Looking back over the past four years of on field play and five years of recruiting, I've noticed a great deal of parity in the ACC besides the 800 pound Tiger in the room, both competitively and on the recruiting trail.
What if I told you there was only one team in the ACC over the past four years that hasn't averaged a bowl game? Who do you think it is? At 5 wins per season, the worst performing ACC team is North Carolina. Somehow, they manage to snag the 4th best recruiting class average, yet cannot regularly manage bowl eligibility.
Outside of Clemson, FSU has the best recruiting average in the conference, yet is 6th in average wins. Boston College is dead last in ACC recruiting, yet with a win tomorrow, they'd have the same number of wins.
Where do the Hokies sit? 5th in recruiting over the past five classes, yet have one more win than any other ACC school, besides Clemson.
Wake Forest has been nothing if not stunning with their 13th ranked average recruiting class, but 4th most wins.
Yes, for some teams, where they recruit is where they finish. Since 2016, Miami has been thirdtops in the Coastal in recruiting and in wins, but has not only made it to the ACC Championship Game once. Georgia Tech, Louisville, Pitt, NC State, UVA, Duke, and Syracuse all seem to finish roughly where they recruit on average.
So which coaches get the most out of their recruits? Well, Dave Clawson at Wake has done far and away the best, at +9 spots. Love him or hate him, Steve Addazio was fantastic at +6. Coming in third is our own Justin Fuente at +3.
Who is worst? Whoever wants to coach at Chapel Hill, -10. The next closest is GT at -2.
Comments
Miami did make to the ACC title game in 2017...but I get where you're going.
Outside of absolute physical freaks like Michael Vick, Lamar Jackson, and others... It's hard to tell whether stars are nature or nurture. Ultimately, the law of averages says that good coaching should be the difference-maker. FSU and Miami are prime examples of how talent doesn't equal success. The thing that exacerbates the issue is that most great coaching staffs get highly ranked recruits who have been coached well in addition to having lots of natural talent. We all know who they are. There is hope for schools that aren't "blue bloods". Fuente is doing a lot of the right things are VT to create those opportunities. There are clearly issues as we've all lamented, however, outside of literally 1-2 players per year, coaching is going to matter more than pure talent.
Since we want to compare ourselves to Clemson so badly, look no further than the data. Their fundraising efforts did not significantly increase over ours until their national title game run in 2015. That is what its going to take for Hoke Club members and non-members to really stroke out a big check. People act like Clemson was giving big for years but the numbers don't align with that misconception.
**Ill scream it a little for those in the back**
WE HAVE TO FREAKING WIN NEXT YEAR. PERIOD.
Fuente is out of excuses. I know some want to claim heresy for speaking against him, but the pressure is squarely on HIM now that Bud is gone and he has revamped the whole defensive staff. He has nowhere else to lay blame. I think Fuente is a solid guy and wants to win badly, but the guy is so damned stubborn its unreal. The biggest peeve of mine is the sheer lack of attention to detail in gameplanning. That has to improve next year with Penn St. on the docket, as well as UNC (lol everybody who said they werent a threat) and did we forget we have to play @ Louisville against Satterfield's crew?
I love VT and Hokie football, but damn its frustrating sometimes. Glad we have a decent forum here to vent, spit, and spew vitriol from time to time. Love you guys and happy new year!
Next year's theme: Just win, baby!
It's time.
Next year's theme: Next year is our year.
FIFY.
I think the ACC is a strange collection of teams for this kind of examination. FSU, with Southern Cal, is a major outlier at the moment for vastly underperforming their elite talent. They are both outliers when doing any macro analysis on recruiting. Wake Forest does a lot of interesting things to maximize development, they redshirt damn near every incoming recruit, etc. They are very impressive, and they seem do a good job of finding and developing QB's at a better than average level, which they need to be a bowl team in any given year. When they don't have a QB, they don't perform well.
However, I think the Wake Forest model would be drastically less successful in a more talented conference like the SEC or the B1G. One thing about the ACC that opens the door for all these lower recruiting teams to consistently win games and make bowl games, is that a large portion of the conference recruits at a similarly unimpressive level.
Let's look at the 2019 class for a moment:
Two teams recruited at a top 25 level - Clemson (10) and FSU (19)
Five teams recruited at a medium level (26-40) - VT (26) Miami (27) UNC (30) NC State (31) UVA (39)
Six teams recruited at a lower P5 level (41-66, P5 teams + Notre Dame should conceivably all finish inside this range, but it doesn't always happen) - Duke (49) GT (50) Syracuse (56) Wake Forest (58) Pitt (59) BC (64)
Outside of P5 level (67-rest) - Louisville (69)
These trends are pretty similar when you extrapolate back a bit.
