Maybe it's the offseason cabin fever, I don't know. But, I thought it'd be cool to look at what an "all time" Tech starting lineup would look like using recruiting rankings. ("All Time" is in quotes because recruiting rankings really only date back to 2001.) I get a lot of people replying to me on twitter (@Sam_TKP) with the "ranking don't matter!" schtick and, quite frankly, I tend to agree...to a certain extent.
So, I wanted to see what it would look like if you took the top rated recruit at every position (using the 247 Composite) and made an "all time" VT recruiting roster. Some prefaces:
-Not a lot of recruits are listed as a "Center", so I just added in one extra guard position.
-I listed 2 RB's and 3 WR's
-If a player was listed as one position but was immediately moved to another when on campus, i listed them at the position they played at Tech
-0.9850 and greater is a 5*, 0.8901 and above is a 4*
-4/3 defense
Positions - Name - Recruiting Class - 247 Rating
QB - Tyrod Taylor - '07 - 0.9914
Hokie legend. Best QB career in school history.
RB - Kevin Jones - '01 - 0.9992
#1 recruit in the country. 2nd most career rushing yards at Tech.
RB - RyanWilliams - '08 - 0.9787
Rushed for 1,655 yds. in 2009.
WR - Fred Lee - '01 - 0.9683
Didn't do much of anything.
WR - Richard Jefferson - '00 - 0.9629
Another WR bust in the early 2000's
WR - Joel Caleb - '12 - 0.9519
Never could find a place on the field in that horrid offensive system.
TE - Bucky Hodges - '13 - 0.9409
Moved from QB early. Great career. (Honorable mention for James Mitchell)
OT - Aaron Brown - '06 - 0.9415
Eh.
OT - Vinston Painter - '08 - 0.9331
Absolute Beast. Great Tech and NFL career.
OG - Tripp Carroll - '03 - 0.9341
Left the team.
OG - Doug Nester - '19 - 0.9519
Will henceforth and forever be referred to as "Dougie Fresh".
OG - Wyatt Teller - '13 - 0.9301
Moved from DE. Great hair. Solid rookie season with the Bills.
DE - Ken Ekanem - '12 - 0.9285
The Bell Cow of the LPD before Ricky Walker made it cool.
DE - Zach McCray - '10 - 0.9219
Barely saw the field.
DT - Tim Settle - '15 - 0.9512
Was a beast in the middle. Solid rookie year with the Redskins.
DT - Kris Harley - '11 - 0.9315
Transferred from program.
LB - Deveon Simmons - '05 - 0.9631
Transferred from program. One of the biggest busts in Tech recruiting history.
LB - Dax Hollifield - '18 - 0.9376
The new Bell Cow?
LB - Dylan Rivers - '17 - 0.9045
Developing into a really nice player. Big hitter.
CB - Kendall Fuller - '13 - 0.9923
Lockdown.
CB - Victor "Macho" Harris - '05 - 0.9817
Electric. Pick six against ECU in 2007 is one of the most memorable plays in school history.
S - Devon Hunter - '17 - 0.9799
The best is yet to come....
S - Holland Fisher - '13 - 0.9738
Ugh.
K - Cody Journell - '09 - 0.8351
I mean, he could kick well?
P - Oscar Bradburn - '17 - 0.8243
Best Australian player in school history. Unquestioned face of the program.
LS - Oscar Shadley - '18 - 0.8158
If you never know the name of your team's long snapper, he's doing a great job.
The conclusion? High recruiting rankings don't always relate to on field success. For the Hokies, it seems pretty 70/30. Defensively, the Hokies have been great at developing high talent guys into star college players. Offensively? Yikes. To be fair, OL is the hardest thing to project in recruiting. And WR is largely based on the state of the current roster; big programs have lots of guys who are fast and can catch. Here's to hoping the newer top end recruits will be part of the success stories.
Comments
Filling out a full 85 man roster yields a lot more current players than one would expect...except at running back and D Line.
I disagree. We have 70% hit rate on blue chips. I bet our hit rate on 3-stars is in the 30% range, and our hit rate on 2 stars in even less.
Good recruiting does not guarantee success, but poor recruiting typically guarantees failure.
Right? Now build a roster of Tech's lowest rated recruits and see where that gets you. We've had a couple of surprise stars over the years for sure, but not enough to build a roster with.
