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Recruiting class ranked #33

Do you mean Maryland's 2 stars are definitely no good but our 2 stars are definitely great?

I think the point is that a couple of 5 star players will disproportionately elevate the value of a recruiting class on these websites as compared to the team on the field. Fans get excited when a 5 star signs, but it doesn't always have a huge impact, as Rutgers fans should know. Its far better the get 22 high 3 stars, than it is to get 3 5 stars, and then a bunch of 2 stars and low 3 stars. Another relevant point, especially relevant to Flood's classes, is that there is very little difference between the high 3 stars and the 4 stars. Very little. As long as we are getting the kids the staff wants within that area, we as fans should all be happy, until proven otherwise. So far, I have not seen any evidence that our staff has issues evaluating talent within the vast realm of 3 star land -- in fact the early indicators are that they are quite good at it. Our fans should take pleasure in knowing that we may not need to land the NJ prima donnas with this staff, because the on the field product will be just as successful with the high 3 type kids they identify who want to be here.

Where the fans have a right to be concerned is when kids are committing who are 2 stars (and some low 3's) without any offers from other P5 programs. Of course Flood and staff may have recognized talent in those kids that others are missing, but it easier to get excited about a "diamond in the rough" when they are infrequent (like 2-3 per class). That may be where this class winds up, and I will be fine with that, especially if the projects are big huge linemen with a mean streak. You have to take risks there in the Big Ten, since the big huge linemen who are not projects are very, very difficult to recruit for a number of reasons.
 
No 7th in the nation in 3 stars is7th in the nation. And they do have one two star Motley who is horribly underrated. But our class is much deeper.
But last two years, some were saying our 2 stars were great but now Maryland 2 stars are terrible. I also noticed that the Syracuse fans think their 2 stars are better than our 3 stars. I wonder if Maryland fans think our 2 stars are better than their 2 stars.
 
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I think the point is that a couple of 5 star players will disproportionately elevate the value of a recruiting class on these websites as compared to the team on the field. Fans get excited when a 5 star signs, but it doesn't always have a huge impact, as Rutgers fans should know. Its far better the get 22 high 3 stars, than it is to get 3 5 stars, and then a bunch of 2 stars and low 3 stars. Another relevant point, especially relevant to Flood's classes, is that there is very little difference between the high 3 stars and the 4 stars. Very little. As long as we are getting the kids the staff wants within that area, we as fans should all be happy, until proven otherwise. So far, I have not seen any evidence that our staff has issues evaluating talent within the vast realm of 3 star land -- in fact the early indicators are that they are quite good at it. Our fans should take pleasure in knowing that we may not need to land the NJ prima donnas with this staff, because the on the field product will be just as successful with the high 3 type kids they identify who want to be here.

Where the fans have a right to be concerned is when kids are committing who are 2 stars (and some low 3's) without any offers from other P5 programs. Of course Flood and staff may have recognized talent in those kids that others are missing, but it easier to get excited about a "diamond in the rough" when they are infrequent (like 2-3 per class). That may be where this class winds up, and I will be fine with that, especially if the projects are big huge linemen with a mean streak. You have to take risks there in the Big Ten, since the big huge linemen who are not projects are very, very difficult to recruit for a number of reasons.
More to the point, there is almost no different between 2 stars and low 3 stars, at least as far as chances of getting drafted. From high 3 on up, the percent drafted foes up with each rating increment - its actually a pretty good indication that Rivals knows what they are talking about. But low 3 and 2 star are interchangable.
 
We're not getting Gary, and probably not Pridgeon. We have a great shot at Southerland, and a decent chance at Harmon. I say probably not Pridgeon because he had already committed then backed out, most likely because of the 'other' programs interest in him. However, I still hope we land that kid. He would be an enormous boost for the program, figuratively and literally. It would soften the blow of not getting Rashan to some extent.

Russo SHOULD get an upgrade in rating because of his performance in the elite 11. This, plus getting a couple of the aforementioned kids, and this recruiting class ON PAPER will look pretty good. It will take a few years to see how they really pan out.

Remember much goes into the success or failure of a program to achieve its goals: players, and player development, coaching, schedule. Things that affect programs like defections, coaching changes, misfortunes, etc. all come into play. The 2004 season here at RU should have been a winning season, but an early season accident that nearly cost the lives of three players took an emotional toll on the program. It took another year before the team achieved its first winning season going back to the first half of the 90s, and the first bowl game since the GS Bowl.
I wouldn't give up on Gary so soon my friend. Top 5 RU, Clemson, LSU/Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State! Top competition but like I have said many many times, moms want him at RU and he listens to mommy. I still like our chances.
 
