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Wins and Recruiting Classes Article

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Interesting stuff. The popular idea among any college team's fans is "If we win more, we'll recruit better" and that's true...to an extent. You kind of have to win at a decent (9+ wins) level if you want to pull top 10 classes. But winning at that same level doesn't necessarily mean you will automatically recruit at a top 10 level. Look at gator tears and laugh at how their fans can't fathom how their team can manage to win 10 games and still get out recruited by "lesser" programs.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is the group of fans who disregard winning and say "coach X is just a great recruiter and he can pull top classes whether the program is winning or not". That's not true either. As the article mentions, it's incredibly rare for a coach to recruit at a very high level if his program isn't winning big...unless he's still in the fist year or two of his tenure where the "honeymoon period" isn't quite over yet. If a guy is in year 4 or 5 and he's only winning 6 or 7 games a year, it's almost impossible for him to pull a top recruiting class. It pretty much never happens outside of a few very rare occasions.


Bottom line is, no matter how good of a recruiter you are, you're not going to be able to consistently convince top classes to sign if you're not winning games at a reasonably high rate. At the same time, just because you're winning games, doesn't mean you're going to sign top classes. Especially if your coach is a cousin Eddie lookin' doofus who's wife sexually molests players.
 
I found this particularly interesting:

And if we isolate the group away from the pro-rated 2021 class win totals of Michigan (five) and LSU (seven), which stand out as particularly strange due to the COVID season, there’s a very interesting trend among the remaining classes: Every school which signed a Top 10 class after posting eight or fewer regular-season wins had a head coach who had been on the job for 0-3 years.
 
rustywalkedaway said:
I found this particularly interesting:

And if we isolate the group away from the pro-rated 2021 class win totals of Michigan (five) and LSU (seven), which stand out as particularly strange due to the COVID season, there’s a very interesting trend among the remaining classes: Every school which signed a Top 10 class after posting eight or fewer regular-season wins had a head coach who had been on the job for 0-3 years.
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I believe it’s part of the reason so many schools are stuck in a coaching hiring/firing cycle and the team never really gets better. You hire a new coach, he builds hype and signs a good class but struggles to win games. Every year his recruiting classes get worse and his on field results don’t meet expectations so you hire a new guy and start the process all over again. It’s been happen here for going on 20 years.
 
Winning doesn’t create recruiting. You either got it on the trail or you dont.

Winning allows you to maintain recruiting.
 
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DTP said:
Interesting stuff. The popular idea among any college team's fans is "If we win more, we'll recruit better" and that's true...to an extent. You kind of have to win at a decent (9+ wins) level if you want to pull top 10 classes. But winning at that same level doesn't necessarily mean you will automatically recruit at a top 10 level. Look at gator tears and laugh at how their fans can't fathom how their team can manage to win 10 games and still get out recruited by "lesser" programs.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is the group of fans who disregard winning and say "coach X is just a great recruiter and he can pull top classes whether the program is winning or not". That's not true either. As the article mentions, it's incredibly rare for a coach to recruit at a very high level if his program isn't winning big...unless he's still in the fist year or two of his tenure where the "honeymoon period" isn't quite over yet. If a guy is in year 4 or 5 and he's only winning 6 or 7 games a year, it's almost impossible for him to pull a top recruiting class. It pretty much never happens outside of a few very rare occasions.


Bottom line is, no matter how good of a recruiter you are, you're not going to be able to consistently convince top classes to sign if you're not winning games at a reasonably high rate. At the same time, just because you're winning games, doesn't mean you're going to sign top classes. Especially if your coach is a cousin Eddie lookin' doofus who's wife sexually molests players.
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Hey now cousin Eddie doesn't deserve that...
 
