Rivals Rankings of Defensive Starters (Iowa vs MN)

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VarmintKong

VarmintKong

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In a different thread, MBAGuy was making a comparison between Iowa's defensive recruits in 2006-2008 to the Gopher's defensive recruits in 2008-2009, and stated that their is reason for optimism for the future of our defense. I agree and did some more digging into the Rivals rankings of the current starters and was surprised by a few things that I found. I always thought Iowa was built on coaching up players that were considered to be average (according to the ratings), but Iowa has a number of highly rated recruits starting on defense. Also, I was surprised at how low our current starters are ranked. I never thought that these ratings meant a whole lot, but I am starting to think that they are more accurate than I was giving them credit for.

Here are the ratings (for the avg. I gave NR [not rated] a value of 5.0).

Iowa – 5.7, 5.9, 5.8, 5.0, 5.7, 5.9, 5.5, 5.5, 5.3, 5.6, NR (avg. = 5.54)

Minnesota – 5.5, NR, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.5, NR, 5.8, NR, 5.1, 5.6 (avg. = 5.36)

Iowa has 5 players ranked 5.7 or higher and we have 1 (BPT:eek:).

Of course these numbers make sense, since their defense is much better than ours, but I think there is reason to optimistic about our future. And, I have more respect for our defensive coaches for coaching our guys up.
 


It's a totally different thread...but as further proof of how accurate Rivals rankings can be, the SEC this season finished in almost the exact order of the avg. SEC recruiting rankings of their classes.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
It's a totally different thread...but as further proof of how accurate Rivals rankings can be, the SEC this season finished in almost the exact order of the avg. SEC recruiting rankings of their classes.
Click to expand...


So based on this then you are saying we can expect to finish middle of the Big Ten every year.
 

It would be nice to think that recruiting a player like Clayborn out of St. Louis wouldn't be unthinkable for us. Right now...

But, hey, at least we got McField that year.
 



GopherGod said:
So based on this then you are saying we can expect to finish middle of the Big Ten every year.
Click to expand...

That's a gigantic jump on your part. I merely said that this season, the average of the class ranks making up the teams of the SEC were nearly an exact copy of the standings. If you re-read my post, i said this is an example of how accurate rivals CAN be. It is not an "always" sort of thing (take Iowa this year), but it is often a fairly good measure of how succesful a team will be.

I would think the definition of a succesful program at Minnesota is to finish in the middle to top part of the Big 10 most seasons and to compete for a title every 3-4 years.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
It's a totally different thread...but as further proof of how accurate Rivals rankings can be, the SEC this season finished in almost the exact order of the avg. SEC recruiting rankings of their classes.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that you may be sampling on the dependent variable. In other words, a high rivals rating may be partially the result of a player being recruited by USC & Alabama as opposed to an objective measure of the player's talent. If this were the case we'd expect the rankings to correlate with the order of finish, even if in fact, the order of finish was more the result of superior coaching, financial resources, training, etc. The only way to prove that the rankings are in fact an independent variable determining success would be to look at a school that doesn't have all those other advantages and see if they also shared success after reeling in a class rated disproportionately high.

Recent history at Illinois (and the U? jury still out on that one...) suggests that perhaps the ratings are at least in part determined by the list of schools recruiting the player.
 

badgergopher said:
Keep in mind that you may be sampling on the dependent variable. In other words, a high rivals rating may be partially the result of a player being recruited by USC & Alabama as opposed to an objective measure of the player's talent. If this were the case we'd expect the rankings to correlate with the order of finish, even if in fact, the order of finish was more the result of superior coaching, financial resources, training, etc. The only way to prove that the rankings are in fact an independent variable determining success would be to look at a school that doesn't have all those other advantages and see if they also shared success after reeling in a class rated disproportionately high.

Recent history at Illinois (and the U? jury still out on that one...) suggests that perhaps the ratings are at least in part determined by the list of schools recruiting the player.
Click to expand...


You 100% agree. I was just pointing out that this season the rivals rankings were a very good indicator of exactly how the SEC would play out. I fully agree that it is merely 1 variable and that they are not some gurantee of future success.
 