What I don't get is all the talk about player's getting bumped to a higher star to improve the overall team ranking. Does that mean that Rutgers is the only team that has players stars improved as time goes on? What about all the other teams out there, don't they have guys who gets their stars bumped as well?

Of course not, only RU recruits under the radar talent, everyone fights over the scraps that are left.

All I care is that this class is a clear step up from Flood's previous classes. Wherever it happens to wind up will make for nice discussion, but I'm just happy it looks like a real BCS class.
 
That's a good question. Maybe you should go ask that on the Michigan State Board. Here are their recruiting classes going back prior to their turnaround in 2010

2013- 40 Record 13-1/8-0
2012- 41 Record 7-6/3-5
2011- 31 Record 11-3/ 7-1
2010- 30 Record 11-2/7-1
2009 - 17
2008- 47
2007- 42
2006 - 33
.

If my math is correct, that averages out to about a #35 ranking.
That's certainly doable for RU.
 
More to the point, there is almost no different between 2 stars and low 3 stars, at least as far as chances of getting drafted. From high 3 on up, the percent drafted foes up with each rating increment - its actually a pretty good indication that Rivals knows what they are talking about. But low 3 and 2 star are interchangable.

Interesting. I didn't realize the draft rating reflected from high 3 up. Maybe my point about the difference between high 3's and 4's being negligible is overstated. Do you know what the percentages are by any chance? I would've thought it was not a large difference between high 3's and 5's to be honest.
 
Interesting. I didn't realize the draft rating reflected from high 3 up. Maybe my point about the difference between high 3's and 4's being negligible is overstated. Do you know what the percentages are by any chance? I would've thought it was not a large difference between high 3's and 5's to be honest.

I don't know where anyone breaks it down by high 3 vs low 3, but there's lots of stuff out there like this:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/21641769

2008-12_Recruiting-Per_Capita_All-Americans_by_Recruiting_Class.jpg
 
I don't know where anyone breaks it down by high 3 vs low 3, but there's lots of stuff out there like this:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/21641769

2008-12_Recruiting-Per_Capita_All-Americans_by_Recruiting_Class.jpg
Well, that is not the best way to do it. If I am interpreting that correctly, the percentages would be skewed, since each higher level has less members in the class. The raw numbers would be more useful.

I found this: For the 2013 AP all americans, there were 3 2-stars, 9 3-stars, 8 4-stars, and 4 5-stars.
Also interesting, the 5 star kids, Winston, Kuoandjo, Jeffcoat, and Joyner, all were rated #1 overall at their position.
 
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Well, that is not the best way to do it. If I am interpreting that correctly, the percentages would be skewed, since each higher level has less members in the class. The raw numbers would be more useful.

Erm, that's exactly opposite of what you want to do. If you have 100 5* recruits and 26 of them are All American, and 5,000 2* and 26 of them are All American, the useful number there is the percentage of the pool, not the total number.
 
But last two years, some were saying our 2 stars were great but now Maryland 2 stars are terrible. I also noticed that the Syracuse fans think their 2 stars are better than our 3 stars. I wonder if Maryland fans think our 2 stars are better than their 2 stars.
Yeah that wasn't me. My opinion is that sometime around July of last year was when recruiting turned around for us. Before then alot of mistakes were made early (that we don't need to rehash) and it took over a year to recover from those mistakes.
 
Erm, that's exactly opposite of what you want to do. If you have 100 5* recruits and 26 of them are All American, and 5,000 2* and 26 of them are All American, the useful number there is the percentage of the pool, not the total number.

I see your point, but there are a few ways to interpret the data. There are very few AA's relative to the number of recruits. So there is a higher chance for it to be skewed. Given the vastly high percentage of 3 star recruits to 5 stars, that method would be more informative if we were looking at percentages that wind up as starters. Once you are whittling thousands of recruits down to just a 24 all americans, it is more useful to just see the raw data.

Your example, if true would obviously show the value of the ranking system. (26 out of 100, and 26 out of 5,000= 5's way more likely to succeed at the highest level)
But it could also be that there are so many 3 stars that the 1.8% of 3 stars translates to 16 of the AA's, while the 26% of 5 star recruits only translates to 3 of the AA's. I don't have time to make the math work in a way that makes sense, but hopefully you see my point. Really small samples make percentages less useful.
 
