Way OT: Cinci's scouting and player development

While following the recent NFL draft I read that the #4 overall pick, CB Ahmad "Sauce" Gardner of Cinci, is a Detroit native. I wondered if he had been on the map as a recruit and whether he had offers from UM, MSU, et al. Not really: https://247sports.com/Player/Ahmad-Gardner-46041620/high-school-193682/

I saw another Cinci guy in the second round, checked his background, and found it similarly impressive. They had nine guys picked overall. I spent a few minutes looking them up. Here are their draft positions, 247 composite rankings, and recruiting class. In a couple of cases I added the commitment date. You'll see why later.

• Ahmad "Sauce" Gardner, CB, 4 (1st): 1672 ('19)
• Alec Pierce, WR, 53 (2nd): 1164 ('18)
• Bryan Cook, S, 62 (2nd): N/A (transfer from Howard University)
• Desmond Ridder, QB, 74 (3rd): 1657 ('17, 5/14/16)
• Myjai Sanders, DE, 100 (3rd): 1043 ('18)
• Coby Bryant, CB, 109 (4th): 1644 ('17, 1/19/17)
• Jerome Ford, RB, 156 (5th): 370 ('18)
• Darrian Beavers, LB, 182 (6th): 2034 ('17, 1/22/17)
• Curtis Brooks, DT, 216 (6th): 2891 ('16)

Only a single player cracked the Top 1000 in his recruiting class. Players in the 1000+ range aren't very common at the upper-end Power Five schools. Hassan Haskins is possibly everyone's favorite exception.

Luke Fickell took the reins in mid-December 2016. That means two of these guys (Ridder and Brooks) were landed by Senator Tuberville (https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/). Two others (Bryant and Beavers) look like last-minute additions to a transition recruiting class.

All things considered, this seems like an outstanding job of recruiting and player development, especially since recruiting rankings have been shown to correlate with the likelihood of success.

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Unrelated bonus (SI piece on Ojabo):

https://www.si.com/nfl/2022/05/04/david-ojabo-achilles-ravens-nfl-draft