How our recruiting matched up this year

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Gopherprof

Gopherprof

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Hello all. I think I've mentioned before that I keep a database to compare how we match up each year in recruiting with each program. I'm hesitant to share the numbers this year because they are so bad and I don't want to get into endless arguments about whether Brewster should be fired, etc. That said, interpret them as you will.

A few notes:

1) The first number is how many players committed to us who had offers from said school. The second number is how many players committed to that school who had offers from us. For example:

Iowa- 4/5

In this case, that tells us that there were 9 players that chose either Minnesota or Iowa who had offers from both schools. Four of them came to Minnesota, five to Iowa. It does not mean there were only 9 players that had offers from both Iowa and Minnesota. If a player had offers from both schools, but chose Wisconsin, for example, they are accounted in the Wisconsin numbers.

2) The numbers, by their nature, look worse than they are. We aren't located in a talent-rich area so by necessity we have to offer a lot of players across the country. By playing in other backgrounds we are bound to lose more than we win. That said, the last two years were much better than this year, to nobody's surprise I'm sure.

3) The other teams are not ranked in alphabetical order (obviously), but rather, where I consider the program based on prestige (based on my arbitrary perspective). I intially started keeping track of this because I was curious which programs often went after the same players as us, and how we fared against them. Not surprisingly, the other mid-tier Big Ten teams are usually our biggest competition.

4) I only include BCS conference programs, for a few reasons. I make exceptions for TCU, Utah, BYU, and Boise State, based on historical and recent performances. I've considered doing the same for East Carolina, Houston, and Southern Miss. We'll see.

Questions and comments are welcome. If you want to know the specific names of each player I can provide that, but I thought it might be cluttered in such a large post. Enjoy.


Top Tier
Oklahoma- 0/6
USC- 0/2
Ohio State- 0/2
Notre Dame- 0/2
Texas- 0/1

2nd Tier
Nebraska- 1/5
Florida State- 0/1
Michigan- 1/5
LSU- 0/3
Miami- 1/1
Tennessee- 0/2
Penn State- 0/4

Mid Tier
Auburn- 0/1
UCLA- 1/1
Arkansas- 1/1
Georgia Tech- 0/1
Washington- 0/1
Texas A&M- 0/4
Ole Miss- 1/0
Wisconsin- 4/5
Michigan State- 3/3
Iowa- 4/5
Oklahoma State- 0/5
Virginia Tech- 0/2
West Virginia- 0/1
BYU- 1/1
Pitt- 2/2
Missouri- 1/2
Oregon- 0/3
TCU- 0/3
Arizona State- 0/1
Rutgers- 3/3
Virginia- 1/0
Colorado- 2/0
Boston College- 1/4
North Carolina- 1/3
Maryland- 0/3
Syracuse- 1/0
California- 0/2
Texas Tech- 1/1
Stanford- 1/0
Illinois- 0/2
Purdue- 2/4
Utah- 0/1

Lower Tier
Northwestern- 0/2
NC State- 0/1
Wake Forest- 1/4
Baylor- 0/1
Iowa State- 0/1
Indiana- 2/1
Kansas State- 2/0
Kentucky- 0/1
Vandy- 0/2
Louisville- 1/2
South Florida- 1/1
Cincy- 2/1
Duke- 1/1
Connecticut- 2/0
Mississippi State- 1/1
 

I see Monty had a somewhat similar post looking at our recruiting since 2004. Either approach works, but I find this an alternative to the "star-based" approach.
 

Thanks for the data. I think looking at offers is a much better way to judge a player than by their stars. The one flaw to this system is the kid who commits early (e.g. Gjere, Edwards) or is in a low profile program/town. Those types garner fewer offers simply because of economics -- they can be considered a waste of resources to recruit (if the kid is already committed to another school, or is in a program with no other prospects/hard to travel to).