Certain programs have higher recruiting ceilings. I believe our ceiling is 5-8. Highest we will ever be imo. You can win ships with that as long as you sustain it and land a great QB. Bama Georgia osu Clemson usc etc have higher ceilings imo. Not being a nope. Georgia has proven that recruiting top classes isn’t everything
 
305407cane said:
Certain programs have higher recruiting ceilings. I believe our ceiling is 5-8. Highest we will ever be imo. You can win ships with that as long as you sustain it and land a great QB. Bama Georgia osu Clemson usc etc have higher ceilings imo. Not being a nope. Georgia has proven that recruiting top classes isn’t everything
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Please explain why Clemson has a higher ceiling than Miami, as a program. Alabama allocates more resources, Georgia has a solid in state recruiting base. Clemson? Clemson has been on a roll and that helps recruiting, without question, but how in **** does Clemson in South Carolina have a higher ceiling than Miami in Florida?

And spare me the "bags" lazy excuse. Clemons is dirty; we al know that. But if "bags" were the only issue we would not have the top 3 recruits in our last two classes.
 
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rustywalkedaway said:
Please explain why Clemson has a higher ceiling than Miami, as a program. Alabama allocates more resources, Georgia has a solid in state recruiting base. Clemson? Clemson has been on a roll and that helps recruiting, without question, but how in **** does Clemson in South Carolina have a higher ceiling than Miami in Florida?

And spare me the "bags" lazy excuse. Clemons is dirty; we al know that. But if "bags" were the only issue we would not have the top 3 recruits in our last two classes.
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Because UM does not have a monopoly on top local recruits like other programs. There isn’t a lot of hometown loyalty or wanting to “make the crib great”.

It will be interesting to test that theory with some news rules where the kids can make money off their likeness and the social media influence.

If we are consistently in the playoffs and winning championships and putting kids in the first round, it would make it harder for kids like Campbell and Surtain to leave.

Hearing Surtain Sr. on Joe Rose a week ago and it seemed to me the primary reason he steered his son to bama was that he felt his son would get professional coaching that would maximize his talent for the league.

We need to eliminate reasons why kids leave. The goal is the only avenue they have is that they left for a change of scenery or the other school showed me “love” (i.e. bags).
 
rustywalkedaway said:
Some interesting points:

247sports.com

How important is winning games in college football recruiting?

At its core, recruiting college football players is sales.
247sports.com 247sports.com
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It’s a weak statistical assessment, imo. Did it occur to them that the reason the correlation is lower as you go towards the pack is because the rankings are less accurate the further you get from the obvious elite kids? also, this top ten class for a coach 4+ years in with 8- wins prior year is a pretty big selection bias. Top 10 classes tend to go to top 15 programs, and those programs temd to fire coaches who suck 4+ years into the gig.

The bottom line is all sales is fear vs. greed. Greed is your want list. Success, winning, hoes, bags, hometown team, nfl dreams. Fear is ... failure, bad coaches, ugly hoes, cheap boorsters, crappy towns, bad draft outcomes. Winning matters but whether winning is the umbrella or the rain isn’t that hard to assess. Kids need a believable story. That comes with either a new coach (years 1-3) to paper over a bad record, or a good record. If winning, as opposed to hope, was the driver, new coaches wouldn’t do better than old cosches.
 
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Canesq said:
Because UM does not have a monopoly on top local recruits like other programs. There isn’t a lot of hometown loyalty or wanting to “make the crib great”.

It will be interesting to test that theory with some news rules where the kids can make money off their likeness and the social media influence.

If we are consistently in the playoffs and winning championships and putting kids in the first round, it would make it harder for kids like Campbell and Surtain to leave.

Hearing Surtain Sr. on Joe Rose a week ago and it seemed to me the primary reason he steered his son to bama was that he felt his son would get professional coaching that would maximize his talent for the league.

We need to eliminate reasons why kids leave. The goal is the only avenue they have is that they left for a change of scenery or the other school showed me “love” (i.e. bags).
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I do not understand the argument. How does Clemson have a "local recruits" advantage? Here is its 2021 recruiting class. Clemson is located in Clemson, South Carolina.

