Updated Blue Chip Ratio – Star Truthers Beware

As far as spending time online-- no. But I spent many hours reading virtually every recruiting newsletter:

Joe Terranova
Max Emfinger
Tom Lemming
Allen Wallace's Superprep
G&W
Bill Buchalter

In addition to the many, many hours, I spent hundreds of dollars on these publications. I used to spend a lot more time talking to well connected friends in south Florida. Got a lot more inside information.

I would also talk to Buchalter, Emfinger, Wallace,etc.

So I had an idea who was highly-rated back then. There are fewer under-the-radar guys now, but they're still there. Jordan Miller might be an example. I hope so.

The days of finding unknown guys like Santana Moss that go on to be all world players at UM and great pros might be over, but you are on the money that there are still guys that are under-rated and we can still make hay there simply because we are in the most fertile recruiting grounds in the nation. 20 years ago these might have been relatively unknown kids like Moss, but these days they are 3 stars like Malek Young. A UM coach is here 365 days a year. They get a better chance to evaluate all these kids and figure out which ones have the work ethic and attitudes of champions. Plenty of 2 and 3 star S Florida kids end up dominating NFL rosters. Those are the kids we need to close out classes with. We are gonna lose out on some of the 4 and 5 star kids every year until we are a championship contender. Until then, we need to hit on more of these other kids and your example of Jordan Miller, and IMHO DJ Ivey, and Gregory Rousseau are the types of kids who fit that bill.
 
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I didn’t do it based on total 85 available scholarships. I did it vs total signed on the roster.

Why would you reward a team for having unsigned slots? Even a 2-star will help your team out more than an empty chair.

If you can sign 85, then the basis should always be an 85....and an unused scholarship should be counted as a zero-star.

Think about it....otherwise a team on probation using only 50-60 scholarships can have an amazingly inflated blue chip ratio, like USC did after Reggie Bush drama.

But the reason the blue chip ratio predicts champions is that it suggests quality depth and competition at every spot. A team carrying fewer scholarship players has neither of those things.
 
Why would you reward a team for having unsigned slots? Even a 2-star will help your team out more than an empty chair.

If you can sign 85, then the basis should always be an 85....and an unused scholarship should be counted as a zero-star.

Think about it....otherwise a team on probation using only 50-60 scholarships can have an amazingly inflated blue chip ratio, like USC did after Reggie Bush drama.

But the reason the blue chip ratio predicts champions is that it suggests quality depth and competition at every spot. A team carrying fewer scholarship players has neither of those things.

The article it came from said it was from the kids that were signed... I guess I took that to mean soemething different. Either way, we ain’t there yet and I don’t think we are getting there until next year. If we are closer to 40% I don’t even think a heisman season bridges the gap on that. Good looking out
 
The days of finding unknown guys like Santana Moss that go on to be all world players at UM and great pros might be over, but you are on the money that there are still guys that are under-rated and we can still make hay there simply because we are in the most fertile recruiting grounds in the nation. 20 years ago these might have been relatively unknown kids like Moss, but these days they are 3 stars like Malek Young. A UM coach is here 365 days a year. They get a better chance to evaluate all these kids and figure out which ones have the work ethic and attitudes of champions. Plenty of 2 and 3 star S Florida kids end up dominating NFL rosters. Those are the kids we need to close out classes with. We are gonna lose out on some of the 4 and 5 star kids every year until we are a championship contender. Until then, we need to hit on more of these other kids and your example of Jordan Miller, and IMHO DJ Ivey, and Gregory Rousseau are the types of kids who fit that bill.
You saw the advantage we have in our early signing period class.

So many guys that were rated as 3 stars and an afterthought for most recruiting services as Juniors suddenly developing into 4 stars as Seniors.

We can see and get on these guys earlier than the rest of the nation. Build that relationship before the bags start being dropped and you have a chance of holding onto them.

We're never going to outbid Alabama / Georgia (surprisingly!) / OSU et al for those 5 star kids. That's why Campbell and co ******* off out of state didn't surprise me.

I think our recruiting under Richt has been excellent. OP stated that he didn't think a Head Coach with 164 career wins didn't know about the Blue Chip Ratio.... c'mon man. He stated from Day 1 that this roster was in tatters and it'd take 3+ years to build it back up to where it needs to be just to compete. We're ahead of schedule if anything.
 
Not sure a lot of those guys would be 4 or 5 star now. Maybe, but I'm skeptical. What set our kids apart was an incredible work ethic, very good coaching and kids with a burning desire to win. We had to overcome being outsized by almost every team we played. We used the passing attack to overcome physical inferiority. Schnellenberger called the "great equalizer."

People don't get those traits out of nowhere. They usually have it in high school as well..
 
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DG-

I. I never said we needed more 5 stars than anyone else and you cannot point to anything close to that in my post. As you say, don't make facts up to fit your narrative.
2. I don't mean to offend you either. I agree that we cannot know if such guys would have been 5 stars. That is part of my point; we really didn't have such national rankings and awareness then. But follow your own rationale. You then turn around and point out that he was recruited by Michigan and ND. Logically doesn't that give you a sense of how he would have been rated in the modern system?
3. My original point was that we didn't just win with lower rated south Florida "dawgs". We can't know how guys would have been rated back then as the system was so different.
 
There is nothing wrong with trying to find an under the radar player. Of course they still exist. Yes, even the best teams in the country take a shot here and there.

You just can't fill out of the bottom of your class with 4-5 "smartest kid in class" type pick ups. Its the sign of a program that has missed out on all of their local top guys.

1-2 of these guys...not so bad as long as they are calculated and are identified early in the process. It is a pretty poor sign of planning if you're constantly getting the under the radar players every January.

With all of that said...your "under the radar" types are going to be drying up going forward with the Early Signing Period. We saw this year, those players that were asked to "wait" for a committable offer by Power 5 programs took mid-tier P5 and Group of 5 offers this year. Post-Jobe and with Surtain and Campbell all but lost, in a perfect non Early Signing Day, I would have loved to see Divaad Wilson or Devon Matthews from Jacksonville here in Coral Gables...unfortunately, by the time Christmas comes around...they are signed, sealed, and delivered elsewhere.
 
Don't need an excuse when the facts speaks for itself. Rumph is one of the best db coaches in cfb and doing a great job with upgrading the position with elite talent across the board.
 
Miami has the most variety of elite talent than any other team in the country hands down. All we need is time to put it together and continue to mature.... we have everything we need to win the ACC this year and compete in the CFB playoffs.
 
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We really need to get over this kind of analysis. It's nice, but the schools are doing most of the leg work for these recruiting services. Jordan Miller is example ______ that they're mostly driven by who comes in and offers over what they've actually been evaluated as. No games, no camps, just raised a star because schools started offering him. Then Luginbill calls him a two-gap NT when nothing on his film shows a two-gap player.

Richard McIntosh was our best player- period- last year. He was a three star kid apparently. I watched him play and called him one of our top-three recruits because you could see he had the frame, toughness, natural strength, and burst to be an excellent 3-technique in the role we'd ask him to play.

Finally, there is a wide range in four and three star players. There are what, a hundred four-star players? Two-hundred three star players? That is a big difference between rated as a bottom four and the best four star. For three star players, they are basically just throwing things at the wall on those recruiting sites.

Now, I do agree that for the most part five-star rated kids are legitimate studs. Outside of them, it's all about fit, natural tools, and projection into what they're going to be asked to do. Chickillo would've been great at SDE for Diaz, but was a JAG under Golden. Berrios was a JAG outside, we utilize him correctly in the slot, he blows up.

But, I appreciate the time you spent on your post though.
 
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