A Tale of Two Classes

[Killjoy]

As a contrarian investor I have always have been interested in perception vs. reality. Therefore I thought it might be interesting to look at Brewster's and Kill's first full recruiting classes and compare them at this point in time. First, according to the Rivals site at this time 2008 class is ranked 17th and the 2012 is ranked 72nd. This may be found by clicking on the site below and then clicking on the right class year.

After doing a visual comparison and not an in depth analysis the difference between the two classes became very apparent. While the 2008 class was a tremendous disappointment for a variety of reasons the 2012 class is looking very good. The end result for the 2008 class is that many of the 2008 recruits are never contributed nor finished at Minnesota. On the other hand the 2012 is well on its way to having a large number of contributors players staying at Minnesota. I think most us of knew or suspected this but until you actually compare them you don't realize how much better the 2012 class is likely to be. Check it out for yourself. In this case perception and reality are quite different. Yet Brewster is regarded by some as great recruiter and Kill is not.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/minnesota/football/recruiting/commitments/2014

 

[John Galt]

This script still needs 2 years to play out.

 

[Ole]

As a contrarian investor I have always have been interested in perception vs. reality. Therefore I thought it might be interesting to look at Brewster's and Kill's first full recruiting classes and compare them at this point in time. First, according to the Rivals site at this time 2008 class is ranked 17th and the 2012 is ranked 72nd. This may be found by clicking on the site below and then clicking on the right class year.

After doing a visual comparison and not an in depth analysis the difference between the two classes became very apparent. While the 2008 class was a tremendous disappointment for a variety of reasons the 2012 class is looking very good. The end result for the 2008 class is that many of the 2008 recruits are never contributed nor finished at Minnesota. On the other hand the 2012 is well on its way to having a large number of contributors players staying at Minnesota. I think most us of knew or suspected this but until you actually compare them you don't realize how much better the 2012 class is likely to be. Check it out for yourself. In this case perception and reality are quite different. Yet Brewster is regarded by some as great recruiter and Kill is not.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/minnesota/football/recruiting/commitments/2014

I've been keeping an eye on Kill v Brew "hit"% in recruiting, vs "miss"%.
Kill has gotten a really good % of his recruits to make meaningful contributions. Brewster at this point gets credit for more "star talent" in that guys like Lawrence, Brock, Simmons, Gray, Carter, Stoudemire, Wilhite, and Hageman made impact plays that certainly won games for the program.

Kill so far has been really good at retaining his recruits and getting meaningful contributions from them, but as of yet we can't be sure they are "stars".
Perhaps we saw hints of that from Wells last year, and undoubtedly we'll see more guys step up and become faces of the program as they mature.

Compare the 2007-2009 class to Kill's 2011-2013 recruits and you immediately see that Kill is keeping his guys in the program better, and they are contributing on the field too.

 

[Killjoy]

I've been keeping an eye on Kill v Brew "hit"% in recruiting, vs "miss"%.
Kill has gotten a really good % of his recruits to make meaningful contributions. Brewster at this point gets credit for more "star talent" in that guys like Lawrence, Brock, Simmons, Gray, Carter, Stoudemire, Wilhite, and Hageman made impact plays that certainly won games for the program.

Kill so far has been really good at retaining his recruits and getting meaningful contributions from them, but as of yet we can't be sure they are "stars".
Perhaps we saw hints of that from Wells last year, and undoubtedly we'll see more guys step up and become faces of the program as they mature.

Compare the 2007-2009 class to Kill's 2011-2013 recruits and you immediately see that Kill is keeping his guys in the program better, and they are contributing on the field too.

Thanks for the insight and analysis. We will have a more complete picture of Kill's recruiting ability in a couple of years but as you a have stated above we can safely say that Kill "has been really good at retaining his recruits and getting meaningful contributions from them."

 

[Norsk_Gopher]

As John Galt pointed out, (at least) two more years are needed...but I'm not that patient. One thing we can speculate on are which players will be busts for Coach Kill; but its still too early to tell. Possible candidates: Andre McDonald & James Gillum. That is all (from 2012). True, not all of the others have played, some might never be a big factor (possible injuries), but the other, while maybe not starters (see are Juco DBs) still contributed.

For Brewster's 2008 class I see 6 who did have a big impact, a few with a small impact, at least 1 (maybe 2-3) who had an impact for another team, and the rest I don't really recall (so maybe busts).

 

[Killjoy]

As John Galt pointed out, (at least) two more years are needed...but I'm not that patient. One thing we can speculate on are which players will be busts for Coach Kill; but its still too early to tell. Possible candidates: Andre McDonald & James Gillum. That is all (from 2012). True, not all of the others have played, some might never be a big factor (possible injuries), but the other, while maybe not starters (see are Juco DBs) still contributed.

For Brewster's 2008 class I see 6 who did have a big impact, a few with a small impact, at least 1 (maybe 2-3) who had an impact for another team, and the rest I don't really recall (so maybe busts).

