Some Justification For The Recruiting Tizzy
he wants you (probably not you unless you're 6'6")
Brady Hoke's swashbuckling recruiting start has put Michigan fans in a tizzy, yrs truly included. Whenever anyone's in a tizzy there's someone there to say "hey, wait a minute," and this is no exception: amongst the many threads that can be summed up with three punctuation marks—!!!—is a small cadre of very rational people who note a significant number of three stars and lack of top 100 types.
One of them did some research:
I looked at Rivals data for every year since 2002, when they first started rating. I looked at the total number of 4 and 5 star recruits each year, and then calculated that as a percentage of the overall class. As we know, 4 and 5 star recruits are what fans think of as "elite" recruits, and if you look at elite recruits as a percentage of the overall class, you can get a rough idea of the "quality" of that year's class.
There are major caveats with this approach, starting with a huge one; this year's class isn't finished being rated, since none of have even played a game as a senior in H.S. Also, the class isn't, like, complete. Finally, the usual caveats of recruiting ratings apply as well. But since fans are typically using ratings to proclaim their happiness with recruiting, it seems fair to at least look at the early ones, just as we do around here in Tim's "Hello' posts. So here goes:
YEAR- #4/5* of # in class (%)
2002- 11 of 21 (52%)
2003- 13 of 17 (77%!)
2004- 13 of 22 (59%)
2005- 10 of 23 (44%)
2006- 11 of 19 (58%)
2007- 7 of 20 (35%)
2008- 17 of 24 (71%)
2009- 14 of 22 (64%)
2010- 6 of 27 (23%)
2011- 6 of 20 (30%)
2012 to date- 7 of 16 (45%)
So of the 11 years that Rivals has recruiting rated, there have been 4 of those years that, by looking at 4 and 5 star percentage of class, this year's class so far has beaten. And of course 6 that had a higher percentage of the class rated as elite by Rivals. Again, I don't draw any conclusions here because of the above caveats, but I do find it interesting. What do you think?
I think the above guy does have a point. Michigan is not suddenly recruiting on par with USC at its apex. That's fine. We are a beaten down fanbase that reached for the spread stars and melted its bowl streak and self respect. A return to, say, the #6 program in the country—its record during the Carr era—would be a welcome change. Michigan's recruiting from the early part of the survey contributed to that and a return to it is a good thing.
But just glancing at the number of four stars sells Michigan a little short. Here's why:
Rivals Is Relatively Down On The Class
247 and Scout are higher on Michigan's commits. The original poster returned to make this point when asked by commenters: 56% of Michigan's commits have four stars on Scout, which puts it above six of the previous ten classes.
Big Classes Are Tougher To Fill
Michigan is apparently headed to 26 this year, a number that should strike fear into every 5'8" guy on the roster other than Vincent Smith*. There's a set number of highly touted guys interested in you no matter how big your class is, so getting to 16 so early with seven four stars (or nine or whatever) should mean Michigan can hold out for bigger fish and come to rest with an impressive, large class.
*[This does make me uncomfortable: they have about 19 spots now and while a standard attrition rate gets them close-ish to that number, outright planning on sending guys out is approaching Saban territory. I hope there are completely legitimate reasons the guys who leave do so but that's getting into "but he really wanted to go to South Alabama!" territory. We'll see.]
Not All Three Stars Are Created Equal
Rivals actually breaks down players into eight tiers: a five star gets 6.1, four stars 6.0, 5.9, or 5.8, three stars 5.7, 5.6, or 5.5, and two stars 5.4. Michigan's committed three stars all get a 5.7 from Rivals save Mario Ojemudia, who gets a 5.6. They've all got good offers from program established at a BCS level:
- Ben Braden: Wisconsin (and Michigan State)
- Devin Funchess: Nebraska (and Michigan State)
- Matt Godin: Wisconsin (and Michigan State)
- Kaleb Ringer: Iowa
- Anthony Standifer: Notre Dame
- AJ Williams: Arkansas (and Michigan State)
- Ojemudia: Iowa, Stanford (and Michigan State)
- Allen Gant: Stanford
Only Caleb Stacey (best other offer: BC or Illinois) doesn't have an offer from a program that's done pretty well for itself over the last five or so years.
