The TE room

Except for TE so...
We’ve had some good TEs. The people who evaluated most of them are not around any longer. We know Manny’s recruiting process is suspect.

I think this kid looks like a nice prospect, but as far as I’m concerned, questions about how they decide what they decide are fair game with this staff. Let them prove something before asking for the benefit of the doubt.
 
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We’ve had some good TEs. The people who evaluated most of them are not around any longer. We know Manny’s recruiting process is suspect.

I think this kid looks like a nice prospect, but as far as I’m concerned, questions about how they decide what they decide are fair game with this staff. Let them prove something before asking for the benefit of the doubt.
So because this is OOS kid recruited by Manny you’re trying to put doubt on the eval? Basically admitting to what I said in the first post...
 
So because this is OOS kid recruited by Manny you’re trying to put doubt on the eval? Basically admitting to what I said in the first post...
No, not at all, you’re just a dense childish clown trying to look for a ghost or create a dispute where there is none. My comment was pretty straight forward and logical. If you aren’t interested in how the staff makes it’s decisions, I suggest you just go on about your time here and don’t worry yourself about folks who ask about topics youre not interested in.
 
Youre missing my point. There’s some film, sure. But we can’t travel or meet with him or his coaches, no spring ball, no recent camps ... it’s a lot harder right now than normal times. And it’s harder to evaluate non-local kids than local kids even during normal times.
It's not harder to eval non locals than locals, that's just an excuse for poor recruiting overall.

If that were the case then no program would ever recruit nationally, when literally every single one of them do.

We've had dozens & dozens of kids who were from right in our backyard who went to Miami & still were busts, so what does that say about the preciseness of local vs non local evals?

We have a bunch of players on our current roster who are locals that have yet to play up to their ability, so what does that mean? How did we manage to eval Brevin Jordan if it's so difficult to do?

And what is even the point in bringing any of this up anyway? Lol.
 
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It's not harder to eval non locals than locals, that's just an excuse for poor recruiting overall.

If that were the case then no program would ever recruit nationally, when literally every single one of them do.

We've had dozens & dozens of kids who were from right in our backyard who went to Miami & still were busts, so what does that say about the preciseness of local vs non local evals?

We have a bunch of players on our current roster who are locals that have yet to play up to their ability, so what does that mean? How did we manage to eval Brevin Jordan if it's so difficult to do?

And what is even the point in bringing any of this up anyway? Lol.
I disagree. It’s obviously easier to evaluate local kids. You have more data and more access, generally over a longer period of time. You often know family and many coaches.

Just because it’s harder to evaluate far away kids doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It does mean you need to have a framework to assess which ones merit the consideration, what your key questions are, and how you will assess them, because evals take resources and non-local kids take resources.

I brought it up because it’s an unusual time in cfb history given covid restructions on recruiting. So a natural question for us on new commitments who haven't ever been to our campus is ’what do we know’ and how do we know it. This kid is a new commitment and non-local, hence the question.

TBH, I’ll be interested to see how we approach recruiting and evals all year, because it is so obvious we have not done ot well in the past.
 
No, not at all, you’re just a dense childish clown trying to look for a ghost or create a dispute where there is none. My comment was pretty straight forward and logical. If you aren’t interested in how the staff makes it’s decisions, I suggest you just go on about your time here and don’t worry yourself about folks who ask about topics youre not interested in.
Bro, you just admitted what you were doing and now you’re throwing a fit about it...like always.
 
I disagree. It’s obviously easier to evaluate local kids. You have more data and more access, generally over a longer period of time. You often know family and many coaches.

Just because it’s harder to evaluate far away kids doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It does mean you need to have a framework to assess which ones merit the consideration, what your key questions are, and how you will assess them, because evals take resources and non-local kids take resources.

I brought it up because it’s an unusual time in cfb history given covid restructions on recruiting. So a natural question for us on new commitments who haven't ever been to our campus is ’what do we know’ and how do we know it. This kid is a new commitment and non-local, hence the question.

TBH, I’ll be interested to see how we approach recruiting and evals all year, because it is so obvious we have not done ot well in the past.
Even with more data & more access you still have kids who came here & busted despite being local, so what does that mean about the eval? Kai Leon-Herbert & Navaughn Donaldson are both from South Fla, both were 4-star kids coming out of HS & both have been busts despite having supposedly more access & more data, so what happened? How did we miss evaluate the two of them even though they're from our backyard? N'Kosi Perry is a FL boy from Ocala that was a 4-star & top 20 QB in his class, who outside of 2 or 3 games has been terrible most of his career, so what happened with that eval?

Location doesn't dictate ability to evaluate, evals are all 100% predicated on whichever coach is doing the eval. There's a reason why Bama, Clemson, Oh St, LSU, UGA & every other program all recruit heavily nationally, it's because they want the best players in the country & if they're not all in their backyards they go get'em.

