ESPN+ Which college football teams do the least with the most in recruiting?

Thanks for the 20 ppg stat. Now how much do you contribute the blame to the WR, OL, and QB positions?

We had the same OL and an NFL WR when we hit rock bottom last year. The obvious difference is King and a new system.
 
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I will be very surprised if we win out.

I would bet against us winning out, but it's possible. I also don't expect a 2013-type collapse unless King gets hurt. He's too steady, and we don't have a D'Onofrio defense.

2017 is a much more likely possibility, but that season was a step forward. We finished #13 (highest ranking since 2004) and signed a top 10 class. The problem is that we didn't make adjustments and took a massive step back the following year. We will see how this season plays out.
 
I would bet against us winning out, but it's possible. I also don't expect a 2013-type collapse unless King gets hurt. He's too steady, and we don't have a D'Onofrio defense.

2017 is a much more likely possibility, but that season was a step forward. We finished #13 (highest ranking since 2004) and signed a top 10 class. The problem is that we didn't make adjustments and took a massive step back the following year. We will see how this season plays out.

Unfortunately I feel we are headed down the same path with Diaz as we did with Richt after the 2017 season and 2018 class. That class was highly ranked but a lot of the players didn't pan out, mostly due to our Culture and Coaching/Development. And then Richt was let go after the 2018 season.

2021 Class looks great, but What has changed with us? Coaching and Development still seems to suck, and our Culture is still off (ie. Slip and Slide Manny, Dancing on the Sidelines, Talking ****, etc.). Even if we land a great recruiting class, it doesn't matter if we can't develop and coach the talent up.

Manny has been here for 5 years now. How many 1st-2nd round Defensive players has he developed? Any?
 
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I think there's 100% agreement that we've "improved" from last year.

However, last year was probably the worst Miami team since the 1970s. "Improvement" from last year is hardly anything to be happy about.
That’s fine, I’m not here to say much other than that yet. Just refuting the claim that we’re 5-1 because we got to play the teams we beat last year. It’s a coincidence and if we had played the bad teams from 2019 we lost to instead no one would think that’s more impressive.
 
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Nobody has ever denied our roster deficiencies compared to the elite teams. However, people like myself have focused on our roster supremacy compared to the rest of the ACC. And every single time an objective third party like ESPN performs a talent analysis, it supports our view.

This year is a perfect example. We're 5-1, and many are focusing on the poor quality of our opponents. But that's always been the case. Miami has a better roster than nearly every team in the conference. The roster has clear flaws. Other teams have much deeper flaws. The difference now is that we have systems that fit the players on both sides of the ball.

Your rallying cry has always been "evaluations." Well, a third party looked at the issue, and found that Miami had the greatest percentage of NFL players from its blue-chip prospects. Number one in hit rate. And the five teams behind it are the best programs in football. As is always the case, Miami is the outlier.

The response is usually, "where are the first rounders?" And it's a fair question. But it has very little to do with evaluations. During ESPN's sample period, Miami missed on Calvin Ridley, Jerry Jeudy and Chris Henderson. That had nothing to do with evaluations. We found them early, offered them early and recruited them like crazy. Unfortunately, we were a bad program that misused our talent. So they went elsewhere.

Which brings us back to the blueprint of success that we've laid out for years. First step is utilizing our current NFL talent in a way that consistently beats inferior conference opponents. Think early Clemson. Second step is building our depth with local talent similar to Charlie Strong-era Louisville. The next step, once we've had some success, is landing the local first rounders that have been going to Alabama and Georgia. The final step is recruiting nationally from a position of power.

It's never just one thing. But talent has always been last on the list of the problems.
If you think evaluation ‘hit rate’ is shown by having some fringe nfl kids, then we just disagree completely. I think the purpose of evaluations is to find kids who can help us win AT MIAMI. That’s the goal, the job of the coach, and the point of recruiting. Our evals have been mediocre at best since Butch left. Fringe nfl roster kids don’t prove much, but we’ve had this debate and it’s probably tired already.

Additionally, your ‘blueprint for success’ IMO omits the foundation of recruiting. ‘Build roster depth with local talent’. Okay, which kids? Why? What are you looking for by position, by unit, by class, by character and attitude? Recruiting evals require identifying your criteria, assessing kids, making trade-offs, taking calculated risks. And doing all this with structure and process, and data systems as well, in this day and age. There is no evidence we do any of that beyond the most rudimentary way.

