Gophers dead last in 2016 Recruiting

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Nice try throwing ice in my chili, it was so hot the ice started on fire rather than melting!
 

Kuato Lives! said:
Are you suggesting that Claeys can't recruit and that he should be let go?

For the record, recruiting rankings correlate with success but at a school like Minnesota you have to build your way up to get to the point where you can compete with the big boys. The staff has said in the past that they model their recruiting after Michigan State, a program that has shown that the strategy works.
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To answer the first part, no not yet. But I think the biggest question surrounding Claeys as a head coach was whether or not he can recruit. So far not so good, but there's time to fix that.

As for the Michigan St example, I remember posting about this in another thread. According to Rivals, Dantonio's worst class at Michigan St was 47th. Kill/Claeys best class was last year and ranked 51. Dantonio's second full class in 2009 ranked 17th. So Michigan St has recruited on much higher level, even early in Dantonio's days there.
 

Lord, this again. Every year, we get the same argument about star ratings, and the same weeping and wailing about how the Gophers' recruiting stinks. Then, on signing day, by some miracle, you come on Gopher hole, and people are predicting that every recruit is a future superstar and is going to transform the program.

I have no idea how good any of these recruits may be. I wait to watch them play, and then I make up my own mind about who can play, and who can't play.
 

PMWinSTP said:
I think you need to clarify. Wisc has done a little better according to recruiting class rankings, but not by much. MN and IA seem to consistently be close to each other in the rankings.
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Actually out of the 3 since 2010, Iowa has done the best. According to Rivals the average ranking for each school since 2010 is:
IA: 47
WI: 52
MN: 58

This is actually closer than I thought. However, Wisconsin had a significant outlier with the 2010 class ranked 98. If you remove each schools worst class since 2010, the rankings are as follows:

WI: 44
IA: 45
MN: 55

10 spots might not seem like a lot, but it adds up over time, especially when you have a fringe top 30 class.
Iowa's highest ranked class was ranked 31, Wisconsin's was 33, and Minnesota's was 51.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Actually out of the 3 since 2010, Iowa has done the best. According to Rivals the average ranking for each school since 2010 is:
IA: 47
WI: 52
MN: 58

This is actually closer than I thought. However, Wisconsin had a significant outlier with the 2010 class ranked 98. If you remove each schools worst class since 2010, the rankings are as follows:

WI: 44
IA: 45
MN: 55

10 spots might not seem like a lot, but it adds up over time, especially when you have a fringe top 30 class.
Iowa's highest ranked class was ranked 31, Wisconsin's was 33, and Minnesota's was 51.
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It doesn't really beyond maybe #25, certainly not in the 40-60 range...very subjective. Coin flip.
 


short ornery norwegian said:
Lord, this again. Every year, we get the same argument about star ratings, and the same weeping and wailing about how the Gophers' recruiting stinks. Then, on signing day, by some miracle, you come on Gopher hole, and people are predicting that every recruit is a future superstar and is going to transform the program.

I have no idea how good any of these recruits may be. I wait to watch them play, and then I make up my own mind about who can play, and who can't play.
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This is smart and probably explains why the GH jury is still out on Liedner.
 

PMWinSTP said:
It doesn't really beyond maybe #25, certainly not in the 40-60 range...very subjective. Coin flip.
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A 33rd ranked class is still in the top 26% of FBS. The 51st ranked class is in the top 40% among the 128 schools in the FBS. That's still a big difference.
 

My take (FWIW):
I feel confident that Tracy Claeys is a good coach. My concern is whether he has the interpersonal skills and charisma/personality to be a good head coach. A head coach in this era needs to be adept at inspiring fans to buy tickets, at getting alumni to donate and getting recruits (and their parents) excited about the program, Winning can overcome a blah personality (to a point), so now the question is whether this team can win enough games on the field to sell our product.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
A 33rd ranked class is still in the top 26% of FBS. The 51st ranked class is in the top 40% among the 128 schools in the FBS. That's still a big difference.
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Is it really that big a difference though.

Outside the top couple teams, and then a mid range of the top 20.... I swear one player with an extra star makes the difference between 33 and 50 at times....
 



A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Is it really that big a difference though.

Outside the top couple teams, and then a mid range of the top 20.... I swear one player with an extra star makes the difference between 33 and 50 at times....
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Not in football. In basketball maybe. A four star might move a team in that range up a spot or two. Not 17. It also has to do with the number of recruits.

Last year ranked at 51 the Gophers had 1 four star and 13 3 stars. Wisconsin ranked at 35 had 4 four stars and 19 three stars.
 

Quoting the Wren conference wins are the only thing that counts.
Not stars, not hopes and wishes, not rose colored glasses or bleak despair a coaching staff is judged by their BIG W/L.
 

It's September and we have 11 commitments so far and we have everyone instate we want.
 

PMWinSTP said:
It doesn't really beyond maybe #25, certainly not in the 40-60 range...very subjective. Coin flip.
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To break it down even further, a team ranked in the mid 40s has on average 4-5 more recruits ranked 3* and above than a team ranked in the mid 50s. Over a 4 year period that's an average of 16-20 recruits, nearly a full recruiting class of higher ranked kids. That's a significant difference.
 



