I have started taking Tableau classes and put this together today to practice field calculations and fool around with maps. I used 380 miles for the radius, it works pretty well going N, S, and E, but breaks down a little going W. The Great Lakes Ohio and Mid Tenn players are all a 6hr, 10ish minute drive based on google maps. I was surprised to see that the staff really does hit the 6hr window pretty well. The only pattern I see is that we definitely go out of the radius for QB and DL, which I think most that follow recruiting would have guessed. Anyway I thought I would share the dashboard in case anyone wants to look it over. Feel free to give feedback on it, there is definitely room for improvement. I plan to update it with the transfers in the future.
Comments
There is a reason QB and DE are the highest paid positions in the NFL.
I think the QB position in the NFL is generally overrated. They get credit for what the offense as a whole does, so they get both way more blame and way more praise than they deserve. They then get paid so highly (when successful) because of the hyper focus they receive from fans and the media.
For example, I don't think almost anyone here would know who Tom Brady was if he was drafted by the Browns. Alternatively, a more provable example is how much better Sam Darold looked with a competent set of players around him compared to what he had in New York.
Disagree- In the modern NFL in terms of winning at the highest level- either you have a QB or you don't. It's painfully obvious without exception. The teams that start Josh Allen, Burrow, Mahomes, Herbert win a hell of a lot more than the teams that start Winston, Ridder, Geno Smith, Taysom hill, Zach Wilson, etc etc etc. Either you got a guy or you don't. The Redskins got that "dude" with Daniels... now watch them win consistently like they have not done the past 20 years. It makes that much of a difference. Get that pick wrong (Will Levis, Manziel, etc) it sets you back 10 years.
Reply to the thread ....
Everyone would know Tom from the Browns, he would have 100% started there, they started everyone. But a different team he might gets cut his rookie year and never gets a shot. But he did some much with no name recievers and RBs. He had two slot recievers in Walker and Edleman, Moss for a season, and Gronk (with Hernadez briefly) That's not a lot in a 20 year career. Only Moss was a #1 reciever.
I think that lots of teams overrated the importance of their QB, but not that QBs are overrated. Like DC said Mahomes, Allen, etc win a lot. But Jordan Love is 2nd in money to Dak. CJ Stroud will reset the market, is he going to win with the Texans? They NFL will just pay QBs because they feel they have too.
Tom Brady wasn't overrated - he was the real deal everywhere he played.
Correct - as I have said a hundred times- its hard to do anything in life worse than NFL scouts QB's. They are laughably terrible at it.
He played 2 places and the teams around him, especially the coaching, were better than y'all are giving them credit for (which I guess was sort of my original complaint anyways). He was setup for success, and to his credit, he took advantage of that. I still don't think his career would've taken off without such ideal conditions. He wasn't exactly a freak athlete in his younger years. To be clear of my original position, I know QBs obviously have an impact on the game, but to my point the top 10 QBs (by salary) effectively take around 1/5 of a teams salary cap. Considering how many quality players it takes to field a competitive team you can't convince me that one single player is worth that percentage of a team's budget.
Personally, I blame stats for this. QBs are inherently stat hoarders. So many of a games yards, touchdowns, etc. are credited to the QB, but for example lets talk passing yards. If Tom throws for 500 yards in a game, he gets all the credit for that stat. The announcers and reporters will say so and the box score will reflect that. It's not all Tom though, it doesn't take into account how well the linemen, the tight ends, the running backs, or anyone else blocked for him, or how much of an effort his receivers made to make those catches and how well they ran their routes. It doesn't credit the gameplan by the coaching staff, and don't even get me started on QBs getting credit for YACs.
The media also hyperbolizes this, I assume because it's an easy and catchy narrative to create. For example, the Ravens-Bills playoff game last year only had 2 guys in the ads for the game, Lamar and Allen. I'm pretty sure they explicitly used the phrase of Lamar Jackson versus Josh Allen a large number of times even. I get that those are the star players, but it misses a lot of the nuance of the game. Not to mention, I don't like it because they never directly compete with each other, like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen are never on the field playing at the same time. It's a team sport dammit.
Brady always had what made him, Montana, Elway, Manning, Farve, Marino great- pocket awareness, quick release. The great NFL QBs stand in the pocket calm and avoid the rush and get rid of the ball. Brady was the best ever at slowing the game down, his heart rate never rose in the pocket- calm decisive accurate. If the NFL scouted pocket presence instead of Caleb Williams being a "freak" they would hit on more than they do.
Brady had a ridiculously quick release, he negated si many potential huge hits because if it
I've been waiting to see how long someone pointed this out.
It was such a quick and accurate release that this and his complete calm under fire is what made him elite.
He only HAD to play two places, because he kept leading New England to Superbowls.
