Interestingly enough ... Rivals has rated #Hokies recruiting class No. 22 or No. 23 in the country 5 of the past 6 years. This year: No. 22.— Hokies Journal (@HokiesJournal) February 5, 2014
First off, I'm not a huge recruiting follower. But from what I've read here, it seems like this year's recruiting class looks pretty good, and the recruiting classes from a couple years ago (especially on offense) really contributed to the lackluster showings of the past 2 seasons. According to Rivals, however, this years class is just more of the same. Now we all know that 2 and 3 star kids can become very important players, and that 5 star kids can bust; this isn't a question about star rankings. However, I'm sure many of us on the site would love for VT to constantly be in the top 10 or 15, especially in years like this when a lot of talent is coming out of Virginia. Why do we, as a fanbase, place so much importance on our recruiting class rankings (and the individual players) when we can see that preseason rankings don't mean anything in terms of how good a team will actually be (*cough* 2012 USC *cough*)? They both rank and project future success on previous accomplishments, but recruiting class rankings don't even have the benefit of college film!
My main question is this: which arbitrary ranking do you think is more misleading and/or less accurate, and which one do you care about more?
Comments
I care about finding players with talent that fill needs on our football team. I think this class achieved that, even if we didn't get the absolute best talent.
The rest (stars/rankings/etc.) I don't care about.
i hate to sound cliche, but if the coaches offer a kid a full ride, that's all the evaluation i need. the rankings are fun to look at, and they give you something to compare kids and teams, but i don't put any real weight in it.
how i rate a class: who did our coaches really go after? how many of them did they get? it's generally just an ok, good better best thing for me. can't think of a time we ever had a "bad" class.
The class rankings being the same doesn't necessarily mean they are incorrect. The class of 2014 as a whole is seen as being significantly better than 2012 and 2013 from all accounts I have read, so while we may be 22nd again, this 22nd might be better than our 22nd or 23rd from the previous years. As for whether it plays out, look at the Top 10 teams consistently, then look at what those programs have done. Sure, you can point to USC for a lackluster performance but for every USC there are 3 or 4 Alabama, Auburn, LSU, FSU, etc. The five stars do also tend to deliver more times than not, as I can recall seeing an article comparing the 2012 NFL Draft class and what their Star ratings were coming out of high school and most of the first three rounds were where you found previous five stars.
An individual's star rating or an individual class ranking doesn't matter in a vaccum, because some players end up being better and some don't. In the macro sense, though, getting higher rated platers, and lending higher ranked classes is better in the long term because of that micro understanding that they aren't all going to hit.
Teams that get higher rated players and end up with higher ranked classes year after year will be better able to handle when a handful of the VHT recruits don't pan out. The converse strategy of taking lower rated guys and hoping a bunch of them are much better than they are rated feels like it would have much less of a success rate.
A very good point. I don't know if there's an answer, but I wonder if recruiting services grade on a curve, judging kids against their class peers instead on a consistent metric
Class Rankings don't mean anything.... to a point
I would hazard to guess that it would be incredibly difficult to find a recent National Champion, or even runner-up, who wasn't built in part from an elite (Top10) recruiting class in one of the years leading up to it. If we want to get up to that level, we cannot be content with annual classes in the 20s. We need to aim higher.
I think it depends, if you think about it this recruiting class was for the majority focused on the offensive side of the ball. Especially since we got a new OC, Oline and WR coach, we lacked the talent on offense to help keep us in games.
What makes you into a top 10 or even 15 recruiting class is when you can recruit both sides of the ball and bring in the top Oline and Dline commits. If you can't find people to block then those 5* players can only do so much
Take a look at the Top 5 in final college football polls this year, then look at the recruiting rankings of those teams the past 3-4 years.
I concur with almost everything everyone said. I would just add this: I think we are going to stomp a mudhole in some people next year.
This is relevant: http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/2/5/5382140/recruiting-matters-why....
Why thank you. I had heard the probability/overall success argument for the rankings, but the math is irrefutable. There's always some chicken and egg theory involved with recruiting vs wins, but that's a very compelling reason to care.
Relevant, but I think they got this part wrong:
If I remember correctly, we, at the FOUR-STAR level, also made an MNC appearance.
EDIT: I'm totally wrong, he indicated that the list was since 2003
I think the problem in the past was that we were recruiting athletes who were talented but the offensive coaching staff didn't seem to have any kind of plan for said players. We can recruit the 7 best TE's in the country but when they get here and we convert them to OL or QB that doesn't necessarily translate to W's on the field. I think people are particularly excited about this years recruiting class because the offensive coaches seem to have targeted players whom make sense in their scheme. We're actually recruiting OLs and QBs instead of trying to get the best athletes and converting them.
It matters some, but not a lot. The point about fitting a system is important. I also believe that VT has historically had an advantage at identifying talent below the radar, but that advantage has been somewhat lost over the years. For one thing, a VT offer now means more than it used to, which hikes a kids ranking up, which makes our ability to find under-the-radar kids more difficult.
But the important thing to remember in recruiting rankings is small sample size, SSS. That was the issue with the poor recruiting the last few years, we had too many kids flame out. Generally, there is a 1/3 rule for recruiting classes: 1/3 of kids will be starters, 1/3 will stay in the program and be productive, 1/3 will flunk out/fail drug tests/blow out their knee/knock up their HS teacher/shoot themselves the leg. 1/3 of your class are just fuck ups, nothing you can do about it.
So it doesn't take but 3 or 4 kids to totally wreck a recruiting class. So when Michael Cole gets a concussion, James Farrow follows a rap career and Robert Lockhart can't get his shit together, that's 3 kids from the first group to the last group.
I look more at how VT does in respect to their own history (top 25-30 classes), goals (recruit the state, expand footprint since 2012) and class balance. This class is remarkably balanced, we did great OOS and we have a a ranking in our normal range. We obviously had a chance, a chance that comes around once every decade, to land a few in-state difference makers. And we didn't close.
YOU!