Reading you, someone might think we’ve had great rosters without gaping holes the past 15 years. They'd be wrong. And you never acknowledge the flaws in your nfl references, like, ever. I continuously point out that the ‘nfl kid in 6 years’ standard would lead you to think we had an nfl left tackle last year if Zion makes it down the road. But that argument would be specious. We had a 2* true frosh who wasn’t remotely ready, and nothing about his future will change that after the fact.

I have never disputed that our coaching stunk. To the contrary, I've been more negative earlier than many fans on all of the past regimes. And I have as a result never said we shouldn’t be winning more games against crap opponents. But that is obvious. You say it like it’s a revelation. Everyone here understands it. Yet then you intentionally, provocatively troll nfl stats like we have an Alabama style roster. We don’t, and haven’t. If you’re satisfied with the idea we should beat low level acc teams, okay. I’m not. I point out our flaws in all areas, and recruiting and *roster management* have been big flaws for a long time. Again, imo.
 
The all american thing isn't all on the coaches and players. I believe Jaquan Johnson was an All American level Safety and was snubbed. Rousseau also should have made All American last season. The Miami bias is real and factors in to that particular metric more so than others.
You gotta win games or put up insane numbers to be an All-American. Rousseau was a monster but we won 6 games.
 

i won't copy and paste the whole thing, but here's some of the more interesting data:

NFL draft selections​

There is an obvious data flaw in this type of analysis that needs to be noted. It's fundamentally a corrupt methodology for assessing how schools did, because it is measuring outcomes relative to ratings. That only works if the ratings aren't systematically skewed by the schools involved. But we know for sure they are. Ratings are biased by schools with big and active fan bases (that's how the sites work). Essentially, kids from some of these schools are consistently overrated, and by contrast, as we ALL KNOW, kids heading to Miami often get a bit of a negative ratings hit, at least at the top end of the ratings system. So if that's right, then Miami 'ratings' understate the talent it brings in (all else equal here, evals are a separate topic); and Tennessee, Fla State and Texas kids are over-rated, and hence their outcomes look worse relative to ratings and ours better, again, relative to ratings.

The NFL outcome table is really a huge red herring, misleading and irrelevant. FSU gets a low rating of 14.8% for having 4 kids go to the NFL from those classes. Miami gets a high rating of 47.3% for having 9 kids go from those classes. But putting aside that FSU has been a dumpster fire, the point is 1.6 extra fringe nfl kids a year isn't the issue on our roster. It's about having depth, experience, kids who fit us and our system, and can play at miami. Also, Alabama had a lower 'nfl %' than UM, but (a) more NFL kids (14 vs. 9) and (b) way more talented nfl kids. Which is why I continuously caution about using 'nfl roster' as a benchmark. There's a HUGE difference between a dominant first round kid and a 6th round pick.

The all-conference and AA ratings are notable but IMO they're so impacted by how coaches coach that they're hard to use as raw data. Our coaching has been awful so our kids (even the good ones) haven't been in positions to shine enough. We have definitely had a massive dry run on true AA talent, but we should have gotten more all conference kids if we'd been coached well.

The transfer % list is interesting, because Alabama is so much higher than we are. It tells me that we don't have enough transfers, not that we should feel good with a lower transfer %. Transfers come from several factors, but there's no denying competition and recruiting over kids is part of it. Alabama gets multiple top kids, then does it again the next year. Some leave. That's probably fine from their view. Having more local kids probably also reduces our transfer %. Tennessee having a low transfer % is probably supportive of my point here -- they don't have enough competition or high enough expectations so not enough kids transfer.






Evaluations is obviously still a big deal, and
 
Unfortunately I feel we are headed down the same path with Diaz as we did with Richt after the 2017 season and 2018 class.

The difference is Richt had been doing things his way for 20 years. And as I said in another thread, that 2017 team was really an 8 win team but for 2 one in a mill catches. That would have been a linear decline of 9,8, and then 7 wins, with it bottoming out at 6 with Diaz. Since Diaz was DC does he get some of the blame? Sure. But defense was actually consistent and reliable. The rot really came from the offense. On the defense, I think the main issue is the coaching change. Baker is just not as good a DC as Diaz was. I don't see the laziness and lack of effort from that side of the ball. For Christ's sake, we have DB who gets kicked out of virtually every game because he's trying to kill someone. The culture on defense is pretty good, they just need a better coordinator.

Anyways, back to the point, whereas I had zero confidence Richt would reinvent himself, I don't think Diaz has developed his HC identity yet so there is still some hope that he will bring in a better staff and prevent Miami from backsliding next year.
 