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I see your point, but there are a few ways to interpret the data. There are very few AA's relative to the number of recruits. So there is a higher chance for it to be skewed. Given the vastly high percentage of 3 star recruits to 5 stars, that method would be more informative if we were looking at percentages that wind up as starters. Once you are whittling thousands of recruits down to just a 24 all americans, it is more useful to just see the raw data.

Your example, if true would obviously show the value of the ranking system. (26 out of 100, and 26 out of 5,000= 5's way more likely to succeed at the highest level)
But it could also be that there are so many 3 stars that the 1.8% of 3 stars translates to 16 of the AA's, while the 26% of 5 star recruits only translates to 3 of the AA's. I don't have time to make the math work in a way that makes sense, but hopefully you see my point. Really small samples make percentages less useful.
Im still not sure of your point.

I guess it would be nice to have the other numbers - but Im not sure what you would hope to gleen. The thing is that it backs up all of the other charts of this type - recruiting rankings in aggregate do a good job of sorting out talent.

But it also shows - thats it pretty hit or miss. 3 out of every 4 five stars wont become AA. and something like 9 of every 10 AAs will be something other than a five star.

Now that these recruiting rankings have been around for a while, you should actually be able to start graphing trends - see if the services are getting better over time at picking out the future stars.
 
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But it could also be that there are so many 3 stars that the 1.8% of 3 stars translates to 16 of the AA's, while the 26% of 5 star recruits only translates to 3 of the AA's. I don't have time to make the math work in a way that makes sense, but hopefully you see my point. Really small samples make percentages less useful.

They gave the raw numbers, and it turns out that over a 5 year period they are pretty stable, which would imply that it isn't a fluke because of the small data set. It also falls in line with every analysis I have ever seen, over various time periods. After a certain point you simply have to accept that 5* players succeed at a higher rate than 4* and so on. What always seems to confuse people is the number of players in each category, which overwhelms the stats. 90+% of 5* players would have to be All Americans to reach the raw values of 3/4* All Americans.

2008-12_Recruiting-FBS_Signees_by_Recruiting_Class.jpg

2008-12_Recruiting-All-Americans_by_Recruiting_Class.jpg





.
 
Erm, that's exactly opposite of what you want to do. If you have 100 5* recruits and 26 of them are All American, and 5,000 2* and 26 of them are All American, the useful number there is the percentage of the pool, not the total number.

Especially with scholarship restrictions because everyone gets 85 scholarship players. Therefore having a higher percentage of hits is what separates the good teams from the bad.
 
They gave the raw numbers, and it turns out that over a 5 year period they are pretty stable, which would imply that it isn't a fluke because of the small data set. It also falls in line with every analysis I have ever seen, over various time periods. After a certain point you simply have to accept that 5* players succeed at a higher rate than 4* and so on. What always seems to confuse people is the number of players in each category, which overwhelms the stats. 90+% of 5* players would have to be All Americans to reach the raw values of 3/4* All Americans.

2008-12_Recruiting-FBS_Signees_by_Recruiting_Class.jpg

2008-12_Recruiting-All-Americans_by_Recruiting_Class.jpg





.

That confirms it for me. My point was only that looking at the percentages, I didn't know if the 1.8% figure actually yielded a significant majority of the AA's. I wasn't looking for them to be equal. It would have changed for me if the 1.8% yielded a significant majority of the AA's, because then I think you can say its all a crap shoot.

Seeing now the reality that it took the 3 star recruits nearly 30x the number of players to produce 2.5x the AA's makes it pretty clear that the percentages weren't really distorting the reality that 5 stars are way more likely to AA.
 
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"Can someone remind me how many classes Schiano had ranked higher in his 11 years here?"

Hopefully this is the bump in recruiting that many of us expected once we went Big Ten. I understand people want to compare the two coaches, but the comparison is rather ridiculous. It's like saying why isn't UCONN getting better classes than RU -- I mean they went to a major bowl and we still haven't. Recruiting in the Big East was still recruiting in the Big East... I want Flood to succeed, but I highly doubt (based on the way recruiting has gone the past few years) that Flood would have brought in higher classes in the Big East than Schiano. Thankfully, he doesn't have to.

Recruiting in the Big Ten SHOULD bring better recruiting years. Let's hope this is the start of that happening.
 
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"Can someone remind me how many classes Schiano had ranked higher in his 11 years here?"

