Diamonds in the Rough

[EE_Gopher]

Well, Brewster was supposed to bring in the high recruits. That didn’t work out too well. So, it’s back to finding “Diamonds in the rough”. So, I thought I would look at how Kill has done first looking at only two star recruits.

2011
Cedric Thompson, Theiren Cockran, Marcus Jones, John Rabe, Derrick Wells, Dexter Foreman.
Currently have played significantly with Gophers: 5/6

It is quite an impressive 2* group. One could give him extra credit for getting them late in the recruiting season. But, remember they are 2* recruits. So, it’s not about wooing them as much as finding them. To think we went into last year worried about the safety position and it ended up being a position of strength with Cedric Thompson and Derrick Wells. Four of six played the 1st year they were here and Theiren Cockran played his red-shirt freshman year leaving only Dexter Foreman in this group not seeing the field.

2012
Ben Lauer, Yoshoub Timms, Mitch Leidner, Alex Keith, Isaac Fruechte, Scott Ekpe, Jeremy Baltazar.
Currently have played significantly with Gophers: 5/8

As in the previous class, most of the 2* see the field and contributed. Scott Ekpe and Alex Keith both have more career sacks than Brandon Kirksey! Yoshoub Timms red-shirted which was easier since Ekpe played. Fruechte and Baltazar had decent first years with the Gophers. Ben Lauer and Mitch Leidner played positions you hope to red-shirt.

2013
Jalen Myrick, Daletavius McGhee, Chris Wipson, Ryan Santo.

From Kills two previous recruiting classes, it is obvious that these guys don’t throw away scholarships on 2* athletes. The guy I’m most excited about is Jalen Myrick. I’m interested to see how a 10.6 100m translates on the field! After the success the coaches have had in 2* recruits, I’m almost disappointed in the smaller slate of them this year!

Other Diamonds.

2011
Michael Amaefula.
Michael was 3*. He started a couple games as a true freshman and all the games last year. Yeah, that was a well spent scholarship.

2012
Rodrick Williams Jr., KJ Maye, and Lincoln Plsek.
All played last year. They will both be important players in the coming years.

2013
This coaching staff appears to recruit to need and come out looking good every time they do. If they had failed like Brewster did in the 2009 class, our defense would have been ugly last year. Hence, I am predicting the linebacker unit to surprise us just as the safeties did last year. They didn’t just start thinking about the linebackers and I assume they knew they might have to deal with Beal going down even before it happened.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

I appreciate your point - but let me say this. I don't think it's an Either/Or situation - where the Gophs have to choose between the "high recruits" and the "diamonds in the rough." I get the sense that Kill & co. want to recruit the best players they can find - who fit their system. Hopefully, if the team has more success, and develops a higher profile in the D1 landscape, that will allow Kill to bring in some of those 4* or even 5* athletes - providing that they still fit into his system.

It's the old chicken or the egg argument we've had before - does better recruiting lead to more winning - or does more winning lead to better recruiting? With any luck, we'll find out in the next 2 or 3 years.

 

[EE_Gopher]

I appreciate your point - but let me say this. I don't think it's an Either/Or situation - where the Gophs have to choose between the "high recruits" and the "diamonds in the rough." I get the sense that Kill & co. want to recruit the best players they can find - who fit their system. Hopefully, if the team has more success, and develops a higher profile in the D1 landscape, that will allow Kill to bring in some of those 4* or even 5* athletes - providing that they still fit into his system.

It's the old chicken or the egg argument we've had before - does better recruiting lead to more winning - or does more winning lead to better recruiting? With any luck, we'll find out in the next 2 or 3 years.

I would say more correctly that you need to find “players” who can play to compete and “stars” to beat those helmet schools. My wife is a Michigan alum and she took me to the Big House. The game just happened to be the Michigan State game where Michigan was down by 17 and won in overtime. The whole comeback was Braylen Edwards running 40-50 yards down the field and Henne throwing it to him. Stars can definitely dominate a college game.

In a recruiting class, Minnesota, Iowa, or Wisconsin can hope for maybe one or two stars. Seriously, if we found one or two “stars” a class, we could win the Big Ten! You have to hope that a high percentage of the rest of the recruits are “players”. Look at the 2009 recruiting class, and it’s amazing how few “players” there were. Wisconsin and Iowa have had a few prized recruits surrounded by a group of other recruits who it turned out could play Big Ten Football. Who were the stars on last year’s Wisconsin team? Monte Ball, definitely and maybe some of the other running backs and maybe Borland on defense. Everyone else was a solid “player”. Iowa had no stars and did not have enough “players”. On Minnesota, I would say that Michael Carter was the closest to a “star” the Gophers had last year. We are definitely recruiting and developing “players”. Derrick Wells and Ra’shede Hageman may turn out to be the “stars” we need on defense. Can Berkley Edwards and Jeff Jones turn out to be the “stars” we need to break out?

Think if all of Kill's 2* picks over the last couple of years had been duds? On the other hand, think about how a couple of stars in the class could really make a difference. So, I’m not disagreeing with you.

 

[Killjoy]

EE_Gopher

Well, Brewster was supposed to bring in the high recruits. That didn’t work out too well. So, it’s back to finding “Diamonds in the rough”. So, I thought I would look at how Kill has done first looking at only two star recruits.

