Interesting study on player development

[Artist Formerly Known As]

Nobody is saying they’re turning into superstars but a lot of them have gotten that second contract which means they’ve contributed at a very cheap price for the first couple of years.

The strong majority of those getting second contracts are our 1-4 round picks. Which NFL teams consider a substantial investment. There are some outliers, but our players aren’t anymore valuable than any other schools.

 

[Ethnicsands]

Biggest tragedy is guys leaving too early. Derrick brown Christian Wilkins and clelin Ferrell are just a few examples are 1st rounders staying and still being first rounders. Justin Herbert also. Our team would be loads better if bandy stayed. Our past teams would have been better with norton or McIntosh. Joe Jax. Look at the DT from fspoo who stayed. His name Eludes me but you get the point. And his team sucked and will probably suck again. Our coaches aren’t good recruiters but their biggest flaw is recruiting our own dam players to stay and help the team and help themselves with a degree.

Probably starts with coaches that hype the NFL as a reason to come to 'the U.' COKER started this actually. His old recruiting pitch was that the three key decision-criteria for picking a college for top prospects were (a) get to nfl; (b) winning titles; and (c) get a degree. His argument was that based on that, the U was obviously the best choice. It led (along with the success of many of Butch's kids in the NFL) to the 'NFL U' moniker. And the moniker lived on past the kids who gave it credibility.

In truth, this was lazy recruiting by Coker. He wasn't good at emotionally connecting with kids to sell them (more friend zone type guy ... runner-up type). So he wanted to make a 'rational' pitch. Nothing inherently wrong with the argument, but it has had consequences over time.

I'd be interested to know the Saban, Dabo and others' pitches today. Surely 'degree' and 'compete/win' are keys. But how do they talk about the pros? Probably more about campus, tradition, etc.

 

[Ethnicsands]

They wouldn't and they can't. It's all worthless. It's just steering a set of data to formulate or support an opinion. The data itself says nothing on the issue of development.

What is "development" anyway? It's such a vague and nebulous term that it could be anything.

Much of what is dubbed "development" is just natural physical development, hard work by the player, growth and maturity. How do you give a position coach credit for that? How is the same position coach or coordinator or HC a great "developer" if Greg Rousseau succeeds but a terrible one if Jon Garvin doesn't?

Where are the folks who like to throw around the term 'development' to defend the concept with specificity? Tell us what it means, how you measure it, and how it relates to evaluations and other aspects of coaching. (I took a shot at these things in this thread.)

It gets really tiring to hear about all the guys who were highly rated when they came to UM and our fans blame our coaches for not 'developing' them -- as opposed to misevaluating them and otherwise coaching poorly. If I had a dime for each time I read that Tyriq McCord wasn't developed by our staff, I'd be able to buy a banner ad on this site!

 

[1mg of Epi]

247 did a five-year study on player development from the 2011 to 2015 class. Not sure what to do with the results, but they should provoke some discussion.

This was the criteria:

It's a measure that takes into account the total number of Top247 prospects a program signed along with where/if those players were drafted (3 points for 1st rounders, 2 points for 2nd-3rd, 1 for 4th-7th), dividing the total number of prospects by the point total to create the rating. This removes any advantage created by a program’s ability to recruit an overwhelming number of Top247 players. It also rewards programs that produce more first- and second-day picks, removing a "quantity over quality" argument. We also limited this list to teams that recruited at least 10 Top247 players from 2011 to 2015.

To more accurately represent how a program develops players, 247Sports removed four categories of prospects from the data:

1. Players who were dismissed.
2. Players who didn’t qualify.
3. Players who medically retired.
4. Players who transferred after two or fewer seasons on campus. If a player stayed three years and transferred, they count against a team’s 'not drafted' tab. If a player transferred and was drafted elsewhere, they count for the team to which they transferred.

Miami finished 11th. Here is the list:

1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Clemson
4. Florida
5. LSU
6. Oklahoma
7. Ole Miss
8. FSU
9. Stanford
10. Notre Dame
11. Miami
12. Georgia
13. USC
14. UCLA
15. Penn State
16. Washington
17. Auburn
18. Texas A&M
19. Virginia Tech
20. Michigan

Texas was 30th.

Miami put 54% of its 247 prospects in the NFL, which ranked 5th behind Ohio State (64%), Alabama (59%), Clemson (55%) and Florida (54%). The reason it wasn't ranked in the Top 5 overall was the absence of premium, first round types. Note that Miami was tied for 12th in overall Top 247 Players signed.

That tells me Miami has two issues: (1) not winning enough to attract the no-brainer, first round players; and (2) too many guys are leaving early and going 2-3 rounds too late.

And **** coaches