As @JeremyDarlow explains:PERCEPTION ➡️ RECRUITING ➡️ WINNING ➡️ MONEY 🔁Here is a look at the relationship between the revenue and perception:READ MORE: https://t.co/Sh7Qumzctt pic.twitter.com/aej3bwByaC— Pick Six Previews (@PickSixPreviews) February 8, 2018
http://picksixpreviews.com/how_to_win_in_recruiting.html
When discussing recruiting it seems many of us have on deep Orange and Maroon glasses compared to recruits and the rest of the country. The above tweet lays out the relationship between recruit's impression and relevance of VT on the national stage to its peers and the revenue Tech brings in and how that works for the Hokies.
I'm not good with graphs or excel so this won't be fancy. Currently, Tech sits at 41 for revenue and according to this article in the mid 30's for brand recognition. Meanwhile, Clemson who a lot of people point to as the team to strive to be like, sits at 1 in brand recognition and 27th in revenue. The article points out they are an outlier among power teams with brand and revenue, but they still have around 19 million more dollars and fewer sports in their budget than Tech.
The 12 historical top recruiting teams are all in the top 15 revenue teams the outliers are Clemson, USC, and ND the latter two because they don't report finances. So the question is can Tech overcome brand perception and revenue falling short compared to its Peers to get to the playoffs? Personally, I don't think Tech can reach those heights until it sits inside the 25 club of revenue.
Comments
You can think of it that our revenue is lagging behind our brand recognition, or that our brand recognition is far outperforming our revenue. Being above the line is favorable, and being to the right of the graph means more revenue. Sucks to be large universities from Texas though lol
Always better to be above that curve.
WE BEAT BAMA?
I would trade places tbh
How in the name of all that's holy is WVU ahead of us in "perception"?
I understand the BIG $$ but this is hard to fathom
In other words, it's an indicator, but not really a scientific study.
Yeah, the sample size is too small and their methodology produced some interesting results. Alabama 19th on brand recognition is baffling no matter how much an individual dislikes them. You have to really stretch the definition of brand recognition for that one to make sense.
This is why I have a hard time with their methods. Region plays a massive factor into brand recognition.
They also compared the whole athletic department revenue. I'm sure the squeaky shoes recruits will order them differently, as will other sport recruits.
The fact that Bama isn't top 1 let alone barely cracks the top 20 says this is garbage off-season filler to generate clicks
Small sample. Who knows how many of the 224 responded with an answer. Who knows how well this sample represents recruits. And, it's a somewhat awkward question, as interest and desire is determined (most likely) by a remote interpretation.
It's something though, and that's a start. It would be nice, however, if the demographic of the sample was available.
It also has Bama as 19th.. and below the curve
Maybe if Bama was willing to invest a little bit of money in football, their brand would be more recognizable.
So is UNcheat, Miss St, OLE Miss, Michigan State, Louisville and Nebraska.
Brand recognition grows with sports success.
Winning the ACC, and playing/winning nationally televised games helps. Being ranked helps. Having a ranked recruiting class helps.
Mostly, I would think that you need to play/beat other nationally recognized teams.
You can do it within the ACC. Beat FSU. Beat Miami. Beat Notre Dame.
This is the ultimate key, from the article:
I think it's important to distinguish between brand perception and recognition too. You can't convince me that Texas doesn't have one of the top recognized brands in college football. It just doesn't have the perception that Clemson does right now because they aren't winning.
I would argue that brand perception = Brand recognition + sports success.
As soon as (if) Texas starts winning again, they'll be back up to one of the highest perception rankings as well.
Agreed. That's also the way forward for VT.
via GIPHY
I love a chart. {I haven't read the article}
Once again, Clemson is winning. #1 in brand, #26 in revenue. UGA's is good too.
Once again. aTm makes bad decisions. Good luck with Jimbo.
I like where Nebraska is.
Surprised where UNC's revenue is. They seem like a bigger athletic department.
Frustrated to see WVU's brand higher than ours. Basketball helps them out.
Frustrated to see Miss St's brand and revenue higher than ours.
I've been meaning to look this up, I'm thinking our recruiting and results maybe should track Wisconsin instead of the regular comparisons to Clemson. But that revenue at >$130M is pretty high. Maybe Washington ($95M) would be an interesting study.
I read (okay, scanned) the article. I think their view on Wisconsin is missing the point.