Hopefully this is the bump in recruiting that many of us expected once we went Big Ten. I understand people want to compare the two coaches, but the comparison is rather ridiculous. It's like saying why isn't UCONN getting better classes than RU -- I mean they went to a major bowl and we still haven't. Recruiting in the Big East was still recruiting in the Big East... I want Flood to succeed, but I highly doubt (based on the way recruiting has gone the past few years) that Flood would have brought in higher classes in the Big East than Schiano. Thankfully, he doesn't have to.

Recruiting in the Big Ten SHOULD bring better recruiting years. Let's hope this is the start of that happening.
When will people realize recruiting doesn't just happen as a result of conference affiliation? Also, I don't understand why people look to downplay the BE that Schiano recruited for. Prior to their departures the BE with Miami and VaTech was considered quite good. After their departures Cinci an LVille came of age and let's not forget how good WVU during the Rich Rod days. The bottom didn't really fall out of the BE until the very end. Was it the Big? No but it wasn't chopped liver either. Let us also not forget that his great recruiting only yielded us the third or fourth best class in our league most years.
 
But last two years, some were saying our 2 stars were great but now Maryland 2 stars are terrible. I also noticed that the Syracuse fans think their 2 stars are better than our 3 stars. I wonder if Maryland fans think our 2 stars are better than their 2 stars.

Taking out kickers (they are evaluated and ranked differently), Maryland has nine 2 stars while Rutgers has four. I can't speak to Maryland, but at least two of the four from Rutgers will be upgraded. Questioning Maryland's class as top heavy and voicing depth concern is legitimate.
 
Erm, that's exactly opposite of what you want to do. If you have 100 5* recruits and 26 of them are All American, and 5,000 2* and 26 of them are All American, the useful number there is the percentage of the pool, not the total number.
+1

Percentages matter, the absolute numbers are meaningless.
 
When will people realize recruiting doesn't just happen as a result of conference affiliation? Also, I don't understand why people look to downplay the BE that Schiano recruited for. Prior to their departures the BE with Miami and VaTech was considered quite good. After their departures Cinci an LVille came of age and let's not forget how good WVU during the Rich Rod days. The bottom didn't really fall out of the BE until the very end. Was it the Big? No but it wasn't chopped liver either. Let us also not forget that his great recruiting only yielded us the third or fourth best class in our league most years.
Actually, I believe the Big East and Big Ten won the same number of national championships during the existence of the former as a football conference. (There were schools who won it that are currently in the B1G, but they did not win those championships as B1G teams.) Also, let's remember that the Big East was a good enough football conference that at one point, for just a moment, there was actually some talk of an undefeated Rutgers being a possible dark horse for a spot in the national championship game. The Big East was a better football conference than some people like to remember.
 
The quality of the BE conference is a bit beside the point. The prestige, exposure and history is what helps recruiting. If you don't think getting to play Mich, Ohio St and Penn St vs WVU, UL and Cinci makes a difference then I don't know what to tell you. There's a reason every single person here would have switched conferences without a nanosecond of thought at any time. If all the fans wanted to switch conferences what do you think it looked like to recruits?
 
The quality of the BE conference is a bit beside the point. The prestige, exposure and history is what helps recruiting. If you don't think getting to play Mich, Ohio St and Penn St vs WVU, UL and Cinci makes a difference then I don't know what to tell you. There's a reason every single person here would have switched conferences without a nanosecond of thought at any time. If all the fans wanted to switch conferences what do you think it looked like to recruits?
Point taken. But I'm still not convinced there's that much of an automatic bump in recruiting just for being in a more prestigious conference. If you're a loser in a good conference, you're still a loser and perceived as such. And it's harder to win in our current situation in the B1G than it was for us in the Big East. Not only are we in the Murderer's Row division of the B1G, but we are going to a nine game conference schedule with no more FCS opponents. Compare that to the seven conference games we used to play in the Big East where we often padded the OOC schedule with weaker teams. I think the recruiting bump only really happens if you prove that you can win. Which is a harder row to hoe in the B1G.
 
By that logic teams in the AAC and Sunbelt (does the Sunbelt even exist any more?) Now have advantages because it is easier to win, and teams in the SEC and Big Ten are at a disadvantage because it is harder to win.... And yet that's now what the history of recruiting shows us.

Now, I'm not saying it is all of a sudden a cakewalk, and I think it was harder for Flood because of his lack of resume, but I'm pretty sure you could ask any coach which conference they would rather recruit in and you'll always get the same answer.