VarmintKong said:
In a different thread, MBAGuy was making a comparison between Iowa's defensive recruits in 2006-2008 to the Gopher's defensive recruits in 2008-2009, and stated that their is reason for optimism for the future of our defense. I agree and did some more digging into the Rivals rankings of the current starters and was surprised by a few things that I found. I always thought Iowa was built on coaching up players that were considered to be average (according to the ratings), but Iowa has a number of highly rated recruits starting on defense. Also, I was surprised at how low our current starters are ranked. I never thought that these ratings meant a whole lot, but I am starting to think that they are more accurate than I was giving them credit for.

Here are the ratings (for the avg. I gave NR [not rated] a value of 5.0).

Iowa – 5.7, 5.9, 5.8, 5.0, 5.7, 5.9, 5.5, 5.5, 5.3, 5.6, NR (avg. = 5.54)

Minnesota – 5.5, NR, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.5, NR, 5.8, NR, 5.1, 5.6 (avg. = 5.36)

Iowa has 5 players ranked 5.7 or higher and we have 1 (BPT:eek:).

Of course these numbers make sense, since their defense is much better than ours, but I think there is reason to optimistic about our future. And, I have more respect for our defensive coaches for coaching our guys up.
Click to expand...

who was our 5.8 guy?
 


Or Carter, although I don't think he started.
 




Iowa has been recruiting well. Sadly they appear to be improving. They actually finished pretty close to where their recruiting suggested they would. I see no reason for that to change. They are taking the next step forward unlike our neighbors to the east.
 

I was interested in these numbers when I made the original post, so I decided to do this analysis for the entire Big Ten. I have ranked the big ten defenses based of the average rating of the starting defenders, and I also indicated the defense rank and scoring rank in parentheses. The major flaw of this analysis is that it doesn't consider the quality of depth, but I thought that would get too complicated. Here are the numbers (way too many of them):

TEAM (avg. rating of starting defenders rank, defense rank, scoring defense rank)

Michigan (1, 9, 8) –- 5.8, 6.1, 5.8, 5.9, 5.9, 5.5, 6.0, 6.1, 6.0, 5.5, 5.8 (avg. = 5.85)

Ohio St. (2, 1, 2) –- 5.9, 5.9, 5.8, 5.9, 5.5, 5.8, 5.8, 5.5, 5.8, 5.8, 5.3 (avg. = 5.73)

Penn St. (3, 2, 1) –- 5.9, 5.7, 6.0, NR, 5.5, 5.8, NR, 5.5, 5.7, 5.9, 5.0 (avg. = 5.55)

Iowa (4, 3, 3) –- 5.7, 5.9, 5.8, 5.0, 5.7, 5.9, 5.5, 5.5, 5.3, 5.6, NR (avg. = 5.54)

Illinois (5, 11, 11) –- 5.5, 5.6, 5.9, 5.4, 5.4, 5.2, 5.1, 6.0, NR, 5.6, 6.0 (avg. = 5.52)

Wisconsin (6, 4, 4) –- 5.8, 5.4, 5.8, 5.4, 5.5, 5.5, 5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 5.5, 5.7 (avg. = 5.47)

Purdue (7, 7, 9) –- 5.6, 5.3, 5.6, 5.6, 5.6, 5.5, 5.4, 5.5, 5.3, 5.6, NR (avg. = 5.45)

Northwestern (8, 5, 6) –- 5.5, 5.7, 5.4, 5.2, 5.6, 5.5, 5.4, 5.7, 5.0, 5.0, 5.4 (avg. = 5.40)

Michigan St. (9, 8, 7) –- 5.2, 5.5, 5.6, 5.6, 5.8, NR, 5.7, 5.5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.1 (avg. = 5.39)

Minnesota (10, 6, 5) –- 5.5, NR, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.5, NR, 5.8, NR, 5.1, 5.6 (avg. = 5.36)

Indiana (11, 10, 10) –- 5.5, 5.4, 5.6, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3, 5.2, 5.1, NR, 5.3, 5.4 (avg. = 5.31)


Interpret these numbers any way you want (whether or not you put much stock in these ratings). But, one thing that does stick out to me is that our defense seemed to have outperformed the talent we had this past season. Maybe Brewster and his defensive staff deserve more credit than they have received for coaching our players up. Establishing a consistently strong defense is probably the most important aspect of elevating our program in the Big Ten.
 

Wow. Great stuff, VK.

I'm not sure what to make of it right now. My initial thought is that the Gopher's coaching has been amazing while Michigan's has been terrible. I feel like it might be more nuanced than that, though....
 

I think the numbers may also reflect the quality of depth we have on defense.
 