Not a bad analysis for a Norwegian.

 

[Monty519]

Keeping them here for 4 years would be nice, cause that'll go a long way towards keeping the program at least at a bowl level even if you get guys who don't quite pan out. Being able to field plenty of upperclassmen in the depth chart is important for a program like ours cause frankly, we're just not likely to get the kids who are studs in the first two years. The way Kill's been doing it so far, he's getting these guys that may have some good traits, but they gotta put on like 30 lbs before they can compete at this level. This will work out once he's got a couple more classes in, and he doesn't miss on too many prospects, but in the meantime, we're gonna be thin at some spots.

The most impressive element to me with Kill has been the secondary work. Derrick Wells, Cedric Thompson, and it appears Eric Murray as well...these guys were out of the picture recruiting wise, unheralded 2 star kids, and it looks like they'll make up 3 of our 4 secondary starters this season. And by most accounts, we'll be quite decent back there, so it's not like they're starting cause we have a bad unit or something.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Agree with those that have pointed out you need to let the careers of the 2012 guys play out before you can make any sort of meaningful comparison between that class and the class of 2008. It is still to early to know if those 2012 guys are going to be impact players, roster guys or busts.

 

[drinks at Northpoint]

I've got no problem with Brewsters 2008 class. It just lacked balance. Short on offensive lineman, long on JUCO's. Plenty of quality players out of that group. I counted 10-12 guys who made significant contributions. Some knuckleheads too, but nothing worse than a few guys who enjoyed the college life a little too much.
I think that one year compares favorably to 2004-2007 where we had a few very productive players like Dom Barber, Gary Russell, Weber, and the best of all Eric Decker. There were some very nice players like Van De Steeg. But, there were also plenty of guys who never made a contribution. Not to mention a few of those guys were accused of rape before the spring game. When was McField recruited?
Tremaine Brock started 13 games and is still playing for the 49ers. Ced McGinley, Simoni Lawrence, Traye Simmons, etc. They were JUCO's who were only eligible for 2 years. We went 13-13 and went to two bowl games with them being significant contributors.
Jewhan Edwards was an unspectactular but legit player before he became a punchline.
Dajon McKnight...solid. Keanon Cooper...solid starter. Etc.
I have no problem with the 2008 class, we'd be competing for New Years bowl games if every year had that much talent. The years before it and after it were pretty lean.

 

[50PoundHead]

I've been keeping an eye on Kill v Brew "hit"% in recruiting, vs "miss"%.
Kill has gotten a really good % of his recruits to make meaningful contributions. Brewster at this point gets credit for more "star talent" in that guys like Lawrence, Brock, Simmons, Gray, Carter, Stoudemire, Wilhite, and Hageman made impact plays that certainly won games for the program.

Kill so far has been really good at retaining his recruits and getting meaningful contributions from them, but as of yet we can't be sure they are "stars".
Perhaps we saw hints of that from Wells last year, and undoubtedly we'll see more guys step up and become faces of the program as they mature.

Compare the 2007-2009 class to Kill's 2011-2013 recruits and you immediately see that Kill is keeping his guys in the program better, and they are contributing on the field too.[/QUOTE]

This is the big difference thus far and hopefully that translates to results. Brew chased guys with some risks and he whiffed on a lot of those guys. That along with the coordinator roulette probably contributed to the higher than preferred defection rate.

At least starting out, retention is going to be the key. We simply need to have senior and junior dominated starting line-ups. Until that happens, we'll be too inconsistent to gauge what the true talent level is. There's something to be said for standing in the right place and running schemes correctly.

 

[Killjoy]

I've been keeping an eye on Kill v Brew "hit"% in recruiting, vs "miss"%.
Kill has gotten a really good % of his recruits to make meaningful contributions. Brewster at this point gets credit for more "star talent" in that guys like Lawrence, Brock, Simmons, Gray, Carter, Stoudemire, Wilhite, and Hageman made impact plays that certainly won games for the program.

Kill so far has been really good at retaining his recruits and getting meaningful contributions from them, but as of yet we can't be sure they are "stars".
Perhaps we saw hints of that from Wells last year, and undoubtedly we'll see more guys step up and become faces of the program as they mature.

Compare the 2007-2009 class to Kill's 2011-2013 recruits and you immediately see that Kill is keeping his guys in the program better, and they are contributing on the field too.[/QUOTE]

This is the big difference thus far and hopefully that translates to results. Brew chased guys with some risks and he whiffed on a lot of those guys. That along with the coordinator roulette probably contributed to the higher than preferred defection rate.

At least starting out, retention is going to be the key. We simply need to have senior and junior dominated starting line-ups. Until that happens, we'll be too inconsistent to gauge what the true talent level is. There's something to be said for standing in the right place and running schemes correctly.

Thanks for your thoughts and insights. Everybody has their own perspective but I believe you identified in bold one very important difference between Kill and Brewster. It is stability and whether it is with your coaching staff or with your recruits it makes all the difference in the world.