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Of the 9 players drafted in that time span 7 came from the 2015 class. If you combine the two preceding and two succeeding years we had 6 players drafted total.

We've experienced an uptick with 14 players drafted these last three years and yet we've managed to go 13-13 the last two years. How much is that due to coaching and underperforming over sheer roster imbalance as ESands is saying? What good is a fourth round safety, a sixth round DE, and a 7th round WR if you have Malik Rosier as your QB? If you have one of the worst OL's in the nation? If for the second year in a row you have one of the worst WR cores this school has ever seen?

I don't really buy the Miami has such a talent advantage over everyone in the Coastal argument anymore. You can point to 14 guys drafted, 10 of which were taken in the 4th round or later, and say I'm wrong. Or you can point to the other 52 guys those 14 had to play with and realize that a few talented players surrounded by an average team doesn't really make you special.
Correct. Not to mention, we played most of this time with too many entirely vacant scholarships (not counting walk-ons who get given a scholarship when the staff fails to use it on a recruited kid).
 
The difference is Richt had been doing things his way for 20 years. And as I said in another thread, that 2017 team was really an 8 win team but for 2 one in a mill catches. That would have been a linear decline of 9,8, and then 7 wins, with it bottoming out at 6 with Diaz. Since Diaz was DC does he get some of the blame? Sure. But defense was actually consistent and reliable. The rot really came from the offense. On the defense, I think the main issue is the coaching change. Baker is just not as good a DC as Diaz was. I don't see the laziness and lack of effort from that side of the ball. For Christ's sake, we have DB who gets kicked out of virtually every game because he's trying to kill someone. The culture on defense is pretty good, they just need a better coordinator.

Anyways, back to the point, whereas I had zero confidence Richt would reinvent himself, I don't think Diaz has developed his HC identity yet so there is still some hope that he will bring in a better staff and prevent Miami from backsliding next year.

Good point and I like the take that maybe Manny hasn’t developed his HC identity yet, whereas he did develop one for the defense

hopefully he has an identity in him though that isn’t slip and slide Manny
 
I think the purpose of evaluations is to find kids who can help us win AT MIAMI.

We've had plenty of those kids, and we didn't win with them. That's why our head coaches are unemployed and our players are employed. The same players who couldn't play defense in 2015 learned pretty quick in 2016. The same thing is happening on offense this year.

Yet then you intentionally, provocatively troll nfl stats like we have an Alabama style roster. We don’t, and haven’t.

We don't have an Alabama-style roster. Nobody thinks we do. The question should be, "Why does a .500 program keep showing up on NFL lists next to Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State?" We're always on these lists, and we're always the outlier.

There's a HUGE difference between a dominant first round kid and a 6th round pick.

And there's a huge difference between a 6th Rounder and a plumber. If producing average pros was easy, every school would do it.

Additionally, your ‘blueprint for success’ IMO omits the foundation of recruiting. ‘Build roster depth with local talent’. Okay, which kids? Why? What are you looking for by position, by unit, by class, by character and attitude? Recruiting evals require identifying your criteria, assessing kids, making trade-offs, taking calculated risks. And doing all this with structure and process, and data systems as well, in this day and age. There is no evidence we do any of that beyond the most rudimentary way.

Since you asked, I would focus on length, toughness and twitch. Those are the three characteristics that are most difficult to develop.

I continuously point out that the ‘nfl kid in 6 years’ standard would lead you to think we had an nfl left tackle last year if Zion makes it down the road. But that argument would be specious. We had a 2* true frosh who wasn’t remotely ready, and nothing about his future will change that after the fact.

That same offense had a future NFL RB running for less than 700 yards and a future NFL WR putting up less than 600 yards. Both were upperclassmen. The system dragged everyone down from the top of the roster to the bottom.

It's not normal to struggle this way. Look again at the numbers in the OP. The teams that missed on their blue-chippers were perennial underachievers like FSU, Tennessee, Texas and USC. The teams that hit on their blue-chippers were the absolute cream of the crop, plus Miami.

There is a unique disconnect between our program's ability to produce pros and the performance on the field. If we can close that gap, we will be able to fill the gaps on the roster.
 
@DMoney:

We've had plenty of those kids, and we didn't win with them. That's why our head coaches are unemployed and our players are employed. The same players who couldn't play defense in 2015 learned pretty quick in 2016. The same thing is happening on offense this year.