Edit: reminder that for a truly apples to apples comparison you can't just build a roster of big name "diamond in the roughs". If you include every possible walk on that came through you're going to have a few stars by sheer volume of opportunity.
Since 2009 we have 53 4* or higher and 20 2* or less (not counting Burnmeister 4* or Hoffman 2*)
Since 2003 we have 72 4* or higher and 50 2* or less (2003 was not a good year)
Numbers from 247 (so numbers will vary using rivals and espn sorry don't have time to make composite today)
So the volume argument when not including walk ons doesn't hold. We have had an incredible hit rate on the 2* recruits.
It's very hard to make a roster of 2*s because we have one 2* QB in the last 16 years. We don't recruit a ton of RBs, TEs, LBs, or DTs at 2*. Oline, Kickers, Punters, WR/DB/Ath make up a lot of the 2*s.
People look to anecdotes of say Kam Chancellor vs Holland Fisher as evidence that recruiting *s don't matter. My point about volume is that the bulk of those 2* recruits (and don't forget walk-ons) don't pan out, but ultimately a few of them will. The ones who do find success are memorable, and create a false impression about how common it is for lower rated guys to pan out.
Think about a less dramatic hypothetical: how do you think these top recruits would compare to a same sized random sample of ALL VT recruits over the same time? I think you'd quickly find that all recruits, regardless of rating, have some risk of failure and some chance of success. But those odds improve significantly with recruiting rating.
Walk ons SHOULD NOT count because they are not using up a scholarship
I was counting them as people often include players like Jack Tyler and Sam Rodgers as further examples of why recruiting blue chips don't matter. It seems like every other Hokie roster has one that cracks the lineup, but we also churn a large number of walk ons that are out of mind for the most part.
Used 247 for the data. I assume that if you are a 4 star recruit that you should be a multi-year starter/contributor on either offense or defense. This might be different if we had Bama level recruiting, but at VT if you are 4 stars you should start multiple years.
For positions like RB I used 100 carries instead of actual starts or otherwise David Wilson and Ryan Williams would not have been hits. Tim Settles is the other hard one to say he was a hit because his RS Frosh year he played in most games but still was limited by conditioning.
Either way that is 25 hits, 33 misses and 11 TBDs (Rivers, Tre, and Dax look to be hits) So that is way off on the 70%. If you lower your standards, we still had 27 out of the 58 that had no real meaningful impact.
'Multi-year starter' is an interesting qualifier as a 'hit' considering only 22 guys start, even fewer start multiple years. Even by your own admission, Tim Settle almost didn't qualify as a 'hit' the way you're doing this, and he's likely one of the better DTs who's ever played for us.
You're also counting guys who had career limiting or ending injuries as 'recruiting misses' which seems to be a stretch.
It sucks that injuries happen, and it doesn't mean they weren't good players, but sometimes the most important ability is availability
Starter isn't the right word, so I was lax on what a starter means, since a nickleback might start the game, but that doesn't mean the whip isn't a starter. Even worse on offense (see Kevin Jones/Lee Suggs, or WRs). I would look at snaps but I couldn't find reliable data for that.
The reason for multiple year is that we have 69 4* recruits over 19 years, that's 3.5 recruits a year so that means we only need 7 starting at one time to make the multiple year starter, that's only 1/3rd the starters. In addition, to that, other than RB, we didn't have 4 star recruits blocking other 4 * recruits (Tyrod and Glennon both man the hits list). If we recruited like Bama, anOSU, UGA, etc, then multiple year starter might not work because you have multiple 5* recruits in front of you.
I don't really like the hits/misses, as it is too extreme. But the ones marked yes met the expectation of a 4* recruit at VT. Injuries suck, they really do, but you can't really call them meeting expectations.
Great post! I nominate this comment for the not-yet-existent 'TKP Comment of the Year' award!
Thanks for this information. I think it largely supports my point - You need to recruit a large volume of high level players because a significant portion of them will under achieve (for a variety of reasons) during their college career. Now, I do acknowledge that it is possible to 'fill in the gaps' left by under achieving players with lesser ranked players who can over achieve their recruiting rank, but from a statistical perspective, it's nearly impossible to find enough 'over achievers' to pick up the slack of the 'under achievers' (TKP - please disregard the negative connotations associate with these terms, it's just the best terms I could think off)
Slight nitpick - I think Jerod Evans should be a 'Yes' - I know he's not a multi-year starter, but he consistently performed at the level that I'd expect of a 4-star for an entire season. I also think Webb should be a TBD; he might still have a 4-star season left in him.