While none of those offer lists says "you have obviously ranked this prospect wrong (or he's fibbing about who wanted him)" there's a big difference between a 5.7 three star Nebraska was after who is a four star to the other sites and the three stars in Michigan's 2006 class. Only Quintin Patilla got a 5.7. Patilla and Obi Ezeh were snatched away from the MAC; Quintin Woods had an Iowa offer but didn't qualify, something that no current commit seems to be on watch for—certainly no three star. John Ferrara (Penn State) and Perry Dorrestein (Nebraska) each had one other good-ish BCS offer but didn't get that 5.7 and Nebraska then was Callahan Nebraska. Greg Banks shows an Oklahoma(!) offer on his profile but I'm not buying that; he was nondescript 5.6.
Similarly, of Michigan's 11 three-star-or-worse commits in 2005 only two (La Terryal Savoy and Mister Simpson) got a 5.7.
This is where some light Carr tsking has to go: Michigan's strike rate in the late Carr era was dismal. Exactly one three star* from 2006 or 2005 can claim to be anything other than a desperation starter: Mark Ortmann. In just 2005 Ohio State dug up Brian Hartline, Malcolm Jenkins, James Laurinaitis, Anderson Russell, Donald Washington and Brian Robiskie. That's six guys currently in the NFL rated three stars or lower by Rivals. We can talk all the crap we want about Terrelle Pryor but the current Buckeye dominance wasn't just built on loaner cars and birthday parties. They annihilated Michigan when it came to unplucked gems.
Similarly, Rich Rodriguez's classes were laced with academic washouts, insta-transfers, and guys with offer sheets nowhere near the solid lists Michigan's current commits have.
While we've got little evidence Hoke can manage the same trick OSU did the chances he comes up as empty the Carr regime did towards the end are slim, and the chances he suffers as much attrition as Rodriguez are zero.
*[Other than Zoltan Mesko, who is a punter. He got three stars but for recruiting sites giving a kicker three stars is the equivalent of giving anyone else five.]
Michigan State: Goo
This has already been established. Brady Hoke has turned Michigan State recruiting into a national endeavor. Good luck with that, kids.Notre Dame Is Not Invincible
Recruiting against Notre Dame became virtually impossible for Michigan after Charlie Weis (of all people!) ascended to the top job in South Bend. Throw a rock at Notre Dame's highly touted, highly disappointing offensive line and you have about an 85% chance of hitting a guy who Michigan had offered and pursued heavily. (Don't worry: in response he will only mewl pitifully and see his draft stock plummet.) When Michael Schofield committed to Rich Rodriguez, this was a tremendous outlier.
Notre Dame always did well against Michigan since they had an edge with upstanding gentlemen from Catholic schools and upstanding gentlemen from elsewhere were a dogfight, but in the late Carr/Rodriguez era that went from a slant to an avalanche.
Hoke hadn't fought with Notre Dame much early but four of the last five commits—Erik Magnuson, Tom Strobel, Anthony Standifer, and Terry Richardson—had offers from Notre Dame. Richardson is Cass Tech and his buds are commits and etc etc, but
- Standifer is from Chicago, where Notre Dame has been kicking Michigan's head in for decades,
- Magnuson is from the West Coast, where Michigan recruiting had evaporated under Rodriguez and Notre Dame does pretty well, and
- Strobel is from the Cleveland area, which is historically one of the least-friendly places for Michigan recruiting. (Information per Misopogon, his past diary, and his upcoming Hail To The Victors article.)
That's a burst of success against the Irish unlike any Michigan has seen in a long time.
Ohio State: Self-Immolated
This is impossible to judge in a vacuum; recruiting against the Buckeyes is going to be a lot easier for the foreseeable future. Does Tom Strobel swing to Michigan if Jim Tressel forwards that email to compliance? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. However, even if Ohio recruiting's skids are considerably greased the next few years Hoke has an opportunity to become an equal(-ish) force in the state comparable to the Bo/Mo/early Lloyd era when recruiting an Ohio player was like going up against Notre Dame: yeah, there's a subset of that population you're basically Sisyphus with but you are going to win a sizeable chunk of those battles.
Shane Morris
Shane Morris. In a similar vein, the things people are hearing about Wormley, Pipkins, Diamond, and even the buzz on Adolphus Washington.
Evaluating A Proper Level Of Giddiness
I do think the research guy above has a point. While Rivals is the most pessimistic data point at the moment, Michigan killing the Midwest without pulling in any of the truly big time recruits from Ohio, Illinois, or Pennsylvania (yet, anyway) is a baseline for Michigan's success if it's going back to a This Is Michigan strategy. Hopefully over the next eight months we'll see them pare back to an elite corps of guys they're after and close out with VHTs. If they don't it's going to look like a pretty good Carr class. If they do it's going to crack the top five and set the stage for a major realignment of power in the region.