It’s been said that in a bubble, everything correlates to the bubble. We keep having this discussion because you can’t avoid trying to take everything back to one aspect of bad coaching. It’s weird, because we both agree our coaching has sucked. Yet when we talk talent, roster composition, evaluations, you just can’t avoid defensively responding as if the discussion is a distraction from bad coaching. I probably should give up discussing it with you, but I know you’re passionate about this team and CFB, and so I just can’t understand why you’re not more interested in thinking about how we can get better at getting the right roster talent, and managing it effectively. It’s a huge part of a successful program. And something we have not done well enough, and arguably have done a lot worse than your stats imply, for reasons we’ve all rehashed around here.

We don't have an Alabama-style roster. Nobody thinks we do. The question should be, "Why does a .500 program keep showing up on NFL lists next to Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State?" We're always on these lists, and we're always the outlier.

I disagree. That’s not the right question. The question I focus on is ‘how do we improve this team?’ That and ‘what’s wrong with it?’ Or even, I guess, 'what might be misleading in those statistics you like to cite'? Those are different questions. You’re asking a conclusory question that keeps forcing you back to the same one-sided view of the roster. There are so many other questions you should be asking, however.

And there's a huge difference between a 6th Rounder and a plumber. If producing average pros was easy, every school would do it.


Sigh. Who are these plumbers who play for other top teams?

Since you asked, I would focus on length, toughness and twitch. Those are the three characteristics that are most difficult to develop.


Those are relevant traits, but they’re just a piece of the puzzle. Toughness can mean different things. I’d break it into likes to compete, won’t quit when things get tough, and likes contact. I think those are different traits. I also think you have to be able to see feel for the game, instincts or call it what you want, some kids have it and some don’t. But these are just generic traits. Programs need to think about what they’re looking for by position, what risks they’re taking in kids, and how to balance ‘upside’ traits with ‘downside mitigation.’ Kids who aren’t as twitchy and long and still be really valuable if they’re strong, tough, love contact and have great instincts. The right recruiting process really breaks down the roster, the needs, the ‘prototype models’ we’re looking for, the types of kids we realistically can recruit, and then has to compare one more WR to one fewer LB, balancing upside against position needs. There’s a lot of judgment calls in there. And if you don’t prioritize and organize it all, you can try to assess too many kids, miss a lot, make bad calls, and waste a lot of time. I don’t think you disagree here, just think this program should do a lot more to get into the 21st century on recruiting than it looks like it’s doing.

That same offense had a future NFL RB running for less than 700 yards and a future NFL WR putting up less than 600 yards. Both were upperclassmen. The system dragged everyone down from the top of the roster to the bottom.

It's not normal to struggle this way. Look again at the numbers in the OP. The teams that missed on their blue-chippers were perennial underachievers like FSU, Tennessee, Texas and USC. The teams that hit on their blue-chippers were the absolute cream of the crop, plus Miami.

There is a unique disconnect between our program's ability to produce pros and the performance on the field. If we can close that gap, we will be able to fill the gaps on the roster.

I know you struggle with this all. It just seems obvious to me. For a long time, our coaches have sucked, our staffs have been very weak, our administrative support has been well below other major programs, and our culture has been poor. It is what it is. Amateur, at best. We have to fix all that, but we also have to actually have an 85 man roster that’s properly constructed and balanced, so we have experience (upperclassmen who stick around and are talented), depth (including experience and talented youth), balance across the units, a talented QB and no major weaknesses. We’ve just been way off on this for too long. Empty roster spots, dead wood, holes in units, imbalance, poor QB, weak lines, lack of experienced senior leadership, and lack of competition and depth behind the starters. Those things all come together, and having 3 marginal nfl kids a year doesn’t overcome it.
 
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I just can’t understand why you’re not more interested in thinking about how we can get better at getting the right roster talent, and managing it effectively.

I actually am quite interested in that aspect, Ethnic. That's why I started the Recruiting Board. There are 1.1 million posts on it. Many are mine. We discuss precisely this topic and, believe it or not, there is significantly more detail than simply repeating the word, "evals."

Sigh. Who are these plumbers who play for other top teams?

Most college football players do not play professional football. Talent evaluators deem they are not good enough. That is why, when measuring talent, one helpful method is comparing Miami's professional football players to other programs. In this analysis, a "fringe NFL player" is more talented than a player who is not talented enough to continue his football career. Another useful metric is third-party star rankings.

