Has this recruiting cycle for Coach Fleck been successful thus far?

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The guys were a couple missed tackles away from the West title last year. Could have gone either way, MN probably wins best of seven versus Iowa. Kirk and the MN defense gives me hope.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I thought the whole point was to see the Gopher Football program move to "the next level."

As I understand it, the next level means playing for conference championships, playing in major bowl games - maybe even the Rose bowl - and every now and then, being mentioned as a possible national playoff contender.

The program is not at that level now.

to reach that level, they need more talent. I am not discounting the role of coaches, but in the end, it's about players.

for the last 5 years, the Gophers combination of players+coaching has not been good enough to beat Iowa. So either the coaches have to get better or the talent has to get better.

because until they beat Iowa, they're not going to win a Conference Title.

so either they have to recruit better players, or some rich sonufabitch is going to have to cough up about $10-million in NIL money to buy some better players.

p.s. I do not have $10-million.
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13-5 in the last two full Big Ten seasons and have firmly moved from also ran to division contender. It might not be happening fast enough for you but the program is 100% moving in the right direction.
 

MNVCGUY said:
13-5 in the last two full Big Ten seasons and have firmly moved from also ran to division contender. It might not be happening fast enough for you but the program is 100% moving in the right direction.
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Yeah I have a lot of respect for Jerry Kill and all but winning rivalry games reasonably often / winning a NYD bowl game seemed to be SOLIDLY below his plateau of where he could take a team.... and he seemed to have ZERO interest in doing anything to move beyond that (new offensive coordinator maybe?).

PJ has taken them up a level from there for sure, and has been willing to make changes.

We'll see if he can do it again / keep at it / move up yet another level ... and I'm happy to ride the PJ train to see where it goes.
 
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Off-GridTNgopher said:
If others go up... Obviously some go down
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Well they could drop down the position ranks and still keep their grade (decimal rating), you could just end up with more highly scored guys. And come to think of it, this is what happens. They do down grade the scores on some, but you do end up with far more highly rated guys at the end of the year than you will see at the beginning. It takes time to evaluate the entire senior high school class across the country.
 
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Off-GridTNgopher said:
If others go up... Obviously some go down
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Not really. if it was their overall numerical ranking, yes. But we are talking about their 247 composite decimal ranking. About 50 % move up some. Rarely do they go down. Once again, if a guy goes from .8452 to .8519, it is irrelevant
 


Anyone who thinks that the four figure rankings of recruits is meaningful and predictive also believes in the Tooth Fairy.
 

Plato said:
Anyone who thinks that the four figure rankings of recruits is meaningful and predictive also believes in the Tooth Fairy.
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Do you hate math?

To have this take when there are thousands of data points, every year, for over a decade that show recruiting rankings are predictive (and therefore meaningful) is akin to being a flat earther. It's obviously not 100% conclusive but the debate is over.

There is literally nothing that will change your mind.
 



I love math and know when a calculation a contains number with only one significant figure the answer can only contain one significant figure.
247's calculations use numbers with one significant number so instead of .8*** they should report 0.8.
I do not begrudge those who display the human trait of intolerance of uncertainty, which is the basis for most religions, but object to misuse of significant figures.
You would not bet your life on the predictive force of recruiting rankings.
There is an association but not significantly predictive.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
The guys were a couple missed tackles away from the West title last year. Could have gone either way, MN probably wins best of seven versus Iowa. Kirk and the MN defense gives me hope.
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One missed tackle. Just make the tackle on the last play that was the last Iowa TD. Routine play, should have been a routine tackle. Argh! OK the past is the past, moving on!
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Do you hate math?

To have this take when there are thousands of data points, every year, for over a decade that show recruiting rankings are predictive (and therefore meaningful) is akin to being a flat earther. It's obviously not 100% conclusive but the debate is over.

There is literally nothing that will change your mind.
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Correlation, sure. I don't know about predictive.

The correlation is really just slapping a number in the range of 75 to 100 number on a very simple truth: "better players in high school tend to be better players in college".
 