If local evals were so accurate, we wouldn't be in this predicament now. We wouldn't have missed so severely on every single good player that has left the region & state to go elsewhere while being sattled with a much less talented player we took in their place. Evals have nothing to do with location & everything to do with Eyes.

And normal recruiting has been suspended for basically 3 months now, so any team taking commits more than likely has never had the player visit in person unless they did earlier in the year or last year, that's not stopping teams from accepting verbals. So what should we do, not accept any commits until the quarantine shutdown is over?

And there's no way to know how any eval will turn out until the kid is on your team, in your program, practicing & playing in games, so in that case, what's the point in paying attention to any recruit until they take their first snap in a game?

Ultimately, I get the point you're trying to make but unless you're fortune teller there's no way to know, so you either don't take the kid just because he's not from FL or you trust that Lashlee & Field might know what they're doing & accept the fact that it's possible for them to recruit & land a good player who just so happens to live in TX.

Otherwise, what the **** else are they supposed to do at this time? Lol.
 
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Elijah reminds me of Winslow Jr.

Keep making those Zoom calls, Lashlee.
 
Youre missing my point. There’s some film, sure. But we can’t travel or meet with him or his coaches, no spring ball, no recent camps ... it’s a lot harder right now than normal times. And it’s harder to evaluate non-local kids than local kids even during normal times.

This kid already had a relationship with Lashlee. An in person relationship; not just film.
 
Even with more data & more access you still have kids who came here & busted despite being local, so what does that mean about the eval? Kai Leon-Herbert & Navaughn Donaldson are both from South Fla, both were 4-star kids coming out of HS & both have been busts despite having supposedly more access & more data, so what happened? How did we miss evaluate the two of them even though they're from our backyard? N'Kosi Perry is a FL boy from Ocala that was a 4-star & top 20 QB in his class, who outside of 2 or 3 games has been terrible most of his career, so what happened with that eval?

Location doesn't dictate ability to evaluate, evals are all 100% predicated on whichever coach is doing the eval. There's a reason why Bama, Clemson, Oh St, LSU, UGA & every other program all recruit heavily nationally, it's because they want the best players in the country & if they're not all in their backyards they go get'em.

If local evals were so accurate, we wouldn't be in this predicament now. We wouldn't have missed so severely on every single good player that has left the region & state to go elsewhere while being sattled with a much less talented player we took in their place. Evals have nothing to do with location & everything to do with Eyes.

And normal recruiting has been suspended for basically 3 months now, so any team taking commits more than likely has never had the player visit in person unless they did earlier in the year or last year, that's not stopping teams from accepting verbals. So what should we do, not accept any commits until the quarantine shutdown is over?

And there's no way to know how any eval will turn out until the kid is on your team, in your program, practicing & playing in games, so in that case, what's the point in paying attention to any recruit until they take their first snap in a game?

Ultimately, I get the point you're trying to make but unless you're fortune teller there's no way to know, so you either don't take the kid just because he's not from FL or you trust that Lashlee & Field might know what they're doing & accept the fact that it's possible for them to recruit & land a good player who just so happens to live in TX.

Otherwise, what the **** else are they supposed to do at this time? Lol.

There's no question it's easier to evaluate locally. There's no flight to get an in-person eval, you have longer relationships with the local sources and you are aware of kids at a much earlier age. They are also able to camp for minimal cost.

This is more true for the sleepers than the big-timers. Most of the big-time kids are obvious studs and worth the resources to fly over. Arroyo is in that category. It's different when you are digging for talent. You can't vet everyone.

As bad as we've been with local sleepers, we've been worse with the national sleepers.
 
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There's no question it's easier to evaluate locally. There's no flight to get an in-person eval, you have longer relationships with the local sources and you are aware of kids at a much earlier age. They are also able to camp for minimal cost.

This is more true for the sleepers than the big-timers. Most of the big-time kids are obvious studs and worth the resources to fly over. Arroyo is in that category. It's different when you are digging for talent. You can't vet everyone.

As bad as we've been with local sleepers, we've been worse with the national sleepers.
This is an important point. I haven’t done the research on it but it feels true to me. It’s also ties to a view you and I have been advocating for ages. Go national for top kids or certain need areas where we have needs we can’t fill locally, but do not — I repeat do not — chase sleepers nationally when history proves there are almost always better options nearby. If we don’t know who the local better options are, one possibility is we’re not trying hard enough or just aren’t good enough at evaluations.
 
This is an important point. I haven’t done the research on it but it feels true to me.