2011
Cedric Thompson, Theiren Cockran, Marcus Jones, John Rabe, Derrick Wells, Dexter Foreman.
Currently have played significantly with Gophers: 5/6

It is quite an impressive 2* group. One could give him extra credit for getting them late in the recruiting season. But, remember they are 2* recruits. So, it’s not about wooing them as much as finding them. To think we went into last year worried about the safety position and it ended up being a position of strength with Cedric Thompson and Derrick Wells. Four of six played the 1st year they were here and Theiren Cockran played his red-shirt freshman year leaving only Dexter Foreman in this group not seeing the field.

2012
Ben Lauer, Yoshoub Timms, Mitch Leidner, Alex Keith, Isaac Fruechte, Scott Ekpe, Jeremy Baltazar.
Currently have played significantly with Gophers: 5/8

As in the previous class, most of the 2* see the field and contributed. Scott Ekpe and Alex Keith both have more career sacks than Brandon Kirksey! Yoshoub Timms red-shirted which was easier since Ekpe played. Fruechte and Baltazar had decent first years with the Gophers. Ben Lauer and Mitch Leidner played positions you hope to red-shirt.

2013
Jalen Myrick, Daletavius McGhee, Chris Wipson, Ryan Santo.

From Kills two previous recruiting classes, it is obvious that these guys don’t throw away scholarships on 2* athletes. The guy I’m most excited about is Jalen Myrick. I’m interested to see how a 10.6 100m translates on the field! After the success the coaches have had in 2* recruits, I’m almost disappointed in the smaller slate of them this year!

Other Diamonds.

2011
Michael Amaefula.
Michael was 3*. He started a couple games as a true freshman and all the games last year. Yeah, that was a well spent scholarship.

2012
Rodrick Williams Jr., KJ Maye, and Lincoln Plsek.
All played last year. They will both be important players in the coming years.

2013
This coaching staff appears to recruit to need and come out looking good every time they do. If they had failed like Brewster did in the 2009 class, our defense would have been ugly last year. Hence, I am predicting the linebacker unit to surprise us just as the safeties did last year. They didn’t just start thinking about the linebackers and I assume they knew they might have to deal with Beal going down even before it happened.

LOl - I guess you never got the word about recruiting and the star system - Some of our resident experts such as Rosemountain hated the hiring of Kill because they believed that Kill couldn't recruit in the Big Ten. They said Kill might have been able to recruit in the MAC but he would way be over his head in the Big Ten. Rosemountain then went on to say that Brewster at least could recruit. That was obvious to him because Brewster's classes had more stars.

Rosemountain's error was that he didn't understand that real recruiting is all about finding players that will fit into your system, will stay in school, have the right mental attitude to be a team player and work hard, and have excellent physical attributes that can be developed. It is not about stars. To identify these players you need an assessment system that goes way beyond those used by the recruiting sites.

What I really liked about your analysis is that it shows that Kill not only preaches his philosophy that you can't afford to waste scholarships but he also lives it. It starts and ends with doing better and more complete due diligence than others. I would say coach Kill and his staff have done that.

Thanks for some great analysis and post.

 

[highwayman]

2013
Jalen Myrick, Daletavius McGhee, Chris Wipson, Ryan Santo.

This guy?

 

[Unregistered User]

It's the old chicken or the egg argument...

It's the chicken.

The female chicken has a hormone necessary for creation of the shell of the egg. So, chickens were always born from an "egg", but not necessarily the same eggs you buy at the store. Those are what I call "boneless chicken nuggets".

 

[EG#9]

Confused by the logic of the original post. We've had two seasons (maybe 3) seasons of highly rated recruits during the Internet era and a decade plus worth of trying to find diamonds in the rough. I don't understand why we'd declare highly rated recruits a failure (especially when the head coach who recruited them didn't even see many of them play their Junior year (ex Shede, Michael Carter). Brewster also won 3 B1G games in his second year and his third year and his players won 2 B1G games in his 4th season.

A guy can play a lot of football as a 2 star recruit for a 2-6 B1G team and still not be very good. I do like that you are focusing on a "hit" rate, even though I don't think we can determine who has "hit" yet. Anyone who recruits a bunch of 2* is going to find a Greg Eslinger or two, the question is whether they can find enough of them to be a factor in their conference.

 

[howieramone]

Confused by the logic of the original post. We've had two seasons (maybe 3) seasons of highly rated recruits during the Internet era and a decade plus worth of trying to find diamonds in the rough. I don't understand why we'd declare highly rated recruits a failure (especially when the head coach who recruited them didn't even see many of them play their Junior year (ex Shede, Michael Carter). Brewster also won 3 B1G games in his second year and his third year and his players won 2 B1G games in his 4th season.

A guy can play a lot of football as a 2 star recruit for a 2-6 B1G team and still not be very good. I do like that you are focusing on a "hit" rate, even though I don't think we can determine who has "hit" yet. Anyone who recruits a bunch of 2* is going to find a Greg Eslinger or two, the question is whether they can find enough of them to be a factor in their conference.

So what's new?