Also, some of those school in the middle tier could be bumped up...Oregon, perhaps? They had a good season and absolutely demolished the PAC-10 in recruiting, outside of USC. I hope we see them be the cream of the crop instead of USC in the next couple of years.
 

eker0016 said:
Thanks for the data. I think looking at offers is a much better way to judge a player than by their stars. The one flaw to this system is the kid who commits early (e.g. Gjere, Edwards) or is in a low profile program/town.
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There are a lot of flaws in the system if you are using it to determine everything, as there are in basically any system. You're correct that it does punish teams who lock up players early as opposed to those who come on strong, however. I think it equals out over a really long period of time, but in a yearly snapshot has its flaws.
 

Actually I think the biggest flaw is those who committed to their local school. If a kid from Des Moines commits to Iowa over us, even though we both offered him, it doesn't mean they beat us out so much as he just picked his local school. I would like to see the numbers of those from outside of Minnesota and the state in which the compared school resides.
 


magpie said:
Actually I think the biggest flaw is those who committed to their local school. If a kid from Des Moines commits to Iowa over us, even though we both offered him, it doesn't mean they beat us out so much as he just picked his local school.
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There are an infinite number of reasons why people make the choices the do. The only thing that matter in the end, however, is how many of the players we get that we want. Until the total recruiting landscape shifts, as I mentioned, we're going to be playing in a lot of other teams' backyards.

For example, the fact that TCU and Texas A&M beat us 7-0 this year is certainly aided by geography. However, that's a geographical disadvantage we'll have to confront every year, so as far as the system is concerned, doesn't really matter. If we want players from Texas (and, of course, we do) we'll have to beat out programs who will always have that advantage.
 

Great job Prof. I had been wondering what your take on this class is. Who do you like? I know you had been against us offering Pride, I'm curious what you think of some of the other projects/legacy recruits like Ferguson, Hutton etc.?

I like this approach like you say as an alternative to the star system. I'm a homer so I'm looking at this breakdown thus; Brew was able to recruit against the top tier and the 2nd tier his first couple classes because he could sell them on playing time, new coach smell, etc. Now we have some depth and it's more of a 'what have you done lately' scenario which hurt us this year. However, if Brew pulls off a good year in 2010 I think recruiting against the top tier schools becomes more successful again.
 

These numbers can be very skewed by how many players we actually offer. For example we offered close to 15 WR this year but only signed two.
 

This was definitely very interesting data. This is one of the reasons that I like this site, I really enjoy some of these types of postings. I think there are definitely holes in just about every single possible way of evaluating recruiting, but I love info like this to sort of supplement the rest of the information that is out there. I think when looking at these things in conjecture with each other, it can give you a clearer picture.

Thanks prof!
 



Gold Vision said:
These numbers can be very skewed by how many players we actually offer. For example we offered close to 15 WR this year but only signed two.
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The 2nd one who accepted was a last-minute result of being turned down by so many of the other 13. I'd say that's a pretty good reflection of reality.
 

gophergrad said:
Great job Prof. I had been wondering what your take on this class is. Who do you like? I know you had been against us offering Pride, I'm curious what you think of some of the other projects/legacy recruits like Ferguson, Hutton etc.?.
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I honestly don't think very much of it, unfortunately. I think they did a good job identifying and filling need positions, unfortunately they had to reach pretty deep into the well in some cases. I don't want to be too negative here though, as that wasn't the point of the thread.

My favorite prospect is probably Harold Legania. Just a good combination of skill, strength, technique, and a pretty smart kid. For the same reason, I like the Ferguson commit. Good d-lineman are simply hard to find, so you have to take more chances.
 

Gold Vision said:
These numbers can be very skewed by how many players we actually offer. For example we offered close to 15 WR this year but only signed two.
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This is exactly right. They CAN'T get everyone that they give an offer to. I don't have a problem giving offers to guys that they might only have a 5% chance of getting. It will make your numbers look bad, but you never know if the kid will commit unless you make the offer.
 

Max Power said:
This is exactly right. They CAN'T get everyone that they give an offer to. I don't have a problem giving offers to guys that they might only have a 5% chance of getting. It will make your numbers look bad, but you never know if the kid will commit unless you make the offer.
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It won't necessarily make the numbers look bad. Yes, we offered a lot of players, but the numbers look particularly bad because not a lot of teams wanted the players we got. If it weren't for Hill, Legania, and Manuel those numbers would look a lot worse. Hill alone accounted for like 8 of the offers.