"in Michigan." RR and his staff spent a larger portion of their time in other parts of the country. So with HS coaches in Michigan seeing Hoke and his staff so much more, it's going to look like "they have put much more effort in th(a)n the other coaches and previous staff."
So RR's guys are "tweeners" but Hoke's guys are "flexible"? Remember, we are recruiting Jrs in high school right now. We can only guess as to how much they will grow. Our current 2012 commits have several guys who may grow from LB to DE or DE to DT or TE to OL or CB to S. Happens all the time.
Player development and roster mangagement were the last staff's biggest failures. They did a great job getting the lines ready to go and Denard obviously progressed really well, but some of the other positions were disasters. You can't have zero success at linebacker or DB and hope to win. Part of that was injury, but a secondary with Dorsey, Emilien, Turner, and Woolfolk would have made the outlook a lot brighter last year.
I read an interesting point somewhere (don't remember exactly, but I believe it was from imafreak on WLA) that one of Rodriguez's biggest failings was taking the Ray Vinopal-types - i.e. developmental DB prospects - in the 2010 class, but not taking any such players in the 2008 class, when he actually had a couple scholarships to spare on Signing Day.
If we'd had somebody like hypothetical-third-year Ray Vinopal on scholarship in 2010, instead of no developmental prospects in the pipeline, some of the catastrophes brought on by a lack of depth in the defensive backfield could have been reduced (though probably not eliminated altogether).
That, and firing Shafer to bring in a certified incompetent in GERG. There's a reason Shafer's been successful at basically every stop before and since Michigan, ime.
They may have thought that later, but looking at the 2008 roster and the 2009 recruiting class, the horrifying depth issues seem to really have stemmed from a terrible job developing players and all the guys who left before their time. 3 of the 4 DBs in the Class of 2009 weren't on the team last year. Add in Cissoko, Warren, Brandon Smith, and Mike Williams and things didn't actually look too bad.
I'm not including Floyd or Woolfolk because no one could have stopped them from getting hurt. However, a staff has to develop the players it has and convince those who aren't starting to actually stick with the team.
I guess I felt like players were either totally "all-in" or totally not in with the last staff. They didn't seem to do a good job of bringing players around to their point of view.
is that Rivals no longer has a midwest recruit, and are way behind in evaluating/watching midwest recruits. IMO, it is no longer objective to grade our recruits using Rivals scales.
There are a slew of blunders on where they have their midwest kids ranked. Either that, or big time BCS coaches cannot evaluate talent. And i think we all know who we would rather trust.
They all left to start 247Sports.
What are VHT's?
Very Highly-Touted
that Michigan fans are overrating slightly. My sense is that a lot of people are viewing this as a potential top 10 class, whereas it's probably more of a "back end of the top 10" class. That's still a very, very good class that no one should complain about, but I think one of the side-effects of early commits (before rankings come out) is that a class gets overhyped a bit.
I disagree. As Brian pointed out, the 5.7 are still solid prospects, and the remainder of the class will probably be filled by mostly (75%?) 4 stars and up. If we make it to 26 prospects, I think we could be around 5.
to have a top 5 class without a 5 star, and Michigan's only real shot at a 5 star is to have Magnuson move up. Michigan is also getting guys more in the 100-250 range than the 25-100 range.
Again, none of this is a complaint at all about the class. It's just going to be tough for it to finish top 5, I think.
There are plenty of 5-stars who haven't narrowed anything down yet (Spence, Diggs, Banner); plus we have Peat visiting this weekend, Shittu plans to visit; Kyle Kalis could defect from OSU, he is currently the highest ranked 4-star. Some rumors have us in Kiel's top 2 (who knows if they are true), but you would have to think that he will be a 5-star as he is the top rated quarterback. We could still rake in a 5-star.
Plus, I don't think that we necessarily need a 5-star to have a top 5 class, as a rule. We would just need a lot more 4-stars to make-up for not having one.
Furthermore, in your original post, you didn't specify Rivals rankings. If we are top five in Scout (an equally reputable site), then that would still be something to get excited.
Aziz Shittu is a 5 star, to Rivals at least
I just don't think we have a real shot at him (or any of the other 5 stars being tossed around).
It seems that if Hoke and co. can get a recruit on campus, they have a legitimate chance at landing him.
I would say that they have developed enough of a track record to show that this is true.
I think you are 'kind of' right.