247sports.com

Clemson 2021 Football Commits

Clemson
247sports.com 247sports.com

It has one recruit from the state of South Carolina and that is their lowest rated player.

In 2020 it had one kid from the state and that was a coach's son:

247sports.com

Clemson 2020 Football Commits

Clemson
247sports.com 247sports.com
 
rustywalkedaway said:
I do not understand the argument. How does Clemson have a "local recruits" advantage? Here is its 2021 recruiting class. Clemson is located in Clemson, South Carolina.

247sports.com

Clemson 2021 Football Commits

Clemson
247sports.com 247sports.com

It has one recruit from the state of South Carolina and that is their lowest rated player.

In 2020 it had one kid from the state and that was a coach's son:

247sports.com

Clemson 2020 Football Commits

Clemson
247sports.com 247sports.com
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I think Clemson is more the exception but they have a pipeline with Georgia and other surrounding states so an argument can be made that the recruit is “local”.

But your point I think is that schools that have to rely entirely on out of state recruits or recruits more nationally (like ND) are vulnerable if schools like UM are consistently in the playoffs, winning championships, and putting out first rounders.

Do you think Bama is as successful if UM locked down south Florida and was a force in recruiting nationally? If Texas and USC(w) were a force as well Bama wouldn’t nearly have the same success this last decade.

My point was that it is harder for us to lockdown local recruits based on a variety of factors.

OSU has a monopoly on Ohio recruits no matter how they are doing record-wise. Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury.
 
Canesq said:
I think Clemson is more the exception but they have a pipeline with Georgia and other surrounding states so an argument can be made that the recruit is “local”.

But your point I think is that schools that have to rely entirely on out of state recruits or recruits more nationally (like ND) are vulnerable if schools like UM are consistently in the playoffs, winning championships, and putting out first rounders.

Do you think Bama is as successful if UM locked down south Florida and was a force in recruiting nationally? If Texas and USC(w) were a force as well Bama wouldn’t nearly have the same success this last decade.

My point was that it is harder for us to lockdown local recruits based on a variety of factors.

OSU has a monopoly on Ohio recruits no matter how they are doing record-wise. Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury.
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State borders are probably the wrong way to measure this stuff. Central FL is 250 miles from Miami give or take. Tallahassee is ~500 miles. We talk about Florida recruits but if you draw a circle 300 miles around Clemson you’ll have a better sense of their recruiting universe. Atlanta is barely 125 miles from them.

You’re correct that Ohio State has ownership of a good state for recruiting. Texas could, or at least a lot of it. LSU sort of does. Alabama does. Penn State once did.

Miami’s mistakes are self inflicted but anyone who thinks Alabama wouldn’t be doing work either way doesn’t understand what they’re doing, imo. There are plenty of national recruits. We don’t impact them for that and wouldn’t. They take a couple kids a year from our territory. We’re bleeding kids all over but it ain’t about Alabama, it’s about the whole hornets nest of Bama UGA Clemson LSU Auburn Clemson A&M TN NB Ohio State Oklahoma et al.

We never owned FL recruiting in any
case. We’re really lucky that neither FSU nor UF is really good right now. It’s our chance to resurrect.
 
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Ethnicsands said:
State borders are probably the wrong way to measure this stuff. Central FL is 250 miles from Miami give or take. Tallahassee is ~500 miles. We talk about Florida recruits but if you draw a circle 300 miles around Clemson you’ll have a better sense of their recruiting universe. Atlanta is barely 125 miles from them.

You’re correct that Ohio State has ownership of a good state for recruiting. Texas could, or at least a lot of it. LSU sort of does. Alabama does. Penn State once did.

Miami’s mistakes are self inflicted but anyone who thinks Alabama wouldn’t be doing work either way doesn’t understand what they’re doing, imo. There are plenty of national recruits. We don’t impact them for that and wouldn’t. They take a couple kids a year from our territory. We’re bleeding kids all over but it ain’t about Alabama, it’s about the whole hornets nest of Bama UGA Clemson LSU Auburn Clemson A&M TN NB Ohio State Oklahoma et al.

