Somewhat OT: USC recruiting over the past few years
While looking at what our new average star rankings on scout with Johnson being rated (Team=16 average star=18) I saw something that I thought was a bit odd:
USC has a current class consisting of: Offense: 11 Defense: 2 ST: 1
Last year had a class of: Offense: 4 Defense: 13 ST: 1
Went back the previous couple of years and saw that it was pretty even besides these 2 years. (except for 2004/2005 where it was similar 2004=12-7-0 2005=5-11-0)
Essentially it just seems like Carrol every few years will just take one side of the ball more than the other for a year and then switch to the next year. Not exactly sure why he would do this maybe it's because he gets a ton of studs on one side of the ball one year and says "well I'm not going to take marginal athletes to play here" and then the next year says to high ranking recruits "look we took no one last year look at the depth chart!".
Just thought it was odd and in stark contrast to how Michigan has always recruited (even numbers on both sides of the ball). Honestly I feel like the way that USC does it is better. Thoughts?
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:22 PM ^
I don't think you can read anything into that but coincidence. Pete knows how to address needs based on his depth chart and it is likely those were his needs at the time. It is also likely that those particular years all those studs he recruited just happened to play one side of the ball.
Oh and don't forget there was a lot of negative recruiting that came out against Pete last year. This year it is rumored he is keeping quite a few silent commits so there is no way to tell how it is going to shake out.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:30 PM ^
of the ball this year. Last years class is over with and that class was heavily slated to the defensive side of the ball and this year is to the offensive side I really don't think that that is a coincidence.
This post was trying to debate the merits of of classes that are 10-10 every year or if going unbalanced to get better athletes and players 5-15 one year and 15-5 the next year to balance it out.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:30 PM ^
with kids going to school for 4 or 5 years that's enough time for carroll (and all other coaches) to look at recruiting as two years combined together. coaches often do this if they think they're in on a lot of good prospects concentrated on one side of the ball. you're correct that in a way it helps bc the following year they can point to the fact that a player won't have much competition on his side of the ball in the previous recruiting class that would block his playing time. it's not something a coach will set out doing but something he is more aware of in the recruiting process.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:30 PM ^
The '09 class was heavy on defense because they graduated many players off of defense. If they continue heavy on offense they probably expect to graduate many offensive players this year
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:33 PM ^
Where they will have 2 classes that are balanced and then 2 unbalanced classes.
Year Weighted to the:
2004 Offense
2005 Defense
2009 Defense
2010 Offense
If your theory was correct then it would have been heavy offense in 2009 and heavy defense this year but actually it was flip flopped (as the 2008 year was 10-9).
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:39 PM ^
They graduated nearly their entire defense in '08/'09, those players were replaced with a defense heavy '09 recruiting class. Teams have to continually fill gaps as players graduate,
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:39 PM ^
Well it makes sense a little bit. Think how awesome that defense was in 2004. Fast forward 4 years and think how good that 2008 defense was.
Now think about 2005. Pretty amazing offense. Fast forward to 2009. If Mark Sanchez stays like Matt Leinart did how good is the Trojans offense? I would wager they would have still been in the hunt for the Pac-10 title last week and maybe even a BCS title berth.
So they likely do have alternating cycles of offense and defense completely based on need like Irish suggested.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:39 PM ^
It could be a trend that started a long time ago possibly just due to a lot of talent one year on either the offensive or defensive side of the ball. Might be as simple as he sees a lot more players leaving on offense rather than defense in the near future and is recruiting accordingly. All the talk during the USC v. OSU game they spoke of how their entire Oline could be first round draft picks and that "stable" of RBs want to get a shot at the last cap-free draft. Besides Taylor Mays, I don't see a defense that contained as much talent as last years' group (that LB core was sick and Cushing is a monster on the Texans).
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:41 PM ^
I don't see how this is at all off topic, but it is interesting.
Could it be that he's just taking the BPA every year and the talent levels of interested kids were just different those two years? Or was it skewed one way the first year and he had to turn hard the other way to balance it out?
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:22 PM ^
I think that it could possibly be a combination of a few factors - but it is not necessarily that Carroll intends to take a class that is heavy one way or the other in alternate years. I am starting from the assumption that Carroll will take the best players available.
If a lot of players are graduating from the defense in a given year, then the blue chip recruits will be more interested in signing. The commenters above assume that players are looking at the class immediately preceding them to determine whether the depth chart is attractive, but I would argue that if you're a 5* free safety, you just want to know if there is an incumbent starter. If the starter is graduating, you assume you can step in and play - or at least thats what the coaches tell you. So even if the previous class is balanced, you will have a heavy defense class if you are graduating your whole defense because you will be able to sign more blue chip players on that side of the ball. If the choice is an unbalanced class with all 5* defensive players, or a balanced class with lower ranked offensive players, then Carroll will take the unbalanced class.
I apologize if this is what someone was getting at above, but I didn't think it was exactly the same.
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:33 PM ^
SC has a very young defense with one senior on the two-deep in the front seven and tons of underclassmen on the depth chart. To keep a 50/50 split on the roster they need to bring in an unbalanced class.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:15 PM ^
wow really. If he brings in a def. heavy class then when they graduate (in a "few" years) he will need to bring in another def. heavy class. Nothing to read into here. Dumb post.