Granted ESD is only 1/2 over, but the overall numbers are pretty solid for what Fuente has tried to build since taking over in 2016.
On offense, the Hokies have signed 42 players. 4 quarterbacks, 9 running backs, 11 wide receivers, 5 tight ends and 13 linemen.
Defensively, he has signed 43. 8 defensive ends, 8 defensive tackles, 9 linebackers, and 18 defensive backs.
Add in two scholarship specialists, and over four years, Fuente has inked 87 total players.
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This analysis is at best incomplete. Some added context that would be helpful:
for at least a full season?I'm not sure what you're arguing/suggesting here?
Edit: updated the first bullet to be a little more inclusive - IMO HH got a 'substantial amount of meaningful snaps.' QP played a 1.5 games in non-garbage time, so I guess I'd consider that substantial as well. I would not count QP's 2018 season 'substantial.' If anyone can think of an easier way to draw the line, I'm all ears.
With regards to distribution and rankings
Nice response :)
The previous four classes (Beamer's last 3 + the mixed year) had 82 signees with 42 being offense and 40 on defense.
The offense was broken down 5 QB, 8 RB, 10 WR, 3 TE, 16 OL
Defense was 5 DE, 9 DT, 8 LB, 18 DB
Specifically broken down:
I'm sorry, but I have no idea what I'm looking at? Can you reformat it so it's understandable?
Odd columns are players signed (by year), even columns are the rating of the player to the left of the cell.
Yes, sorry that is correct.
The odd numbers without corresponding names next to them are the average rating by position group.
The number next to the year is the average player rating.
colors help, too. use "blog_statistics" for table class. other formatting I've tried gets stripped.
So the columns are year followed by average recruit rating for that class. Then these are bunched (for lack of a better term) by position group. Any rating that does not have a name next to it means that it's an average for the position group/year?
Guys, spreadsheeting is not that hard... we can do better than this.
I'm a very good spreadsheeter. The trick is putting it in html. Not nearly as easy as you'd think, especially when I tried putting a table in and not all of the html code was recognized for some reason. I sympathize with the poster.
You can always screenshot the excel/google sheets table, then upload to imgur. That's what I typically do if there's merged columns and whatnot.
Ah, yeah, that's the piece I was missing is getting the URL, which you get with imgur.
Instead of you all working some more on the formatting how about adding Bryant and Herbert so we can analyze it better.
I've never had any issues just copying from excel and pasting here:
http://www.convertcsv.com/csv-to-html.htm
That's what I used
So this is the year he finally starts right?
Meaningful snaps over a full season:
From the QBs: 0. Although Hooker and Patterson have both started games in their careers
From the RBs: King received a fair number of carries this season. Holston can't stay healthy and Wheatley fumbled on his only play of the season, seemingly. The rest got garbage time snaps.
From the WRs: Four or five have received a ton of playing time. Some have redshirted this season.
From the TEs: 2 of 3 have played major snaps while 1 has been buried on the depth chart. The fourth is redshirting.
From the OL: 5 have been starters and I've seen at least two of the others on a regular basis.
From the DEs: I believe I've seen all 5 in significant action
From the DTs: lots of misses early, leading to a lot of newer players getting major snaps during this season
From the LBs: I believe I've seen 5 get regular playing time.
From the DBs: Farley is a 2 year starter, Waller was solid this season as a starter. Connor had some lights out games. Lots of playing time over the last two years for the depth of the bunch.
I don't follow. Hooker started 7 games, playing the entirety of 6 of them, for us this season, how is that not meaningful snaps?
The previous comment asked for at least a full season, of which we have no quarterback meeting that criteria
OK I see where you're coming from, but I think the intent was to avoid players who contributed in only one or two games (like Patterson), not leave out players that have played half the snaps at their position across a majority of a season. (and would have played more but were pulled because we were winning by blowout).
Hooker played in 10 of 12 games, leads the team in passing attempts, is 2nd in rushing attempts to McClease and played about half of the snaps at QB (Willis & Patterson splitting the rest about 2-1)
If I am reading your data correctly, Fuente's first full team (85 scholarship players) has a 0.866 rating vs Beamer's last 4 rated at 0.863, no statistical difference.
Since you seem to be the keeper of the data, what was Beamer's best 4 year rolling average? And what years were they?
My data only goes back to 2007, but over that time frame, Beamer's best 4 year average was the period ending 2015 (.8665). His worst was ending 2014 (.8626)
Fuente's best, so far was ending 2019 (.8675). His worst was 2017 (.8615), which includes the transition year.
What I've garnered is that the median player rating has remained fairly constant regardless of who is coach, while the higher highs were with Beamer, but Fuente has been better at balancing his classes, ratings-wise. Of the ten lowest rated recruits, the nine lowest rated were Beamer recruits.
So Fuente's std dev is smaller while the average has remained the same.
I think I would prefer the Beamer results since only 22 players are on the field at once. A team made up of 44 highly rated players and 40 very low rated players would probably be more successful than a team of 85 moderately rated players.
I would normally agree with you, but it's harder for new coaches to recruit until they can develop relationships with high school coaches and kids. Also, Beamer was taking his talent and still getting 7-6 seasons, while Fuente has already had a 10 and 9 win season, so coaching of the talent counts for something as well.
Correct, I should have put a footnote of assumption of all other factors being equal, then it would be more likely that having a team consisting of a dichotomy of upper and lower end talent would be more beneficial than a team made up entirely of moderate talent.
Agree. Especially if the lower end talent attrits because they know they wouldn't play, allowing you to recruit more upper end talent.
Not trying to be argumentative, but Beamer had like 15 10 win seasons and like 8 in a row (don't hold me to those numbers, I'm too lazy to look them up). Yet people still seem to love to criticize Beamer four years after he is gone (and you have to hand pick data to do that because he took a bad football program that was on probation and turned it into a national power that never sniffed bad off the field press as a program). First it was Beamer couldn't recruit, now that recruiting hasn't really improved it is he couldn't coach. Come on, can't we celebrate a living legend. Sorry, off my soapbox, Go Hokies.
I KNEW I should have put something in there about this. I'm very well aware of Beamer's accomplishments and I think he made us into a football powerhouse at one point. He could absolutely coach, I just think the last couple years he coached though were underperforming years, and not all of that was even on him. I think people started using his age in recruiting against him and there were other things that were going on. I'm only calling into question his last 3 years. You can't tell me he was at the top of his game those last 3 years, that's all I'm saying.
And apparently, even though people were using his age against him in recruiting, Tech still got higher top-end talent than Fuente got.
I would like to remind everyone that there are always multiple reasons why teams win and just as many reasons why teams lose. There were years where injuries to critically important VT players during the season (Michael Brewer's broken clavicle during the OSU game in Blacksburg is an example, but not the only example) were a major factor as to why the team underperformed. If you blame the coach because a key player is lost due to injury and the team did not meet the fan expectations, then it seems to me that you would be willing to fire Saban for Alabama's "failure" this year after Tua's injury.
Coach Beamer was loved and respected by the players, even carrying him off the field in his last game in Lane stadium despite the 3 OT loss to UNC, I don't think he was every criticized for having lost the locker room (admittedly my O&M glasses may be in play for that statement).
He received criticism for predictable play calling (sound familiar anyone?) perhaps justifiably. I will defer to others who are more qualified than myself to evaluate that. However, he was pretty successful with those plays for many years. I think it is unrealistic for many teams to make major changes in the playbook in mid-season even when injuries happen to the key players on the team. He was not perfect but, even in the later years, IMHO he was a Hall of Fame Coach and got the team to ready to play.