Had to draw a line with Evan's, had he stayed a year then it wouldn't have mattered. There are lots of ways to judge a players career.
Edit: Like I said below, if I had different data, and more time I would include more. I made a judgment call and went with it. But for everyone who thinks 1 year starting is great think back to Stephone Anthony never really put it together until his senior year, when he picked Clemson we offered Maddy. Would you rather have Maddy for his career or Anthony. Would you be upset with 1 year from a 5* knowing a Luther Maddy existed and could have been a hokie?
For completeness. Again 247 rankings. I did one year of starting for a 2* since that is more inline with expectations of a 2*, but included the multiple year starting. Starting again is a little loose with the WRs as defining a starter just by playing the first play of the game isn't right, so number of catches was used. (I would use snaps but no reliable data). I removed ST players, but all 3 were starters at their positions.
For 1 year starter 9/21 is 43% (ST 50%) (4*+ 52%)
For 2 year starter 7/15 is 32% (ST 36%) (4*+ 43%)
So take out 5 stars (Jones, Harris, Vick, and Fuller) who all hit. Change Settle, Painter, and Evans to hits and you get a 44% hit rate on 4 stars. The 2* group hit on 11 out of 24 or 46% (I count 2year ST starter as hit).
By this calculation we should be more excited about 2* than we should 4* recruits
My take away is that if we are offering a 2 star guy, it is probably for a good reason. It doesnt mean 2 star is greater than 4 star.
Yea - that good reason is that we failed to close on our first/second choice.
I'm pretty sure this comment was intended to scrutinize the metric used to measure success, but it's worth mentioning that not a single person in this list was a 'game changer'. I understand this is an extremely arbitrary measure, but I counted about 15 people on the list of four/five-star players who really elevated the level that our team could play at. No one on the list of two-stars had drastically changed the outcome of a game for us.
All conference or All American nods would be a relatively straightforward way to qualify "game changer"
Yeah, I didnt have the time, i would have loved to get more information. Also Noland Burchette was to early for 247 ratings for 2* recruits but rivals had him as a 2 star, so that's another really good player not on this list.
The reality is it's hard to find a definitive measure of these things. For example, Isaiah Ford was not an all american but was still the most productive WR in school history.
He was 2 time all Acc. Not exactly slipped through the cracks
This is why I went with multi year starter/contributor. If I had the time I could do it by number of plays. But that doesnt truly show big time playmaker vs 5th best healthy oline.
Wasnt Clowney our "in" to Boca Raton? So he changed the game by getting us Hosley and Maddy?
No no I stand by my argument, 2* are scientifically proven to be more impactful than 4* recruits, and Fuente hasn't landed a single composite 2* recruit. This P5 staff can't recruit, fire everyone
Deveon Simmons didn't transfer, IIRC. Never even made it to VT.
I really liked Tyrod Taylor as a Hokie. He certainly was a great QB for the team and single handedly (a term that is perhaps inappropriate for a team sport) won a lot of games for us, yet (source :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Virginia_Tech_Hokies_starting_quar... ):
In the end, it may depend on the criteria you value most. One thing for sure was when he was behind center, most of us felt the Hokies had a chance to win.
Tailgated with Cody Journell at the UVA game this year for a couple hours. Made a pile of boneheaded moves while on campus, but he was nice and cool to me while I peppered him with questions...nothing too deep, didn't wanna ruin the mood.
Heh you peppered him you say?
Painter was a really highly regarded prospect who wasn't able to crack the starting lineup until his redshirt senior season. I'm glad he was able to develop and have a solid senior year and parlay that into a journeyman NFL career, but saying he had a great career does not strike me as an accurate description.
I saw this on my phone and logged in to comment about the Vinston Painter remark. He Didn't have a stellar career at VT at all. He could never get on the field. I asked about Vinston Painter at one of the Orange & Maroon tours up in Arlington, on why such a highly rated recruit and a guy who's the strongest on the team (weight room) could not get on the field. WE were told by the coaches that Vinston hading timing issues and had trouble with holding.
I remember going into D2 for lunch one day and seeing Painter coming down the stairs as he was leaving. He way the largest person I had ever seen in person. Then, when I was leaving D2 45mins later, he was coming back up the steps for another round.
Of course rankings don't matter when you're only looking at the very tippy top of them by position over 19 years....