Gophers_4life said:
Correlation, sure. I don't know about predictive.

The correlation is really just slapping a number in the range of 75 to 100 number on a very simple truth: "better players in high school tend to be better players in college".
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It's predictive.

I would bet anyone on this board (going forward) that the percentage of 5 stars who become All Americans/NFL players (total # 5 stars who become NFL/AA / total # of 5 stars) will be higher than the percentage of 3 stars who become All Americans/NFL players. That will be true in 2023, 2024, 2025, etc.

Anyone who would take that bet with me would be a fool. I would bet no one who claims to think star ratings are meaningless would take that bet.
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
It's predictive.

I would bet anyone on this board (going forward) that the percentage of 5 stars who become All Americans/NFL players (total # 5 stars who become NFL/AA / total # of 5 stars) will be higher than the percentage of 3 stars who become All Americans/NFL players. That will be true in 2023, 2024, 2025, etc.

Anyone who would take that bet with me would be a fool. I would bet no one who claims to think star ratings are meaningless would take that bet.
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I would hope no one would take that bet, as they're all but guaranteed to lose.

And yet, as I'm sure you would agree, some significant percentage of 5* rated high school players fail to become even major contributors on P5 teams.

So it is all an argument, at some level semantics, about what you want to define "predictive" as.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
It's predictive.

I would bet anyone on this board (going forward) that the percentage of 5 stars who become All Americans/NFL players (total # 5 stars who become NFL/AA / total # of 5 stars) will be higher than the percentage of 3 stars who become All Americans/NFL players. That will be true in 2023, 2024, 2025, etc.

Anyone who would take that bet with me would be a fool. I would bet no one who claims to think star ratings are meaningless would take that bet.
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We do know that the stars matter. BUT, will a higher percentage of players scoring between 85 and 86 become all americans/nfl players vs players scoring 84-85? Would be easy to run the numbers for someone willing to put in some time. Curious what the difference on 4 vs 3 stars would be as well, as we will probably never be a program that lands 5 stars with any regularity.
 

Within our rival group there habe been only minor variances in recruiting rankings. The game day coaching, continuity, talent recognition and development, and systems at Iowa and Wisconsin have been pretty successful although consistent high performance is not nearly at the level of top tier blue blood programs. Minnesota has started punching above their weight as well. Some programs exceed expectations, some badly underperform recruiting rankings. Sure, if we had a roster composed of 4 stars we’d probably be good and statistically more likely to succeed (but not guaranteed). We have to have realistic goals.
 

btowngopher said:
We do know that the stars matter. BUT, will a higher percentage of players scoring between 85 and 86 become all americans/nfl players vs players scoring 84-85? Would be easy to run the numbers for someone willing to put in some time. Curious what the difference on 4 vs 3 stars would be as well, as we will probably never be a program that lands 5 stars with any regularity.
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If you had some reasonable measure of "goodness in college" (however it makes sense to measure that) on the Y-axis, and the star rating on the X-axis, and then did a best fit of a line to the "cloud" of datapoints on that plot, you would see that the slope was positive.

IE the basic trend is that higher star rating correlates with higher "goodness in college".


But beyond that, it is tough to infer much.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
If others go up... Obviously some go down
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Yup.

Which begs the question(s): if Player A's rankings go up, thereby making Player B's rankings go lower...

... has Player B suddenly gotten worse as a player on the field?

And, If that happened to one of our commits, should we fans become less excited about having him on our team? After all, his rankings are now lower, and rankings are apparently very, very important.
 

Guys, be careful not to conflate rating and ranking.

A rating is a number like 0.8521 (composite) or 88 out of 100 (247 rating system).
A ranking is a number like #51 best QB in the nation or #3 best QB in the state.

You rating can stay exactly the same, but if someone else then gets rated higher than you, it will necessarily push you down in the rankings.
 

Gophers_4life said:
If you had some reasonable measure of "goodness in college" (however it makes sense to measure that) on the Y-axis, and the star rating on the X-axis, and then did a best fit of a line to the "cloud" of datapoints on that plot, you would see that the slope was positive.