OK- from the interested but too lazy department. Could you do the same Big Ten comparison for offense? :)
 


vinko bogataj said:
OK- from the interested but too lazy department. Could you do the same Big Ten comparison for offense? :)
Click to expand...

OK, here are the offensive numbers. Much less of a correlation here between offensive output and avg. rating of the offensive starters. This definitely shows that having a strong defense is more important since the 1st and 2nd place teams in the big ten (Ohio St. and Iowa) had average to poor offenses.

TEAM (avg. rating of starting offense rank, offense rank, scoring offense rank)

Ohio St. (1, 8, 4) –- 6.1, 6.0, 5.6, 6.1, 5.6, 5.8, 5.9, 5.9, 6.0, 5.7, 6.1 (avg. = 5.89)

Michigan (2, 7, 3) –- 5.9, 5.5, 6.1, 5.7, 5.8, 5.6, 5.9, 5.7, 5.7, 5.8, 5.9 (avg. = 5.78)

Wisconsin (3, 1, 1) –- 5.4, 6.0, 5.6, 5.8, 5.8, 5.5, 5.7, 6.1, 5.5, 5.6, 5.5 (avg. = 5.68)

Iowa (4, 10, 10) –- 5.7, 5.1, 5.2, 5.5, 5.7, 6.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.7, 6.0, 5.9 (avg. = 5.66)

Illinois (5, 5, 8) –- 5.9, 5.7, 5.8, 6.0, 6.1, 5.5, 5.4, 5.7, 5.7, 5.4, 5.0 (avg. = 5.65)

Penn St. (6, 2, 5) –- 5.6, 5.7, 5.7, 5.7, 5.9, 5.8, 5.6, 5.3, 5.6, 5.7, 4.9 (avg. = 5.59)

Minnesota (7, 11, 11) –- 5.5, 5.4, 5.3, 5.8, 5.5, 5.0, 5.3, 5.5, 5.5, 5.9, 5.5 (avg. = 5.47)

Michigan St. (8, 3, 2) –- 5.5, 5.8, 5.6, 5.5, NR, 5.8, 5.5, 5.5, 5.4, NR, 5.5 (avg. = 5.46)

Purdue (9, 6, 6) –- 5.6, 5.6, 5.2, 5.5, 5.5, 5.2, NR, NR, 5.1, 6.0, 5.5 (avg. = 5.38)

Northwestern (10, 4, 7) –- 5.5, 5.3, 5.5, 5.3, 5.4, 5.3, 5.6, 5.2, NR, NR, 5.3 (avg. = 5.31)

Indiana (11, 9, 9) –- 5.3, 5.6, NR, 5.1, 5.4, 5.2, 5.4, 5.0, 5.3, 5.5, 5.3 (avg. = 5.28)
 

Thanks VK. I have a question though. Both Tow-Arnett's were first on the depth chart for MN for most of the year as was Moen. All three were walk-ons. I see you show no unrated players for MN. Is this correct?
 

minngg said:
Thanks VK. I have a question though. Both Tow-Arnett's were first on the depth chart for MN for most of the year as was Moen. All three were walk-ons. I see you show no unrated players for MN. Is this correct?
Click to expand...

I used the starters listed on the Rivals depth chart. Probably not the most accurate lineup (over the course of a season), but the quickest way to get the numbers. So only one of the Tow-Arnett's (the TE) is on the starting lineup for offense, he is listed as the 5.0 (An error on my part. He should have been listed as NR, but I designated the NRs as 5.0, so it doesn't change the numbers.) Moen plays defense, and is listed as one of the NRs since he was a walk-on. The other NRs for defense are Sherels (walk-on) and Campbell (not a walk-on, but he was not rated). It might have been better to use a lower number for the walk-ons, but I didn't know what value to give them.
 

Scheme probably plays a role as far as offense goes, like OSU plays kinda conservatively on offense, as does Iowa if I'm not mistaken.

It is interesting looking at the offense rankings that the Gophers beat the teams below them there, but lost to the teams above them.
 

Schnoodler said:
Iowa has been recruiting well. Sadly they appear to be improving. They actually finished pretty close to where their recruiting suggested they would. I see no reason for that to change. They are taking the next step forward unlike our neighbors to the east.
Click to expand...

Really?

2009 63, guess they should pack up and quit playing
2008 53, I am now predicting their demise
2007 28, nice abberation
2006 40

Average of 46. Looks similar to some other teams.

At least look at the data before you make things up.
 

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