They are saying that Clemson and Oregon are able to recruit better than Wisconsin with less money because Clem and Ore are selling a sexier offense. Wisconsin fails in that they try to sell the same "strong in the trenches" team that Bama and Ohio State does. Sure, that is true. But it doesn't address that Wisconsin is succeeding, year after year, with recruiting classes in the mid-30's (literally, every year).
I would counter that Wisconsin may be losing the recruiting battles but winning the performance wars because they know who they are and excel at evaluations and fit. This piece didn't include in its scope analysis of who is winning the recruiting to performance comparison, where Wisconsin is killing it. But maybe one of the reasons they fail the recruiting tests is because their value system is unique. VT in it's heyday did as well and may so in the future (I maybe could contend that Fuente's offense is a "system offense" every bit as much as PJ's at GT or Foster's defense. It's unique and has a different value system).
I think VT has a brand based on a shut-out defense (Bud) and stellar special teams (Beamer). The special teams may have faded a bit as other teams caught on and emphasized that as well. Pair those with an interesting offense (Fuente), and I could see the perception rising precipitously with success.
If it's interesting to play on the defense, and interesting to play on the offense, I think you have a winner.
Only questioning this method because this guy has Alabama ranked 19th in Perception. Yeah right.
My view is that perception is not raised until winning and recruiting continue to improve consistently. There are tons of schools that have shown that you don't need SEC money to win, and dozens of other schools that have proven that you don't need a top 25 recruiting class to get a top 25 football team. Fuente is winning, and as he keeps steadily improving our recruiting, we will win more of the games we need to in order to improve our perception.
This is a decent article on how Kirby Smart manages recruit's perceptions at Georgia.
Kirby Smart at Georgia
I'm interested in the brand recognition side. How can VT get better on that front? I mean, we sit one spot above Kentucky, which seems ridiculous for FOOTBALL.
Alumni and Hokie Clubs getting more involved and more events in both VA and around the country. Grow the Hokie Club both in total members but in giving. Keep winning games but use those wins to showcase Tech to the population centers of VA, NC and MD to expand non alumni fan base. Get better at basketball and Olympic sports.
Beat FSU. Beat Miami. Beat Notre Dame. Win the ACC championship next year.
I was on a golf trip last weekend with my buddy and he had a good point:
"My friend, your team must first get rid of the shoulder stripes. Only then will you find the road that leads to success." -The Dalai Lama
Were you his caddy and did he stiff you for the bill?
Dammit key. And dammit corporate internet that won't let me embed GIF's, so I have to jockey between my phone and computer. Dammit all. Well played.
To be fair, I fumbled around a bit looking for the whole quote, and then tried two different jpgs...
Regardless, a quoter of Caddyshack is a good man. I think the Lama himself said that.
I think he did. Not so sure about that shoulder stripe thing...
Yeah, probably not. But I think we can all agree if he saw them, he'd agree with his fake quote.
I hear he likes maroon, though. And orange.
Hey now, I know what the Lama said to me. I may be a jokester from time to time, but I wouldn't make something serious like that up.
Sure, but the rumor is that he's a bit of a jokester sometimes.
Ya, but he said "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness."
That would be a short term rise, in order to get long term year to year perception change you need casual fans and non fans to know who and what Tech is.
This was about recruit's perceptions, so I think winning is the key there.
If that was the case Ole Miss, Miss State, UNchest, Nebraska, Michigan, Miami prior to this past year among others wouldn't be bringing in the classes they are.
Like in the article, it might be different for different schools.
For VT, I think winning is the key. For Miami, it's the turnover chain and gangsta image. SEC teams seem to have their own rules, but many of the teams you mentioned aren't recruiting better than VT, in any event.
If VT keeps winning, I'd predict better and better classes. Maybe we'll be discovered by the blue chip recruits in Virginia. If they can win in Virginia, why go to Columbus, Ohio?
Recognition is a funny thing. When you get outside of a few states radius, many people confuse Virginia Tech and Virginia. Blasphemy right? There is a lot at play here. It's also a hard nut to crack or else everybody would. The best approach is to surround the program with good coaching, work our tails off, and overachieve. Since that seems to be the model we are already taking, I am pleased with the state of VT football.
Along those same lines, many people here in St. Louis gets VT confused with WVU.
Then I'm probably not great for the VT brand because I yell at them. (/s)
The argument that our recruiting ability has 'peaked' solely due to revenue is so tired. I get it, more money definitely helps, but blindly defending every football related decision because "Duke pulls more $ than we do" is so effing tiring.