IE the basic trend is that higher star rating correlates with higher "goodness in college".


But beyond that, it is tough to infer much.
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Yes I know the higher star rating correlates with more success, but do the actual scores? Are they so accurate that 86s perform better than 85s? I get you see things separate when you jump from an 83 grade 3 star, to a 91 four star, and then to a 97 five star. But, do you see any significant separation when players are graded more closely?
 

Gophers_4life said:
Guys, be careful not to conflate rating and ranking.

A rating is a number like 0.8521 (composite) or 88 out of 100 (247 rating system).
A ranking is a number like #51 best QB in the nation or #3 best QB in the state.

You rating can stay exactly the same, but if someone else then gets rated higher than you, it will necessarily push you down in the rankings.
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Good point.
 

btowngopher said:
Yes I know the higher star rating correlates with more success, but do the actual scores? Are they so accurate that 86s perform better than 85s? I get you see things separate when you jump from an 83 grade 3 star, to a 91 four star, and then to a 97 five star. But, do you see any significant separation when players are graded more closely?
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Technically, a line is continuous. So even a 0.001 move to the right (increase in rating), in theory correlates to some kind of small increase in "good outcomes".

But as far as what we "see", in any single instance, is somewhat random.


That goes a lot of what we "see" in life, I'm afraid.
 

Gophers_4life said:
I would hope no one would take that bet, as they're all but guaranteed to lose.

And yet, as I'm sure you would agree, some significant percentage of 5* rated high school players fail to become even major contributors on P5 teams.

So it is all an argument, at some level semantics, about what you want to define "predictive" as.
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It really isn't semantics because it is the basis of this argument that constantly comes up. Yes, there are 5 stars who flop. Yes, there are 2 stars who are studs. That will also happen every year. There are also days it's raining in Phoenix and sunny in Seattle.

It isn't conclusive and there are certainly a ton of other things that factor in when you then take those pieces and build a team around them (attrition, fit, distribution of talent across positions, positional importance, etc.).

But as to the point that I was responding to, recruiting rankings are meaningful and predictive. I predict the average 5 star in 2027 is much more likely to be an impact player than the average 3 star. I couldn't tell you who the 5 star players in 2027 will be, but I feel pretty safe in that prediction.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
It really isn't semantics because it is the basis of this argument that constantly comes up. Yes, there are 5 stars who flop. Yes, there are 2 stars who are studs. That will also happen every year. There are also days it's raining in Phoenix and sunny in Seattle.

It isn't conclusive and there are certainly a ton of other things that factor in when you then take those pieces and build a team around them (attrition, fit, distribution of talent across positions, positional importance, etc.).

But as to the point that I was responding to, recruiting rankings are meaningful and predictive. I predict the average 5 star in 2027 is much more likely to be an impact player than the average 3 star. I couldn't tell you who the 5 star players in 2027 will be, but I feel pretty safe in that prediction.
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Just for the sake of discussion, let me make up some numbers. Hypothetically, say

5* rated players have 25% rate of "high success" (use whatever reasonable definition of that you want)
4* rated players have 18% rate
3* rated players have 6% rate

Two things:
1) in some senses, there are a limited total number of "slots" that any player can occupy such that they have thus achieved "high success". There are very limited amounts of All-Americans and NFL draft picks that are possible, for example.

And so, it is "not fair" as there are vastly larger numbers of 3* rated players than there are 5* rated players.

2) I don't think much people would say it is a very good "prediction" to only be able to say that you can predict an outcome for someone based on their rating at 25%. That is more what I was getting at.

Like if you reached a certain score on a college entrance exam, and someone said that was 25% predictive of getting in, I don't think most would think that much of a prediction.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
It really isn't semantics because it is the basis of this argument that constantly comes up. Yes, there are 5 stars who flop. Yes, there are 2 stars who are studs. That will also happen every year. There are also days it's raining in Phoenix and sunny in Seattle.