If the class keeps going exactly like it is going, it is top 10, but more like #7 to #10.
HOWEVER,
With what we have on board 'likely to commit' our class quality will actually increase from here on out, making this a #3 to #7 class. I am expecting 1 5* and possibly 2. The 5* i am actaully expecting is Pipkins, and he will most likely move up to 5* status when all is said and done. But there is Kiel and Brunn out there also, with a chance of one of our current commits moving up with a good all-american showing and a great senior year.
I'll believe in Pipkins' 5-star status when I see it.
Michigan fans have a history of talking up their own players (Ricardo Miller, Marvin Robinson, etc.) and saying they're bound for 5-star status, only to watch those expectations fade away as the recruiting process goes on.
For now Pipkins should be thought of as a 4-star, since he is a 4-star to every single recruiting service.
but yeah, Josh Helmholdt at the Wolverine said he thinks Pipkins should be in the 50-100 range.
True, he's a 3-star to ESPN and a 4-star to Rivals, Scout, and 24/7.
what the other programs do with their recruiting. The one thing that will help UM is if they do sign 26, the rankings are based on total points so the more recruits you have generally the higher you're ranked.
Not many schools have as many commitments as UM at this point. There's a lot of opportunities for other schools to add stud recruits too.
How much the serves favor numbers over quality. This should boost our rankings unfairly, just like it's unfairly hurt our rankings with a small class.
I think the most they ever gave out was their first top 100 in 02. They average about 25-30. I was really suprised to see them bump Shittu, and drop Jarron Jones but with Jones recruitment being limited and Shittus opening up again maybe they're seeing more of Shittu in demand.
Especially if we get to 26, that'll more than likely mean that most of our remaining spots are going to highly touted prospects such as Chris Wormley, Jordan Diamond, Adolphus Washington, Dwayne Stanford, Jarrod Wilson, amongst others, who all make this class much better than it currently is. This class is only going to get better from here on out.
I think most of the overrating comes from the circumstances. If we had this type of class in 2005 following back-to-back Rose Bowls, everyone would react with a giant "meh". But after the past three years, with all the turmoil, and all the lingering questions, this early in the recruiting season? Something right around the average Michigan class is quite impressive.
I'm wide-eyed in admiration at this class (actually, 2011 and 2012) not so much for the rankings (although they're lovely, thank you, I'll take them) as for the fact that we have any kind of classes at all. Back around the first week of January I was wondering if we'd be able to hang on to any commits, much less be able to recruit decent players for 2012. Now we're throwing around 5-star recruits' names as though they're within the realm of possibility.
Hoke (and Mattison) uber alles, indeed. So much yet remains to be seen on the field of play, but he's kicking ass and taking names on the recruiting trail and damn but it's good to see, regardless of where the class gets ranked.
for MGoBlog slappies like me. Brian has made it official that it's okay to be excited about this years recruiting class. Pessimists be damned! Commence slobbering love affair! :o)
I generally think of a RR 5.7 as being a virtual 4-star recruit. If you think of it in terms of a player's ability to compete athletically at a particular level, a 5.7 should (in theory) be a good enough athlete to compete in the Big Ten (along with the usual recruiting caveats). When you step down from a 5.7 to a 5.6, you get into the realm of a pretty good MAC player, and so on down the line. This is one reason why I'm convinced MSU cannot sustain their on-field success, because even with the DANTIONO RAGE they've been experiencing in recruiting the last couple of years, the majority of their recruits are still 5.6 or lower.
Uh, while there is a difference between 5.7 and 5.6, there's a reason that they're both three-stars. If 5.7s were of a "BCS conference" caliber, and 5.6s were not, methinks that (very very important) distinction would be reflected in the star system.
I would think so too, but I should have clarified that there seems to be a huge difference in a guy's offer list when he goes from 5.7 to 5.6.
To Dantonio's credit, he has consistently recruited pretty solid QBs.
Is it just me, or is Rivals more pessimistic on our recruiting classes than other services year after year?
I don't want to claim a bias, but it seems like they in the 2010 class, they would mark down our recruits after they committed like clockwork.
Last year Rivals rated Michigan's class higher than any of the other sites.
but after that didn't their entire midwest department leave to start 247?
Yes (from what I've heard), but I have yet to see a direct correlation between that and recruiting rankings. A very high percentage of NFL players (and thus college players) come from California, Texas, and Florida . . . yet people in the midwest are upset that midwestern recruits don't get more recruiting attention. It's a trickle-down effect.