Again, Hutton is a perfect example. It's not that we offered 15 scholarships and Hutton just happened to take the 2nd spot. We offered a bunch of players who all chose to go elsewhere, and in response offered the spot to Hutton at the very last minute. Those are hardly the same thing.

I don't mean to be purposefully negative, but some of these things are basic facts.
 



And once again, even though this is a fun exercise, we lose sight of what ultimately grades a class. We can seriously analyze the most recent class in about three years.
 

Like Mason said the other night on the radio, many of his best players were not wanted by ANY other schools including Marion Barber, Eric Decker and the lineman who won the Outland Trophy or whatever its called. It would interesting to find out, (and I'm sure this has been discussed before) how highly recruited out of high school were the top 100 players in the NFL drafts the last 10 years.
 


BreakTheGopherCurse said:
Like Mason said the other night on the radio, many of his best players were not wanted by ANY other schools including Marion Barber, Eric Decker and the lineman who won the Outland Trophy or whatever its called. It would interesting to find out, (and I'm sure this has been discussed before) how highly recruited out of high school were the top 100 players in the NFL drafts the last 10 years.
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If I remember correctly, Barber wasn't really even wanted by Mason.
 

Thanks for putting this together. There are so many things to consider when looking at recruiting classes, this is another one that paints a different picture.

Also wondering, GopherProf, if you have any data on official visits vs. commits? I know that was a huge for me 2 years, as Brew said at the Signing day social that we 45 kids on officials, and out of them 31 commited to the U. Having almost 70% of the kids commit after a visit, and going 1-11, was really impressive.
 

GopherLady said:
Thanks for putting this together. There are so many things to consider when looking at recruiting classes, this is another one that paints a different picture.

Also wondering, GopherProf, if you have any data on official visits vs. commits? I know that was a huge for me 2 years, as Brew said at the Signing day social that we 45 kids on officials, and out of them 31 commited to the U. Having almost 70% of the kids commit after a visit, and going 1-11, was really impressive.
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Good point, we were netting a lot of kids who came here to visit his first year. Obviously they may have been just looking at the product and knew they could come in and figured they'd be able to make an impact immediately, but still, it would be interesting to see those types of numbers. Probably not something easily compiled though.
 

The biggest problem with offer lists is the source of the info. Usually it is the kid or the high school coach. You never know how accurate the info is. Was it a conditional offer, a written offer, etc. Also some schools offer a lot more kids then others, which could impact the data. The numbers are still interesting to look at.

I was curious who the 4 players were that the Badgers offered that went to Minnesota. I know they offered Gjere and Edwards, who were the other two?

Thanks.
 

GVBadger said:
I was curious who the 4 players were that the Badgers offered that went to Minnesota. I know they offered Gjere and Edwards, who were the other two?
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Are you seriously this lazy? Or is your brain too addled with beer and cheese to figure out how the interwebs work?

The other two are Marquise Hill and Devon Wright.

The five Wisconsin signees with Minnesota offers are Zagzebski, Cadogan, White, Allen, and Garner.

It took me all of 45 seconds to find the entirety of this information.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Are you seriously this lazy? Or is your brain too addled with beer and cheese to figure out how the interwebs work?

The other two are Marquise Hill and Devon Wright.

The five Wisconsin signees with Minnesota offers are Zagzebski, Cadogan, White, Allen, and Garner.

It took me all of 45 seconds to find the entirety of this information.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Having a bad day?
 


GVBadger said:
Thanks for the info. Having a bad day?
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Nope.

Haven't you figured it out by now? This is our thing. You come here and suck. And then I remind you how much you suck.

And the world keeps right on spinnin'.
 

GopherLady said:
Thanks for putting this together. There are so many things to consider when looking at recruiting classes, this is another one that paints a different picture.

