Two aspects to recruiting

[MplsBison]

Saw this in the comments on the Bison Media Blog and thought it might make for some interesting discussion on here:




There are two aspects to college recruiting: 1) getting highly rated high school players to sign up with your college program and 2) having the guys who sign up eventually be starters/contributors who have the skill to play at this level.

There are certain coaches *cough*Brewster*cough* who excel at 1 but then the guys they sign end up not being able to contribute (2). They either leave the team due to poor academics/off the field issues or they end up just being over-rated in high school and not have the talent to compete at the top college level.

Bohl has badly fallen victim to being bad at both. As you point out, he wasn't able to get the low-FBS (MAC) kids to sign up to play at NDSU (1) and then he ended up with a lot of kids who did not help the team (2).

Here is how Bohl's first two high school classes have done:

0 - did not contribute
1 - minor contributor
2 - contributor/partial starter
3 - significant contributor/starter
(these are over the course of their entire careers)


Class of 2004:

Tyler Jangula 3
Zach Harrington 3
Alex Belquist 2
Tyler Roehl 3
Jerimiah Wurzbacher 3
Nick Compton 2
Ryan Parsons 1
Mike Maresh 3
Nick Schommer 3
Joe Lardinois 3
Kole Heckendorf 3
Brian Jark 0
Michael Brower 1
James Septak 2
Brian Rabb 0
Shaman Washington 3

Avg = 2.1875


Class of 2005:

KYLE BELMONT 3
RICHARD BOWMAN II 3
MITCH BRECKE 0
THOR BROWN 3
KEITH BUCKMAN 3
JUSTIN CASH 0
JAMAR CHAMP 0
GERRY EBEL 3
MIKE FAIRBAIRN 3
RYAN FOSTER 3
DEMEATRIC FOWLER 0
TYLER HENRY 3
JARED HINES 2
RAMON HUMBER II 3
MATT KITTELSON 3
JOSH LEE 0
MARCUS MAILAND 0
NICK MERTENS 3
COURTNEY MITCHELL 1
BRYAN REIMERS 0
JORDAN SCHULTENOVER 2
RYAN SCHUTTLOFFEL 0
SAM LAUDNER 0
NATE AGBETOLA 3

Avg = 1.7083


Projected class of 2006:

MATT ANDERSON 3
MICHAEL ARNDT 3
SHAWN BIBEAU 3
CHRIS BIGLEY 0
PETE BLINCOE 1
DERRIUS COLVIN 3
MATTHEW GRATZEK 3
JOHN KNEPEL 0
CYRUS LEMON 3
MATT PHILLIPS 3
JIMMY SHARPE 0
LANDON SMITH 3
LEE VANDAL 3
KEVIN WEEDEN 0
CHRIS WELLENSTEIN 0
GARY WILLIAMS 3

Avg = 1.9375

I'd be curious to know what the numbers look like at some other peer FCS programs. But ideally I think you'd like to see that number more in 2.5 - 3.

We've had too many kids leave the program. That's a simple fact.

And I put that squarely on Bohl.




Anyone want to take a crack at rating their past couple senior classes (high school players) in this fashion?

I too would be interested to see how others are doing.

[Aho_Old_Guy]

Saw this in the comments on the Bison Media Blog and thought it might make for some interesting discussion on here:


There are two aspects to college recruiting: 1) getting highly rated high school players to sign up with your college program and 2) having the guys who sign up eventually be starters/contributors who have the skill to play at this level.

Anyone want to take a crack at rating their past couple senior classes (high school players) in this fashion?

I too would be interested to see how others are doing.

Don't know about others but my "two aspects to recruiting" would be:

1) Attitude; and
2) Intangibles.

'Attitude' pretty much sez it all. Is the recruit 'coach-able'? Will they put forth the effort on- and off-field? Do they fit in the locker room and the class room? Will they have a positive influence on the team?

'Intangibles' covers everything else --- What skill sets do they bring and what potential do they have to improve? Do they play to the whistle? How will they approach and prepare? Are they 'big game-big play' guys who deliver when the pressure is on? Can they recognize their role and responsibilities?

Seldom will folks ever grade-out 100%. Most importantly: How do they respond to their mistakes? Are they correctable mistakes of 'enthusiasm' and 'recognition'?

And I think the coaching staff are the only guys who can actually grade these things out.

All-star recruits are great ---- but if they take plays off, can't pick up a blitz or get down the field and block, I'd prefer they go to Furman :D

[MplsBison]

Thanks for the post Aho. Those are both good things to have in a recruit.

I think that ties back nicely with the job SDSU's Stig has been able to do recruiting.


As I posted a while back in a different thread, Stig does not recruit guys just to recruit the highly rated high school "blue chips". So, in that sense, he "fails" in the first aspect.

But in the end, it doesn't matter because the players he recruits end up being significant contributors on the field.


When you have the right players, you look like a scheming genius. But schemes really don't matter. On offense, a guy has the ball is is running as fast as he can to the end zone, the other 10 guys block/occupy players on the defense. On defense, you have 11 guys trying to tackle the guy with the ball.

The team with the better players wins.