It might just be possible that we overrate midwestern players because many of us are from the midwest (just like the guy above who gave Pipkins a 5-star rating despite the fact that none of the four recruiting services think he's a 5-star).
Check out the semi-recent posts on BHGP (and Brian's follow-up to them), and one of the possible takeaways - since there's not enough data or too many interrelated variable to determine causality - could be that the midwest is consistently underrated in terms of recruit quality.
Rivals stated that this was a down year in the state of Michigan. That is all you probably need to know to judge Rivals. This is one of, if not the deepest class of quality recruits in quite some time.
I don't think they're necessarily wrong. I think Michigan fans (including you) might simply believe that the recruiting class is better this year because Michigan is getting all the good recruits in the state.
In 2011 there were 6 players with 4 stars or more.
2010: 7
2009: 11
2008: 8
2007: 13
So far in the class of 2012 . . . there are 5 (Jenkins-Stone, Richardson, O'Brien, Burbridge, and Ross).
Other possibilities to get 4 stars are Ojemudia, Funchess, and Thompson (all tweener prospects), plus guys like Godin, Norfleet, and Braden (who probably won't climb any higher than 3 stars).
What about our Kickers? I mean the roster on mgoblue has us with 4 and with the freshman coming on we have 5. I am sure a couple aren't on scholarship but if Wile does well what do we do with those kickers that are receiving scholarships? If I was them I would transfer somewhere so I could see the field or at least try to. I am sure the coaches more then we do though and it will all work out for us.
I would not be surprised to see Gibbons disappear at some point. Hagerup and Wile are the only other scholarship kickers/punters.
I do it if I weren't lazy (and possibly had past statistics...) I'd be curious to know how Hoke's recruiting classes compared to the recruiting classes from other MWC teams - realizing that the Big10 is tougher competition - it would be interesting to compare relative strength of recruiting class vs. conference to relative strength in the conference.
There was a front-page post about this in January or February. He generally recruited at slightly better than the (recent) historical average at each of his past two schools.
a number of recruits currently listed as 3* players being bunped up to 4* by the time november rolls around. add in diamond, thurston, pipkins, washington, wormley, stanford, wilson and a wild card like kiel or dunn/garmon and we have a top 5 class IMO. i like what hoke has done. he secured the state first, reached out to ohio and is now looking to expand nationally.
good to see brian has joined the Hoke-maniacs
Rivals, IMO, does a fairly decent job of predicting success. Six of the top ten players taken in the 2011 NFL draft were five-star recruits. Twelve of the first 32 players taken were four-star recruits, ten three-star, and only three two-star recruits (JJ Watt, Anthony Castonzo, and Muhammed Wilkerson).
What worries me is offering guys who are barely on anybody's radar, them committing, thus scaring off high-end recruits. Hopefully Michigan coaches are convinced Standifer and Gant are every bit as good as Morgan and Reeves. Is Olson on par with Peats, Thurston, and Banner?
Per rivals, I think you pointed out one of the problems with that site. They base their rankings on pro-potential, and this a lot of measurables. While the correlation between college success and pro potential is strong, it is not definite. For example, when the Rivals ratings first came out, during their chat, someone asked about them missing on Greg Jones. Their answer was that they didn't because he was a 5.7 3 star and got drafted in the 6th round, right where his rating would have him. Buy the problem with that was that he was a 4 year starter and a freaking all-American in college ball. That alone should be a solid 4 star prospect. But Rivals saw an undersized linebacker with stiff hips in, and the pros saw the same thing. But an undersized linebacker with stiff hips can still make a much greater impact in college than they can in the pros. My point is that, take Ross for example. If anyone saw his film and he was 2 inches taller he would be a top 50 type guy. But he's not so his pro potential is diminished and he's "just" a 4 star. But that doesn't mean he can dominate on the college level.
I'm a little giddy simply because we're kicking Sparty's ass at something football-related, and step one in my book is sending them back to irrelevancy.
the fact that we can back date 2 scholarships since we are at 83 instead of 85. So we have 2 more available than people are counting.
The medical possibilities are:
Teric Jones
JT Floyd
Terry Talbott
Not saying any of these will happen--just that they are possibilities.
back-dating doesn't change the 85 number.
For the one-millionth time.....we are NOT facing a 25 player limit with recruiting, we are facing an 85 player limit. It doesn't matter which class these recruits go in, it matters that we don't have enough total scholarships available to offer them.
I too am very wary of where this is going if we are going to approach a 25-man class.
Comments