Also wondering, GopherProf, if you have any data on official visits vs. commits? I know that was a huge for me 2 years, as Brew said at the Signing day social that we 45 kids on officials, and out of them 31 commited to the U. Having almost 70% of the kids commit after a visit, and going 1-11, was really impressive.
Click to expand...
I do not at the moment, although I bet I could figure that out pretty quickly. I'll definitely keep track in the future.
 

Here are the 2009 numbers:

Oklahoma-1/2
USC-0/1
Ohio State-1/2
Notre Dame- 1/0
Nebraska-1/1
Texas- 0/1
Florida- 3/0
Michigan- 0/4
LSU-0/2
Miami-1/0
Tennessee- 0/2
Penn State- 0/1
Georgia-1/0
UCLA- 1/1
Auburn- 0/1
Arkansas-0/2
Washington- 0/1
Texas A&M- 1/1
Mississippi- 0/4
Clemson- 0/1
Michigan State-1/4
Iowa-4/1
Wisconsin-2/1
Oklahoma State- 1/0
West Virginia-2/1
Missouri- 1/3
Pittsburgh- 0/1
TCU- 1/0
Oregon- 1/0
Arizona State-2/1
Virginia- 0/1
Colorado-4/2
Syracuse- 1/0
Maryland-0/1
California- 0/1
Texas Tech- 0/2
Stanford- 1/0
South Carolina- 1/1
Illinois-0/2
Purdue-1/2
Utah-1/0
North Carolina State- 1/1
Kansas- 2/1
Baylor- 1/0
Iowa State-2/1
Indiana- 3/1
Kansas State- 1/0
Kentucky-1/0
Vanderbilt- 2/0
Louisville- 0/3
Cincinnati- 0/2
Arizona- 1/1
Connecticut- 0/2
Oregon State- 2/1
Washington State- 3/1
Boise State- 3/0
 

And combined:

Top Tier
Oklahoma- 1/8
USC- 0/3
Ohio State- 1/4
Notre Dame- 1/2
Texas- 0/2
Florida- 3/0

2nd Tier
Nebraska- 1/5
Florida State- 0/1
Michigan- 1/9
LSU- 0/5
Miami- 2/1
Tennessee- 0/4
Penn State- 0/5
Georgia- 1/0

Mid Tier
Auburn- 0/2
UCLA- 2/2
Arkansas- 1/3
Georgia Tech- 0/1
Washington- 0/2
Texas A&M- 1/5
Ole Miss- 1/4
Clemson- 0/1
Wisconsin- 6/6
Michigan State- 4/7
Iowa- 9/6
Oklahoma State- 1/5
Virginia Tech- 0/2
West Virginia- 2/2
BYU- 1/1
Pitt- 2/3
Missouri- 2/5
Oregon- 1/3
TCU- 1/3
Arizona State- 2/2
Rutgers- 3/3
Virginia- 1/1
Colorado- 6/2
Boston College- 1/4
North Carolina- 1/3
Maryland- 0/4
Syracuse- 2/0
California- 0/3
Texas Tech- 1/3
Stanford- 2/0
South Carolina- 1/1
Illinois- 0/4
Purdue- 3/6
Utah- 1/1
Kansas- 2/1
Oregon State- 2/1

Lower Tier
Arizona- 1/1
Northwestern- 0/2
NC State- 1/2
Wake Forest- 1/4
Baylor- 1/1
Iowa State- 2/2
Indiana- 5/2
Kansas State- 3/0
Kentucky- /1
Vandy- 2/2
Louisville- 1/5
South Florida- 1/1
Cincy- 2/3
Duke- 1/1
Connecticut- 2/2
Mississippi State- 1/1
Washington State- 3/1
Boise State- 3/0



Those Florida #'s are crazy..

Most Frequent
1) Iowa
2) Wisconsin
3) Michigan State
4) Michigan
5) Oklahoma/Purdue

Best % (min. 5 offers)
1) Colorado
2) Indiana
3) Iowa
4) Wisconsin/Rutgers

Worst % (min 5 offers)
1) Penn State
2) Michigan
3) Oklahoma
4) Nebraska/Texas A&M/ Louisville
_________________
 

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