We never owned FL recruiting in any
case. We’re really lucky that neither FSU nor UF is really good right now. It’s our chance to resurrect.
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I don’t disagree with this. Satan has created a great system in a conference and state that treats him like a king.

However you underestimate the game changers he’s taken not just from south Florida but Texas and Cali as well (imagine we got Cook instead of Yearby what a difference it would’ve made in the FSU game). If those flagship programs were being run correctly, some of those game changers don’t make it to bama. They’d still be good and have some championships but not as dominate to the point where every year you pencil them in for the playoffs.

He has a great system but his other key is he hoards so many highly rated recruits that he has a higher margin of error than 95% of college football.

You’re right Miami has never been a recruiting juggernaut but I would love to test that theory out given the changes that are coming regarding recruits profiting off their names.
 
Canesq said:
I don’t disagree with this. Satan has created a great system in a conference and state that treats him like a king.

However you underestimate the game changers he’s taken not just from south Florida but Texas and Cali as well (imagine we got Cook instead of Yearby what a difference it would’ve made in the FSU game). If those flagship programs were being run correctly, some of those game changers don’t make it to bama. They’d still be good and have some championships but not as dominate to the point where every year you pencil them in for the playoffs.

He has a great system but his other key is he hoards so many highly rated recruits that he has a higher margin of error than 95% of college football.

You’re right Miami has never been a recruiting juggernaut but I would love to test that theory out given the changes that are coming regarding recruits profiting off their names.
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We mostly agree but I don’t understand your Alabama comments.

You say I underestimate the game changers he’s taken but then your example is Cook (FSU). You say he gets game changers from Tex and Cali as well (true), but that doesn’t have anything to do with Miami. Sure, if some program here or there was run better, he’d lose a kid here or there. Wouldn’t matter in the least, imo. There’s always going to be a program that draws nationally, and that’s Alabama now. Also, there’s a reason most other programs look lesser right now. It’s called Saban. Doesn’t really matter what his margin for error is. He wins, so he isn’t often explaining his errors. His opponents’ fans are instead trying to downplay his success.

Maybe we can improve our recruiting. We’ve needed to for decades.
 
Ethnicsands said:
We mostly agree but I don’t understand your Alabama comments.

You say I underestimate the game changers he’s taken but then your example is Cook (FSU). You say he gets game changers from Tex and Cali as well (true), but that doesn’t have anything to do with Miami. Sure, if some program here or there was run better, he’d lose a kid here or there. Wouldn’t matter in the least, imo. There’s always going to be a program that draws nationally, and that’s Alabama now. Also, there’s a reason most other programs look lesser right now. It’s called Saban. Doesn’t really matter what his margin for error is. He wins, so he isn’t often explaining his errors. His opponents’ fans are instead trying to downplay his success.

Maybe we can improve our recruiting. We’ve needed to for decades.
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It was a poor transition but it was the quickest example I could think of where Miami likely would have won a game had one local recruit went our way.

It will be interesting to see once saban retires to see how bama does.

Judging how his former coordinators have been unable to replicate his success despite comparable resources saban looks to be the main component of the system.
 
Canesq said:
It was a poor transition but it was the quickest example I could think of where Miami likely would have won a game had one local recruit went our way.

It will be interesting to see once saban retires to see how bama does.

Judging how his former coordinators have been unable to replicate his success despite comparable resources saban looks to be the main component of the system.
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Thing is, we’ve lost guys to FSU going back to our hey day. Alabama too. Marvin Jones, Derrick Thomas come to mind.

Alabama has the infrastructure right but anyone who thinks saban’s going to be easy to replace is mistaken.

It’s possible. Miami went through a few coaches and maintained in the ‘80s. But you have to pick well. And Dennis was a great coach, but couldn’t maintain the program.
 
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