You guys are off your rockers if you think New England does that without Tom Brady. No, he wasn't the whole team - he had great players on his team, but they wouldn't have had the same level of success without him. He was a fine quarterback.
You NEED a good quarterback for elite results. They touch the ball every play and their play absolutely affects results. Do they need a team and a coach? Sure they do. Just look at Hendon Hooker for some proof of that.
Elite quarterbacks absolutely make a difference. Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Mike Vick - they still need a strong supporting cast, but they make a huge difference and change the character of a team.
Really nice work. Thanks for this.
Well since the 6 hour radius has yielded 6-6 at best with few quality wins in 3 years... maybe we push that out a bit? Or lose the made up radius mentality all together?
The radius makes a lot of sense and is not the reason for the record. In game coaching and game preparation is a much bigger candidate.
In game coaching and game preparation is easier/improves with better players.
That 6 hour radius includes nearly 70 million people.
It's a satisfactory pool from which to draw players.
The world and country are a lot "smaller" now than the horse and buggy days. Millions of americans walk down stairs in their pajamas and work full time at their homes. The entire recruiting process does not have to be face to face- key component of the 6 hour philosophy. Like all things in competitive sports or life, It looks good on paper until it doesn't get results. And this hasn't for us. Penn State, Clemson, GA, Alabama recruit this territory as well, and they are kicking our ass.
One way to consider this would be to compare the recruiting radius of the last 5 national champions. My guess is the chart would look similar with a majority of the players within 6 hrs and some standout players/positions from outside that radius.
"the last 5 national champions"- like the 20 or so before them, had multiple top 5-10 recruiting classes. That is the common thread overwhelmingly. So if VT plucked the BEST players from that 6 hour radius that is a different argument.
I was actually surprised at how much we stick to the radius. My gut feeling was it was a bit more made up than it is, I think it's probably a function of the transfers being some of the bigger play makers and me not following recruiting closely enough to know where they came from originally.
I think the 6hr radius is sold to fans as the modern version of winning the state, but realistically it's an operational efficiency thing and probably won't change much even if the staff's messaging changes and they start trying to do national recruiting.
I'm not surprised. We saw what #TX2VT got us.
The funny thing is that with the transfer data added I think it would show VT being much more successful with #TX2VT in the Pry era. Kelden Ryan is the only one represented on the map, but Drones, Ben Bell, Tyson Flowers, and Isaiah Cash are all from Texas.
I mean that's what you get when your best gets within that 6 hour radius are Tier 2 players
I really hope we didn't think we could just declare that we are now recruiting our region and then start picking up all the good players. Because that's just not happening
Keep developing those networks.
We need the TOP PLAYERS from the radius, not just PLAYERS from the radius.
It really all boils down to this.
I'm torn on this...
On one hand, the world is smaller now than 10-20 years ago. It used to be that, if a player wasn't in our 6-hour radius, his family may never get to see him play. Now, with every game being broadcasted everywhere, social media making it easier to stay connected with family from afar, airfare being more accessible than ever before, etc
On the other hand, you need to plant your flag somewhere. Recruiting the whole country is like boiling the whole ocean. A 6 hour radius seems like a wide enough net for a reasonable cost (in terms of resources and cash).
Overlap that 6 hr radius with these numbers and see what percentage of NFL picks over the last decade fall into the range.
My initial thought is we should be hitting OH harder than we are.
If I include the whole of GA, TN, KY, and PA in the 6 hrs, 34.5% of the NFL draft picks are in the recruiting territory. If you believe NJ is also with 6 hrs, it rises to 37.6% of the draft.
Based on these numbers, I didn't think we are limiting ourselves to the talent pool, we just aren't landing the talent or identifying the talented players well. Basically every year there are 77 draft worthy players in our area, seems like landing 10% would be a great place to start.
You want a jump to 8 draft worthy recruits a year?!? I'd be happy with 3!
via GIFER
Coach Pry might agree with me about Ohio.
So I was driving back from lunch in my well VT-stickered truck and someone gives me a few taps of the horn and a "Go Hokies!". I ask if they are local so I can get them to find our local chapter of the alumni association, he says no, he's in town recruiting. It was Edges coach Jireh Wilson. He is new so I didn't recognize him and the conversation was short once the light turned green. Anyway he is here in Cincy today hitting the recruiting trail.
We need Florida kids I can't name a successful Hokies Team without a Florida kid on it.
Every team since at least 2014 (that was just the year I started looking at) has had players from Florida
I agree. One of my favorite Hokies of all time, Brandon Flowers, was from Florida.
Here's a slight variation using a density map to show recruiting "hot beds" for us. Just thought it was another interesting way to look at our recent trends.
I updated it one last time and took out the ratings visualizations. They didn't add much IMO and were messy.
Click the link to play around with the position and croot/transfer filters and to hover over the stars for recruiting details.