Cool idea and great job doing the work to put it together. I would just nit-pick a couple of things:
--I love, love, love Tyrod Taylor, but I can't consider him having the best career for a VT QB. For one thing, he lost to JMU, as a senior no less. And also, he wasn't Michael Vick. I know Vick only played 3 years (including his redshirt) to Taylor's 4, but Tyrod was pretty sub-par his freshman and sophomore years.
--Vinston Painter really struggled to see the field in college until his senior year. Things did click for him that last year, though, and he had a solid NFL career.
Ken Ekanem was the bell cow of the LPD before Ricky mad it cool?
Let me tell you about the lunch pail, it was given to the defensive player of the game every week, then Darryl Tapp got it and said "take it from me", We had to get a new lunch pail because Darryl took it with him when he left. We've had many bell cows of the defense and they were always cool becuase that's what footballs about, defense.
I don't remember exactly when it started (early 2000s? late 90s maybe?), but Tapp is probably the all-time Lunch Pail legend.
I don't think the LPD was a thing that far back, but I've also got to give a shout out to JC Price in the mid-90s, who basically defined what a VT defensive tackle should be.
1995, Bud used it the first year he was DC. Bud's defense has always been the LPD.
I like what you've done here. The only thing I would have done differently is putting Logan Thomas as the highest rated TE, not Bucky. Now Logan was listed as a Pro Style QB, but he was always being recruited as a TE and even performed as a TE at various camps IIRCC.
As a side note. If we had hit just one of EJ Manuel, Tahj Boyd, or Marquise Williams, Logan would have played TE and our offense would have been better for it (not taking anything away from what Logan did while at VT).
Yeah, we went on an epic streak of missing on QB prospects for a few years.
Sadly, that was probably a portent of the decline in VT's football program that was to come. I don't have 100% confidence in Fuente right at this moment, but one thing he has done pretty well is recruit solid QB prospects.
I believe Rivals even dropped Logan's ranking after the Army All-American Bowl- because he wasn't fast enough to play WR...
Also, Boyd and Manuel were never gonna come here, but we promised Marquise Williams the moon and he still didn't come. Still salty.
Hard to beat UNC if they promised him they were going to hire Mack Brown in 2018.
Bama annually out recruits our 20 year highlight list.
Healthy perspective.
It's not healthy to compare what you have to everyone else without perspective.
Everyone is two stars by either Rivals or 247. We hit on a lot of our two star recruits, like 60%, we might want to focus on them (except QB)
QB Ju- Ju Clayton
RB Brandon Ore
RB Sam Rogers
WR Josh Hyman
WR David Clowney
WR Danny Coale
TE Kalvin Cline
OL Ryan Shuman
OL Christian Darrisaw
OL Nick Marshman
OL Zacariah Hoyt
OL Caleb Farris
DE Noland Burchette
DE James Gayle
DT Derrick Hopkins
DT Luther Maddy
LB Cody Grimm
LB Lyndell Gibson
LB Jack Tyler
DB Roc Carmichael
DB Detrick Bonner
DB DJ Parker
DB Greg Stroman
S Brendan Hill
S Roland Minor
K Nic Schmitt
P Brent Bowden or Michael Branthover
LS Collin Carroll
Replace Jack Tyler and Cody Grimm with Alzono Tweedy and Lyndell Gibson to remove walkons on defense, Sam Rogers becomes Kenny Lewis jr. on offense. Then you have only scholarship recruits
Damn that's a lot of heart there. These guys may have been a 2 * but damn if most of them play 100% all the time. Those guys are the guys I think about when I think Hokies.
At a glance I can say with absolute certainty that James Gayle, for example, was a high 3*.
Perhaps the bigger point, particularly with all those mid 2000's recruits, is that none of those guys would have been 2*'s in today's age of camps and increased recruiting coverage.
This idealistic clinging to our "roots" and developing players doesn't really exist anymore, not in today's recruiting climate. Gems still exist but they are far fewer between.
That was a big problem doing this, there arent enough 2* recruits, rivals ESPN had him at 2* but 247 had 3. We couldn't field a team with consensus 2* recruits.
Edit: There are less 2 * recruits now than there were. But mainly where we get our 2* recruits is Athletes that become wr or db and oline, which is hard to project. So yeah James Gayle, Brandon Ore, Clowney, Hyman, all the DBs would probably rate higher now.
If you want to take Gayle out then Kory Robetson or Cordarrow Thompson can take his place