveth and the carousel taketh away?
December 15th, 2021 at 7:21 AM ^
Who cares? Stargazing is so dumb
Harbaughs worst recruiting classes were the highest ranked ones
December 15th, 2021 at 8:10 AM ^
Stargazing is dumb, but stop acting like stars don't matter. That is also dumb.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:48 AM ^
True. Look how good texas and Miami always are
its not that they don’t matter. It’s that dissecting between a handful of top 300 and handful of top 100 recruits is utterly meaningless
December 15th, 2021 at 10:56 AM ^
I agree.
Talent evaluation matters,
but "rankings and stars" are made up numbers generated by largely unqualified talent evaluators that do nothing but fuel a self fulfilling bias.
And most importantly, none of it matters if the player is a "bad fit" and just hits the portal at his first chance.
This is a solid class.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:22 AM ^
The Portal is also already making it an entirely different game in that free agents are a massive compliment to traditional recruiting. Kiffin is right when he says your entire team is always on the market.
What does it matter to sign the 4th best class if half are gone in two years? What about the 24th best class if you absolutely scrub The Portal clean for proven talent in those next two years?
I won't get in to or speculate about Michigan's place in it (we do that enough) but any team not using the full benefits of The Portal and NIL are dinosaurs and they'll meet the same fate. IF...IF Michigan or Ole Miss or Texas or Miami isn't ready or able to use them to their fullest extent, they will be crushed and it won't be slowly. It'll happen in a few years, unlike traditional recruiting that allows for those buffer years proposed in the article.
If you're a Blue Blood that, say, had a really bad 2020 but a really good 2021, you can't afford to think the old way. Players are available and if traditional recruiting has a year delay to your winning you better hit the market.
So I'm not sure how much an article like this matters in 2021. The game is fundamentally different.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:28 AM ^
The portal is important, but usually the players in the portal are castoffs and many (most?) don't end up doing much, unless they transfer down, and teams still get a large majority of their starters out of high school.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:44 AM ^
Yes. Of course there are examples like KWIII at MSU, but most guys in the portal are there because they're not cracking the depth chart at their first school. You might consider them _proven_ three-stars (as opposed to recruiting three-stars). They could still prosper, but they're a little less likely to do so than a recruiting three-star.
December 15th, 2021 at 1:46 PM ^
That is changing quickly. You are starting to get elite guys in the portal now, not just guys that can't crack a lineup.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:28 AM ^
I keep saying this season will impact the 23 and 24 classes...not this one.
We didn't make a lot of these guys top 10 and top 8...we weren't recruiting them hard as sophomores and juniors.
That's why damn near every new guy on the board is a flip from a school that just lost the coach or top coordinator. Because we recruited those guys and they went elsewhere.
But where we will really see the impact is next season. You can already see the interest in the TOP guys that we're in on.
If we have a great year next year, this thing will really take off. Next year is pivotal to truly changing the program. Have a similar or better year and Michigan can go on a nice run like Oklahoma, UGA...keep winning and maybe you can move into the Clemson/OSU tier in terms of the stretch of success.
December 15th, 2021 at 9:47 AM ^
Exactly. And also notice how the poor 2020 season didn’t impact our 2021 class as we still landed McCarthy, Edwards (NSD decision), Worthy, Colson, Benny (NSD decision), etc. It wasn’t until the 2022 class that the 2020 season impacted our recruiting. Both negative and positive trends take a while to translate in recruiting.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:38 AM ^
I could be wrong as I follow recruiting only a moderate amount. That said, how is UM expected to compete with teams that are unloading money to these kids? It’s seems like UM wants no part of that, so far. In addition, it will make it harder to get transfers as the admissions are harder than most colleges. I think their is a middle ground. You can be a Day, Fisher, etc. and win on pure talent and recruiting as opposed to being a great football coach. Seems like UM needs to do more updating ok NIL before they start getting these high end prospects.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:43 AM ^
Someone from Michigan choosing Kentucky over Michigan is a head scratcher. Other than that, every other news I read so far makes sense including the kid wanting to stay back home and go to Texas.
We will be ok. Adding Gentry to the class was a huge get. Recruits will come and our coach has done a nice job with what he gets.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:43 AM ^
Hmm. Lemme use the Ethan Burke situation to see if I understand your analogy.
So, Burke gets engaged to a hot, successful, financially secure partner with plans to get married about a month later. Then the night before the wedding his crush calls and confesses their love to him. He grew up dreaming about the crush, but the last ten years have been hard on the crush—they lost their job, live in a trailer park, gained a ton of weight, and have leathery skin from chain smoking. Anyway, his wedding is tomorrow, and his fiancé is a home run that’s gonna take him to heights he never imagined.
…So he jilts his fiancé at the altar for the bum?
December 15th, 2021 at 8:16 AM ^
Some people just have a fetish for leathery skin and smoker’s phlegm.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:42 AM ^
But remember, his crush also lives close to his mom.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:52 AM ^
Does anyone smell their own farts better than Michigan? I'm a fan too but Christ, this is some next level Michigan arrogance here. There's tons of reasons for kids to commit elsewhere.