This graph means little in terms of recruiting, because there are many more factors than blindly saying 'Perception = Recruiting.' Bama, UT, A&M, Mich, etc. all 'below average' really doesn't tell a story. The ranking is arbitrary, and the author has no idea what kind of revenue or resources are devoted at any given school.
Show me a graph of 'dollars spent per stars signed' with VT on the top of that list and I'll be totally happy. If we're not #1 there, there is room to improve. That's not an indictment of our staff, it only means we could be better and need to be a little bit smarter than the other guys if our goals are a National Championship.
The article that was posted above about Kirby Smart is a great one. Sure UGA has more resources, but read about the 'recruiting process' he and guys like Nick Saban follow. It's a full time gig for those guys - a lot more than 'UGA/Bama/FSU/etc. recruit themselves'
UGA has between 43-55 football staffers. You keep talking about money doesn't matter and only the people matter well guess how you pay those 50 people, money. There is a direct correlation between top recruiting teams and teams with biggest budgets and staffs.
Wut?
My argument is that we need to continue to look to spend and recruit as efficiently as possible. I think we need more support staff - and I give to HC so we can get there. If we want to be a top 15 program, we need to recruit like one. It's that simple. I don't care how we get there. Again, if we're spending more than anyone else per star we recruit, there is room for improvement.
You spin EVERY post. I didn't say we need to be UGA. Clearly we're not and don't currently have the means to be. I mention UGA because there are many folks who seem to think 'blue bloods recruit themselves,' which is false. Name carries some weight, but you just said it yourself - if they have 50 staffers, they're clearly making it a priority and have a system working that is a hell of a lot more complex than 'Georgia recruits itself.' If it did, they wouldn't need 50 staffers on hand and a HC who lives on the trail.
We could take a huge step forward by bringing in students as unpaid interns. I know for a fact that UGA has unpaid student interns out the roof churning out graphics, hanging out with recruits during the dead time of visits, picking kids of from airports, etc.
Am I the only one growing exhausted of the same tireless discussion of how we need more revenue? Yes we need more revenue to compete with Clemson and Georgia and Alabama but that is not going to come until we start winning more. There's no other way to cut it - people aren't going to pour their money into something that's not winning.
And because someone will say "to win you need money," I will say that yes, but you have to take baby steps. Give people something to buy into and preach a culture of change to recruits to win over the program changing recruits (like Hunter, Dax, QP, Maybe Ford). No one is expecting us to make the playoff now, but people want to see progress. We're in the beginning steps. Have faith.
I want to compliment this point:
We need to start winning more AND start getting dudes in the NFL, and especially dudes that will cash in on a second NFL contract. Say what you want about Vick, but he always had the little VT helmet in the in his locker that was in the background when he gave TV interviews. That gives a huge boost to the "perception" part of this topic. Also, guys like Vick donated a lot of that NFL money back to the university which helps with the "revenue" part. All the above also applies to Tyrod. IMO, in CFB's last few years our biggest recruits by star rankings (guys like Joel Caleb, Holland Fisher, Shai McKenzie, Raymond Minor, etc) never developed into NFL talent which hurts both perception and an influx of cash that they could have donated back to VT.
Curious where you have seen Vick or other former players giving money. The last study I remember seeing said Tech falls far behind its peers in former letter winners donating back to the school.
Linky?
It just seems that this would be a difficult stat to gather/substantiate.
http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2014/january/23/david-teel-interview-j...
We talked about it a bunch here. Article can't be found though.
We are on the left most quartile of that chart. Just scroll your eyes to the right and tell me you don't see more wins as you go. It definately would help to increase revenue, being left of the line means we are bringing in less revenue than we should for just our perception. Should be about $105M in revenue based on our "perception".
Wait...aTm made more money than Texas last year? Huh?
It's that suitcase of money F$U gave them to take Jimbo.
Hmmm. I think people are confusing the concept of 'brand recognition' with 'brand.'
Simply put, brand is the emotional reaction. Brand is how someone feels about you. What this data suggests - however it was derived - is that Clemson has the strongest brand in the minds of P5 prospects. Given the arc of their current success, that isn't hard to believe.
Also it takes time to cultivate a brand. VT is still branded as a defense first program I believe, and our brand will evolve as Fuente's philosophy takes root.