It isn't conclusive and there are certainly a ton of other things that factor in when you then take those pieces and build a team around them (attrition, fit, distribution of talent across positions, positional importance, etc.).

But as to the point that I was responding to, recruiting rankings are meaningful and predictive. I predict the average 5 star in 2027 is much more likely to be an impact player than the average 3 star. I couldn't tell you who the 5 star players in 2027 will be, but I feel pretty safe in that prediction.
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No one would ever dispute that a 5* player is more likely to succeed than a 3* player. But there aren't many of those guys out there and the vast majority of players fall in the 3* category. Within that category you can't tell me there is any actual proof that says a .8833 players is going to be significantly better than a .8443 player.
 

Interesting discussion. I would like to see the methodology for how the composite scores are assigned. Are there objective measures that are used to assign the scores? To be of value, these scores have to be assigned based on specific criteria that every individual assigning the scores uses.

If Bob Brown in Alabama bumps every Alabama HS kid up a bit and Joe Smith in Mississippi is a tough grader on Mississippi HS kids, it will throw the validity of the entire compilation of scores out the window. Are the scores peer reviewed in any fashion?

How do the scores account for kids from non-football states that might be head and shoulders above their peers?

I can say with near certainty that the services have NO possible way to separate the difference between players to 4 digits. To do so would require FAR more complex evaluations across the country in order to be statistically relevant. There is no way that their metrics could separate a .8511 from a .8510. They just don't have enough time or money to do this.

At best, the services could likely find success demonstrating the difference to 2 digits (.85 vs .84) but it is most likely that they could assign kids accurately to 1 digit groupings only (0.8 vs 0.7). They do it to 4 digits to make their work look impressive and scientific and sell more scripts.
 

GVLCGopherFan said:
Right. I guess I should have said rating not ranking. I notice ratings go up sometimes - not so much down.
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These are 16, 17, and 18 year olds… I’d expect them to get better not worse for the most part?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
It's predictive.

I would bet anyone on this board (going forward) that the percentage of 5 stars who become All Americans/NFL players (total # 5 stars who become NFL/AA / total # of 5 stars) will be higher than the percentage of 3 stars who become All Americans/NFL players. That will be true in 2023, 2024, 2025, etc.

Anyone who would take that bet with me would be a fool. I would bet no one who claims to think star ratings are meaningless would take that bet.
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Three star vs five star? Way to go out on a limb. Did you know that Thorobreds win more Derbys than quarter horses?
 

There's nothing "wrong" with a 3*. They're the bread and butter of most of the P5.

They have the right size and athletic potential. Might just need some coaching, or they were in a weak high school program, or X,Y,Z.

(Not that you're suggesting otherwise)


As someone else said, if they had had the fortune to grow up and develop in a top national high school program, maybe they would've been 4* or higher.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I thought the whole point was to see the Gopher Football program move to "the next level."

As I understand it, the next level means playing for conference championships, playing in major bowl games - maybe even the Rose bowl - and every now and then, being mentioned as a possible national playoff contender.

The program is not at that level now.

to reach that level, they need more talent. I am not discounting the role of coaches, but in the end, it's about players.

for the last 5 years, the Gophers combination of players+coaching has not been good enough to beat Iowa. So either the coaches have to get better or the talent has to get better.

because until they beat Iowa, they're not going to win a Conference Title.

so either they have to recruit better players, or some rich sonufabitch is going to have to cough up about $10-million in NIL money to buy some better players.

p.s. I do not have $10-million.
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You are wrong. Let me tell you why.

When Fleck came in, next level meant:
1. Beating a top 20 team more frequently than once every 15 years or so.
2. Actually competing and winning games vs WI
3. A winning record against Power 5 teams
4. Actually having your team mentioned on the CFP TV show
5. Winning "meaningless" bowl games.

The level after that is winning titles and CFP appearance and the Rose Bowl.
You can't magically think you go from losing the majority of your power 5 games to making a Rose Bowl as one step. If it was, we would have done it more than once in the last 50 years.

You obviously forgot the annual beat down by Wisconsin and the 15? year streak of misery.
 

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