You reject both as a measure of talent, focusing only on team performance. This, of course, ignores the possibility that the talent may be grossly misused. In 2016, we changed the defense and immediately went from 84th in scoring defense to 13th. Same players. This year, we changed the offense and went from 99th to 24th in scoring offense overnight.

Everybody knows there are holes on the roster. I've discussed them at length going back to spring. The question has always been, "Are we talented enough to make an immediate, substantial improvement with better coaching and the same roster?" And my answer has always been yes. The NFL numbers, the star rankings and now the improvement on the field all support this theory. This article--an independent analysis by ESPN--is just the latest example.
 
This goes to a long-running debate I've had with @Ethnicsands.

Yes, evaluations can always improve. But the biggest problem by far is the deployment of these players at the college level.

47.3% of our blue chips got drafted. That is the highest rate on the list. For perspective, the next five schools are Ohio State, Clemson, Alabama, LSU and Georgia. Everyone would agree those are the five best programs in the nation.

But we got very little out of those guys in college, largely due to scheme issues. We produced zero All-Americans and two All-Conference guys. The other teams in that category are underachievers like Texas, Tennessee, FSU and USC. Tellingly, the top producers of All-Americans are the schools behind us on the NFL list: Alabama, Clemson, LSU, Ohio State and Georgia. They turn players into production.

The most surprising stat for me was the transfers. Miami had the lowest percentage of transfers of the 14 schools.
I agree with most of your post. But to the bold part I would add players development, motivation and leadership. Basically better all over coaching. I firmly believe at Miami where HS talent is abundant, scheme and leadership at the coache's level is what has been missing during all those years of mediocrity. Maybe apart of FSU lately, arguably we are the most underachieving program in college football.
EDIT: I noticed that in the second line on top you alluded to players development as the biggest problem by far, which to me, along with toughness and culture is the heart of all our failures.
 
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Honestly I expected us to be in a worst position on that list in terms of wasting talent.

But holy crap...Tennessee, FSU and USC. Wow..

The biggest issue as has been noted is deployment of talent and developing a culture of hard work.

Look no farther than our WR room.

Our top 4 WRs are
Sr: 4* top 300 player
Jrs: 5*, 3*
Rd fros: 4* top 55 player

I would have assumed we’d have at least 2–1,000 yard WRs out of that bunch.

But yet we are hearing rumors of lack of work ethic. And to me that falls on both the players and coaches because it is tolerated by the staff.

Could you imagine Mark Pope at Bama not working hard in the weight room, not putting in extra work on the field. He wouldn’t have had to ask for a transfer. He would have been forced to leave!

That is where we need to do a better job with depth so guys can’t coast to starting position and keep them.
 
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I have one major issue with people evaluating a team based on NFL draft picks or success.

The NFL isn't the college game. You can be a good college player, but never sniff the NFL. The main reason that a good player won't sniff the NFL is athleticism. The NFL is filled with athletic freaks.

There are a lot of good players on rosters out there. They have worked their butt off for years and this will be it for them. They're smart, savy, and give it their all every down. They know this is it.

We have no greater example than Ken Dorsey. Great college player, but not athletically gifted enough to make it in the NFL. He hung on for a bit, but would anyone deny that he was one of the best if not the best when he played in college? What about his OL, they were one **** of a unit, but their NFL resume isn't on par with their collegiate success.

We have to realize the game we play and quit saying we have more talent and basing it on the NFL. A handful of NFL talent a year doesn't mean those who don't make it were superior talents or inferior. I look at teams and see how they do in this environment and landscape, not the next.
 
We have no greater example than Ken Dorsey. Great college player, but not athletically gifted enough to make it in the NFL.
Dorsey had the longest NFL career of any QB we've produced in the last 30 years.

Before that, it was Craig Erickson. Before that, Steve Walsh. All of those guys won titles.
 
Dorsey had the longest NFL career of any QB we've produced in the last 30 years.

Before that, it was Craig Erickson. Before that, Steve Walsh. All of those guys won titles.

Yet nobody in their right mind would point to Dorsey as an example of our NFL production.

He was great in college and did absolutely nothing at the next level. They took a flier with his 7th round pick.
 
Yet nobody in their right mind would point to Dorsey as an example of our NFL production.

He was great in college and did absolutely nothing at the next level. They took a flier with his 7th round pick.

He played in 17 games. Only two others played at all, and neither threw a TD.

If you looked only at NFL careers, you’d say our best QB of the past 30 years was Dorsey by a large margin. And you’d be right.
 
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