A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Who?

You want Andersen?

Bert?
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Bret Bielema at UW:
68-24 (37-19)
3 Big Ten Championships

Gary Andersen at UW:
19-7 (13-3)
1 Big Ten West title, got smoked in Big Ten Championship game.

Not trying to flame, just saying Gopher fans would be thrilled with the results of Bielema and Andersen. There is not a lot separating Wisconsin (or Iowa) from Minnesota as far as level playing fields go. I would say BB and GA should be what Minnesota is striving for.

As far as recruiting goes, I'm for evaluating classes after their time on the field has completed. I think SB Nation did a feature on re-ranking the recruiting classes after their 4 or 5 year periods have completed. I can't find the article now but UW was a lot higher in that regard.
 

MNBadgerGuy said:
Bret Bielema at UW:
68-24 (37-19)
3 Big Ten Championships

Gary Andersen at UW:
19-7 (13-3)
1 Big Ten West title, got smoked in Big Ten Championship game.

Not trying to flame, just saying Gopher fans would be thrilled with the results of Bielema and Andersen. There is not a lot separating Wisconsin (or Iowa) from Minnesota as far as level playing fields go. I would say BB and GA should be what Minnesota is striving for.

As far as recruiting goes, I'm for evaluating classes after their time on the field has completed. I think SB Nation did a feature on re-ranking the recruiting classes after their 4 or 5 year periods have completed. I can't find the article now but UW was a lot higher in that regard.
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Do you think the results would be the same here?
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Do you think the results would be the same here?
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No, probably not right away. Clearly the Gophers are still looking for their Barry Alvarez to revitalize the program and get it trending in the right direction. Kill got it turned around and clearly the hope is Claeys can keep it going and improve on it. I guess I read your comment as basically saying Bielema and Andersen weren't good coaches, and I think that's pretty far from the truth, especially at a non-helmet school like UW.

If Claeys can break through and win a B1G title, or even a B1G West title, I think this breaks down the barrier and makes that consistent 8, 9, and 10 win seasons a realistic possibility, with 6 and 7 win seasons the "down" year.
 

I would think the new football facility will help.
 

"Dead last"? Dead last in what? We finished 10th in the Big Ten and 51st in the country.
 


Wow, this whole message board has just become a place for trolls to criticize the local team about every little thing they can dig up! We need to stop feeding these guys, all it does is give a very misleading view of fan attitudes and piss all of us real fans off!

As much as I like the free access to the site, maybe we should have a token membership fee to screen out these idiots?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
A 33rd ranked class is still in the top 26% of FBS. The 51st ranked class is in the top 40% among the 128 schools in the FBS. That's still a big difference.
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I'm not sure I even undestand what this means. There are plenty of teams with top 25 recruiting classes who suck, and plenty below 50 who seem to win every year.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Not in football. In basketball maybe. A four star might move a team in that range up a spot or two. Not 17. It also has to do with the number of recruits.

Last year ranked at 51 the Gophers had 1 four star and 13 3 stars. Wisconsin ranked at 35 had 4 four stars and 19 three stars.
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Listen, we can cherry-pick all night to prove our points.
 


Yes, there are exceptions and variances - but in general, a program that has higher-rated recruiting classes will - more often than not - perform better than a program with lower-rated recruiting classes. Give most coaches better players, and they will produce a better team.

Sure, a really good coach can turn average players into a good team - and a really bad coach can turn good players into an average or below-average team.

But, given a choice, I would take the higher-rated players every time.

To be honest, there is a lot of rationalizing on this topic. The Gophers tend to have lower-rated recruiting classes, and so we get the argument that star ratings are imperfect and not a predictor of future success. But, if the Gophers brought in a class with a bunch of 4* or even 5* players, I suspect the argument would do a U-turn in a hurry.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
To break it down even further, a team ranked in the mid 40s has on average 4-5 more recruits ranked 3* and above than a team ranked in the mid 50s. Over a 4 year period that's an average of 16-20 recruits, nearly a full recruiting class of higher ranked kids. That's a significant difference.
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Well duh, it's math that determines the rankings. Performance-wise it's a crap shoot in this range. Coin flip as to who really is better. These are 17 year old kids being rated in vastly differing HS programs.
 



PMWinSTP said:
Northwestern.
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There are always exceptions to the rule, but Northwestern generally falls close to the ranking vs recruiting line. Wisconsin is usually one of the biggest overachievers.

Check out the chart and read this article: http://regressing.deadspin.com/chart-which-ncaa-football-teams-outplay-their-recruit-1640831522

It's two years old but probably one of the best I've seen on recruiting vs performance. A correlation of .77 is strong, but of course there are outliers both ways. Overall, the teams generally follow the trend line of recruiting rankings vs year end rankings.
 

I didn't mean to offend. I didn't realize the title of the thread is like a powder keg. I merely wanted to note that the Gophers are a little behind in recruiting this year. Nowhere was I dissing our beloved Gophers.

As a lifelong fan, I hope that Claeys will do what Alvarez and Dantonio did to elevate their programs. We just need that 10-win season or a B1G Title to get us to the next level. That plus the Athletic Village will help tremendously.

So, for those whose ire I irked I humbly apologize. :(
 

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