How does the '14 class rank in Gopher recent history?

[MNVCGUY]

There are some players that are so darn good one need not be an experienced football coach to see that these kids are going to be awesome….that's who the National Champs and the helmet schools get to rocket to the top of the rankings…it is those 3-star players that the ranking services either don't have the time or the expertise to rank correctly on a consistence basis that makes their services not all that useful. How do they rank a guy who played in a rural area against small schools? Not as highly as Kill does…and we end up with Cockran.

The thing that seems to get lost on a lot of people is that Rivals, ESPN, 247, Scout....etc. are not targeted at coaches at all. They are for the fans because recruiting is such a hot topic for fans. Coaches will use the sites as a way to gather information and video on recruits but they base far more of their opinion on a player after they see them in person and talk to their high school coach.

With that said there is still value to the evaluations from the sites and if you really take a hard look at it they are right more often then they are wrong when you look at the classes as a whole. Of course they are going to over-rank some guys and under-rank others, with the number of players out there no service could possibly evaluate them all perfectly. Doesn't change the fact that the teams that consistently rank the highest in the Big Ten and nationally also tend to be the teams that finish near the top of the conference or top of the polls.

 

[Killjoy]

The thing that seems to get lost on a lot of people is that Rivals, ESPN, 247, Scout....etc. are not targeted at coaches at all. They are for the fans because recruiting is such a hot topic for fans. Coaches will use the sites as a way to gather information and video on recruits but they base far more of their opinion on a player after they see them in person and talk to their high school coach.

With that said there is still value to the evaluations from the sites and if you really take a hard look at it they are right more often then they are wrong when you look at the classes as a whole. Of course they are going to over-rank some guys and under-rank others, with the number of players out there no service could possibly evaluate them all perfectly. Doesn't change the fact that the teams that consistently rank the highest in the Big Ten and nationally also tend to be the teams that finish near the top of the conference or top of the polls.

It depends on your definition of value. I suspect that college football teams find only limited value in these sites. They probably use them more for a source of information and for monitoring recruits and other schools activities.

Of course there is a correlation in a players ranking and his actual college performance on the field. First there better be if this is the business they are in and second it isn't that difficult to achieve if you do even minimal research. We do know that the higher the recruit is rated the higher the correlation which is hat you would expect.

One of the more interesting questions is where do services like Rivals, Scout, etc. really earn their money. It very possible that fan subscriptions, advertising, etc. may be a prime source of their earnings. If it is, that will have a major influence as to how businesses are run, i.e. what recruits they evaluate and how these so called evaluations are done. It sure effected they way stock analysis was and is done and it wasn't good.

Therefore I have a great deal more faith in Jerry Kill's and his staff evaluation of players than these ranking system. A more interesting study would be which coaches consistently beat, equal, or below their rankings. Now that would be of value!

 

[STPGopher]

And then there's this from last Sundays Sports Huddle:

Coach Jerry Kill’s responses and comments to Sid Hartman and Dave Mona’s queries on today’s Sports Huddle:

1) Sid opened the segment by asking how recruiting is going: Laughing, Kill said, “I’m sitting here in the middle of conversation with a recruit (and parents) . . . It’s going well.”

2) Sid followed asking about recruiting rankings (according to Sid, many have Minnesota last in Big 10 recruiting): Kill quickly responded, “I don’t know anything about that . . . we’ve got guys in the Senior Bowl (referenced NIU’s QB Jordan Lynch – who wasn’t on the recruiting lists) . . . recruiting is not over.” He said he doesn’t put much stock in the recruiting services.

3) Mona followed Kill’s comments up by referencing Eric Murray and Derrick Wells as players that weren’t recruited or ranked high with stars who have had a positive impact on the playing field: Again, Kill said, “I don’t know what It means (stars); not football people doing that.”

He then mentioned Art Briles who is successful at Baylor. Kill said Briles was criticized for hiring his high school coaching staff when he became a Division I coach, “Does it the way they want to.”

He closed the question, saying, “A lot (stars) don’t make it.”

I myself tend to think there's some truth to both sides of the issue.

I agree. There are some valid counter arguments. As someone else stated earlier, there may be more to the players at helmet schools than just rankings. A five star recruit is typically your sure fire, can't miss recruit. Fours are one step below that. There is also the which came first the chicken or the egg argument. Were they four star recruits, or were they four star recruits after the player committed to the school? Another thought (mentioned earlier as well) is a variation of the Fit, form, and function argument. Will a spread QB fit well in a traditional pro style pocket passing offense?, or an I back in a zone read/ stretch play offense, etc., etc.. Also position sometimes plays a role. I'd like to see if rankings play out at all positions.

While I agree that the top of the top schools usually do very well, 10 schools out of 120 is also a small sample size. It appears to me that once you get out of the five and four star recruits, it appears to be all over the map. Maybe it does scatter about the mean, but it appears to be all over the map when you get to the lower ranked players. Especially since there are many teams that have terrible recruitment rankings that get to eight wins.