December 15th, 2021 at 9:05 AM ^
He remembers how she dominated junior high competition and thinks the currrent measurables can fit in his gimmicky system.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:56 AM ^
Does seems kinda crazy that UM is about to only get 1 of the top 25 players in its own state. Yes I realize many kids they didn't even offer but still...locking down your own state is usually priority #1.
December 15th, 2021 at 8:47 AM ^
Getting the best players you can is usually priority #1.
FTFY
Look, I understand the pluses of in-state players. They're more likely to be fans of the school and less likely to transfer. They probably also "understand the rivalry" (LOL at that general idea). But "locking down the state" should be a secondary focus. What if the best guy in Michigan is a three-star?
December 15th, 2021 at 8:58 AM ^
Burnham, VanSumeren, Walker, Tatum... all players UM very much wanted but couldn't get. Has nothing to do with the intangible pluses of instate players.
December 15th, 2021 at 11:14 AM ^
I agree about Burnham, Walker (though that always seemed like neither side was ever on the same poage), and Tatum (to an extent - him not getting along with Clinkscale seems like a valley they couldn't bridge), but VanSumeren was a UM lock until his brother transferred to MSU, at which point he then flipped. Not much you can do there.
The positive is that they seem to be doing better with 2023 guys in state (obviously Moore is the big name there), and hopefully recent success will help.
December 15th, 2021 at 10:27 AM ^
Good stuff Niels. Intuitively, it does seem like we should be able to flip players late based on the great season we had. But just look at last year when we finished strong flipped players or securing commitments despite how terrible our season went. I don't personally get it but in the end, we should have a really nice class in 2023 (and this year's class is much better than the star gazers believe).
December 15th, 2021 at 11:57 AM ^
Yeah that was my read (and surprise) as well. This is the kind of situation where there are clearly predictors but there also appears to be a ton of variance in the process, which is fertile ground for both "takes" as well as potentially interesting empirical stuff that can be done to better define the error term.
December 15th, 2021 at 2:25 PM ^
If players are allowed to sign a NLI and then transfer shortly thereafter (ala Worthy to Texas) w/o sitting out, we may just get some of these transfers if we shock the world and beat both UGA and (probably) BAMA.
The difference between this season and 1997 was that signing day was early Feb and we found ourselves getting some 5* adds like David Terrell and Justin Fargas.
I wouldn't count us out if we bring home the bacon that we will get at least 1 or 2 "transfers" like UT got Worthy.
December 15th, 2021 at 11:56 PM ^
We had an excellent day today - as for the guy who went to UK so be it. We have enough new guys to cover.
Three things to consider for those who wonder why we didn't do even better:
1. Unlike 1997 season when the recruits didn't sign until early Feb (when we netted Walker, Terrell, Fargas) we didn't have the time to get "reintroduced" to recruits who thought JH was a goner after another (supposed to be) lackluster season.
2. After the MSU loss in late October, a lot of UM fans complained (including a few here) that JH would NEVER win the big game. Some even suggested he be canned unless he beat Ohio. My feeling that evening was: (1) we were the better team and showed it for 30+ minutes, (2) every possible break (whether induced by incorrectly applying the video review process or just plain what is/isn't PI) went against us, and (3) MSU had played a soft road schedule (Miami when their coach got fired later, NW, Rutgers, 2-10 Indy) would soon bite them when they had to play (and lose) and Purdue and Ohio. Just how many recruits felt UM was the destination after the loss and all the "fire Harbaugh" talk because of a 37-33 loss to a top 10 team?
3. We now had no margin for error and had to win at PSU, which thankfully to a great D stop after the strip sack to hold them to 3 and the great call throwing across the field to All, we delivered the goods. Problem is most recruits have "danced" with their prospective schools long enough to not be won over by the best 4 weeks of UM football we've seen in a while PSU-Maryland-OSU-Iowa.
Given that I graduated from UM in 1985 and had to take a class in Fortran 1977, my recommendation (in programming logic) is this:
1. Do loop start
2. Have a cold one (any IPA works for me)
3. Have another cold one
4. Watch the best long play (30+ minutes) of the Washington game (trust me, being in Disney resort in Orlando after a long day at the Hollywood Studios, knowing OSU had lost to Oregon and then seeing us thoroughly dominate UW except for maybe one drive and gladly paying $8.50 for a few tall Heinekens at the pool side bar while my wife had some $15 fruity drink while watching Thunder and Lightning rip thru UW's D was worth every penny and the maize out was incredible to watch on TV by the pool bar!)
5. Repeat 2 and 3
6. Watch a LP of the Ohio game including the post game interview where some hot blonde sideline reporter tells JH - you're a Michigan Man, you've player in this rivalry, you've coached in this rivalry - before asking for his input
7. Repeat 2-6 until passing out
8. End do loop in bed, displacing a cat who thought you had passed out in the recliner and she had free reign to your side of the bed.
BTW: not to get religious on anyone but wondered where to place my wonderful ticket stub from the snowy 2021 Ohio game, decided "why not as a bookmark in the family bible!" since it does seem like a miracle happened this year - even with two games to go!
Go Blue, UM '85 ChE grad and Dow retiree!