This is incomplete but covers a five-year sample:

 
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Even with more data & more access you still have kids who came here & busted despite being local, so what does that mean about the eval?
Of course you do. It means two things: first, evals are inherently uncertain, so there are no guarantees, and second, we have not been particularly good at them, compounding the issue.

Location doesn't dictate ability to evaluate, evals are all 100% predicated on whichever coach is doing the eval. There's a reason why Bama, Clemson, Oh St, LSU, UGA & every other program all recruit heavily nationally, it's because they want the best players in the country & if they're not all in their backyards they go get'em.
Location doesn’t ‘dictate’ ability to evaluate, but it is incredibly relevant to it. It defines the amount of information, access, familiarity and relationships involved. Evaluations comes down to information and assessment. A staffs ability to assess is what it is. So the variable in most instances is information. More of it helps. Just like in investments or any other endeavor. And keep in mind, evals may come down mostly to ruling kids out, more than knowing exactly which kids will succeed. That’s at least a big part of it. You can see tape and measurables from kids all over. But can you look them in the eye and size them up the way Butch and JJ did?

If local evals were so accurate, we wouldn't be in this predicament now. We wouldn't have missed so severely on every single good player that has left the region & state to go elsewhere while being sattled with a much less talented player we took in their place. Evals have nothing to do with location & everything to do with Eyes.
No one said local evals were ‘so accurate.’ To the contrary, evals are only as good as your evaluation skills can make them. That is why you have heard me talking about evals like a broken fricken record on this site for years and years. I’ve been saying this since Coker took Dave Howell’s commitment a year before NSD. But the point cuts the other way, IMO. If we know our staff struggles with evals, then they should probably try to stay closer to home. They’ll have more information and be spread less thin and can make better decisions, even if they’re not great decisions.

Ultimately, I get the point you're trying to make but unless you're fortune teller there's no way to know, so you either don't take the kid just because he's not from FL or you trust that Lashlee & Field might know what they're doing & accept the fact that it's possible for them to recruit & land a good player who just so happens to live in TX.
I think people are projecting onto my comment. I didn’t say we shouldn’t have taken a commitment from him. Read my post. All I said was it’s an extraordinary moment with covid where recruiting is really impaired, and I was curious about how we made this eval decision. Mind you, I’m curious about our eval decisions generally, in part because I think we have sucked at them and almost certainly been disorganized and had a poor process to get to answers. Whether we should have taken his commitment or why we did, I don’t know right now. People can jump up and down over a commitment if they want to. After watching 18 years of mostly bad recruiting evals and decommitments all over the place, I’m more interested in assessing whether we’re getting to good than high fiving myself over news of an early commitment that could easily wind up being more of the same.
 
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LCE, putting this in a separate response because it’s just about specific kids....

Kai Leon-Herbert & Navaughn Donaldson are both from South Fla, both were 4-star kids coming out of HS & both have been busts despite having supposedly more access & more data, so what happened? How did we miss evaluate the two of them even though they're from our backyard? N'Kosi Perry is a FL boy from Ocala that was a 4-star & top 20 QB in his class, who outside of 2 or 3 games has been terrible most of his career, so what happened with that eval.
These were different evaluation failings. Herbert was the most obvious. He wasn’t good. People read too much into an injury and projected him beyond it. He was highly rated for whatever reason, probably camp, but I don’t think good evaluators of OL wanted him, which is why we got an American Heritage kid late cycle on OL. JMO.

Perry is a kid whose athletic ability made you ooh and ahh. The issue with him is focus and decision-making. Those shortcomings aren’t as obvious in Hs or the camp circuit, so a staff has to identify the extent of the issue before answering it. The evaluation question with Perry was could he do it/get much better at it. We either didn’t frame the question well or we were wrong about it.

Donaldson is a different issue. Physically he can do it. His weight got away from him and he’s had injuries now. I think every staff takes him and the question is whether our culture and support can help keep him on track. I don’t consider him a blown eval. Maybe Butch would have identified something in his personality to be wary of, and Butch wasn’t generally a giant OL guy anyhow for the most part, but I suspect Butch would have taken him, been tougher on him and helped him succeed.
 
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This is incomplete but covers a five-year sample:

Thanks. If I had time to look further into this, I’d really like to expand the definition of ‘local’ to Orlando and South. I’d also note that non-local kids coming to our camp should help us evaluate (if we know how to evaluate). Also, some non-local schools can become pipelines where you gain some eval insight through watching kids over years and knowing coaches well (e.g., Oakleaf). Then I’d score by position, athletic ability and HS performance.
 
Youre missing my point. There’s some film, sure. But we can’t travel or meet with him or his coaches, no spring ball, no recent camps ... it’s a lot harder right now than normal times. And it’s harder to evaluate non-local kids than local kids even during normal times.

It pains me to say this but I almost have more confidence in taking a non-local kid sight unseen at this point.
 
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