Kids want to play the best teams in the best stadiums with the most coverage. They want to play against the teams they grew up watching.
 
By that logic teams in the AAC and Sunbelt (does the Sunbelt even exist any more?) Now have advantages because it is easier to win, and teams in the SEC and Big Ten are at a disadvantage because it is harder to win.... And yet that's now what the history of recruiting shows us.

Now, I'm not saying it is all of a sudden a cakewalk, and I think it was harder for Flood because of his lack of resume, but I'm pretty sure you could ask any coach which conference they would rather recruit in and you'll always get the same answer.

Kids want to play the best teams in the best stadiums with the most coverage. They want to play against the teams they grew up watching.


Agree with this. All else being equal (and it never really is), you want to be in the conference with the most exposure and prestige. If you had the same head coach for 10 years, the 1st five in the Big East and the last five in the B1G, you would expect to see a jump in recruiting in the B1G. The counter argument is to look at RU BB. I, along with many beaten down RU fans, expected that the move to the more glamorous Big East would solve all of our recruiting woes. The problem was that the initial window was wasted and we quickly established ourselves as a bottom feeder who could not really compete. Top recruits avoided us in droves and we have had the results that were terribly disappointing by any metric. Our initial football season in the B1G was encouraging but we must maintain it or I worry we'll suffer the same fate as our BB team in the Big East. That is why the initial recruiting classes are so crucial.
 
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The arena that RU plays in, once very nice, pales in comparison to many of the other BB programs. We have our own on campus facility, but SH doesn't. They too suffer.

It needs upgrading and soon.
 
Percentages matter, the absolute numbers are meaningless.[/QUOTE]

But what is missed in these discussions is that schools are making their own evaluations so someone like Bateky who had a handful of P5 offers is more likely to be successful than a random 2*. This has nothing to do with the RU staff's ability to spot talent.
 
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OK, so I just looked at the Rivals recruiting info for the first time and I was surprised. They appear to have a scale of 5.2 to 6.1 and go in .1 increments. It seems to me that there isn't enough granularity in that range. Anyone know why they chose that scale?
 
OK, so I just looked at the Rivals recruiting info for the first time and I was surprised. They appear to have a scale of 5.2 to 6.1 and go in .1 increments. It seems to me that there isn't enough granularity in that range. Anyone know why they chose that scale?

Scout just has 2, 3, 4 and 5 stars, even less. Basically, Rivals has low, medium and high for all levels but the 5*'s. It is not realistic to get more granular than that, given the subjective nature of the evaluations.
 
RUich is right on the money! Leave the Coach Schiano reference out an the post is fine. Otherwise it reeks of agenda! If one can not see the value of the Coach and what he did for this program then you have to start questioning their bias. Not many candidates were running for this job back then and even fewer would have gotten as far. This by the way has nothing to do with Coach Flood.
 
Scout just has 2, 3, 4 and 5 stars, even less. Basically, Rivals has low, medium and high for all levels but the 5*'s. It is not realistic to get more granular than that, given the subjective nature of the evaluations.
The data shows that on the whole Rivals actually COULD get more granular. There is enough separate between each that they could in theory go even more fine scale and oeverall have each level up have more all Americans or draft picks or whatever.
 
The data shows that on the whole Rivals actually COULD get more granular. There is enough separate between each that they could in theory go even more fine scale and oeverall have each level up have more all Americans or draft picks or whatever.

But they already get more granular. 5.5, 5.6 etc. They just roll it up a bit. I guess they could add high/low 3* categories, but that's not adding any new information.
 
Scout just has 2, 3, 4 and 5 stars, even less. Basically, Rivals has low, medium and high for all levels but the 5*'s. It is not realistic to get more granular than that, given the subjective nature of the evaluations.

Scout somehow converts players into points but I see if you go to the team rankings Rivals does that too. I think maybe this is one reason I really prefer 247. They are transparent with how they do everything. I'm an engineer, data geek so it just fits my brain better.
 
OK, so I just looked at the Rivals recruiting info for the first time and I was surprised. They appear to have a scale of 5.2 to 6.1 and go in .1 increments. It seems to me that there isn't enough granularity in that range. Anyone know why they chose that scale?

That's 10 different categories, which on a somewhat arbitrary rating system, seems to be more than enough. I doubt there is much to be gained from breaking it into 20 classifications.
 
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