When you see it this way, it makes a lot more sense that these lower recruiting teams can win a lot of games in this conference. Half the conference recruits at a lower P5 or worse level. If you steal a few from the mid or high recruiting teams (FSU has been happy to lend out some wins to way less talented teams the last few years). It makes a lot of sense that a team like Wake can use development, scheme, and QB play to win football games in this conference.
Let's view the makeup of the 2019 SEC classes:
FOUR teams recruited at an Elite level (top 5) - Bama (1) Georgia (2) A&M (4) LSU (5)
Seven teams recruited at a top 25 level - Florida (9) Auburn (11) Tennessee (13) South Carolina (17) Ole Miss (22) Arkansas (23) Miss State (24)
Two teams recruited at a medium level (26-40) - Kentucky (34) and Mizzou (37)
One team recruited at a lower P5 lvl (41-66) - Vanderbilt (57)
I don't think the Wake Forest model, or teams like BC would have nearly the kind of wins success against this substantially increased talent gap.
However, the sad takeaway from this is that we SHOULD have won more games given this favorable conference setup we've been in.
You talk about FSU and USC doing less with more but look at those rankings for the SEC you'd have top be crazy to think that redshirting everyone wouldn't help Vandy, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Miss St, and Tennessee. They've all been bad for a while. Vandy and Arkansas were two of the worst teams in FBS this year, not just power 5 teams, all FBS.
The reason why it would never work in the SEC is simple, no coach would get 5 years to develop a player. If you have a true freshman that can play you have to do it because the boosters will fire you.
Vandy probably could at least, tbh
Winning/losing affects your own relative recruiting abilities. It is just one of many knobs. But it's absolutely a knob.
It's probably at least 7th or 8th on the list of knobs though. And it's a pretty small knob.
IMO the most important factors in recruiting impact (and these are fairly inter-connected):
1) Athletic program resources (particularly those devoted to football)
2) Location (i.e. in or near a recruiting hotbed)
3) National media cache
4) Program history (which has a half-life of about 15 years)
5) Depth and breadth of fanbase/alumni support
6) Regional and local media, business and political support
Well behind these - and barely registering - are coaching staff recruiting ability and recent W-L record history.
Look at the recruiting blue bloods...Alabama, Texas, USC, Ohio State, Notre Dame, etc. Where do they sit on that list? Pretty high in every category. VT's problems are its not an 800 lb gorilla in any category and in general its strengths are more In the middle of the list and diminish as you move up the list.
Clemson is a bit of an anomaly (and gives a glimmer of hope to VT), but it still rates higher than VT in every category (and much higher in some).
In response to the original point, I agree 100% with where you put recent wins and coaching staff ability.
I'm a pretty big fan of your list overall. But I'm just not sold on "location" being quite as high as you have it.
I have a thought experiment for you. Based on the following list of blue-chip recruit home towns, which teams are represented here?
TEAM 1:
Scottsdale, AZ
Little Elm, TX
Cincinnatti, OH
Charlotte, NC
Bellflower, CA
Montvale, NJ
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Maryland Heights, MO
Sammamish, WA
Rock wall, TX
Catawissa, PA
TEAM 2:
Saint Louis, MO
Alexandria, KY
Phoenix AZ
Honolulu, HI
Mars, PA
Chester, VA
Lake Forest, IL
New Canaan, CT
Red Bank, NJ
P.S. for one of the teams, it gets a lot easier when you start listing off the towns that the 3* kids are from.
Team 1: Ohio State or Notre Dame
Team 2: Alabama (only because the Tagolavialoa's are from HI)
EDIT: if this is a list of only 2020 recruits, Team 2 would be Clemson since I think Brian Breese (sp?) is from Red Bank, NJ. Also I did no googling as I thought it would be cheating.
Among the geographic diversity of Alabama's 2020 class, you'll still find 7 players from within their state, and two from neighboring Georgia.
That's both a pretty decent indicator that they're located in a recruiting hotbed, and a bit of a giveaway for this exercise.
Geography absolutely factors in to some degree. Commit lists like these tend to point to the idea that geography might be less important than we might think.
Team 1
Team 2
No way program history is a 15 year half life. Maybe for the programs without real history, but Michigan hasn't done anything in 20 years and they are still a name and recruit well. Miami hasnt been bak for 17, Bams went from '92 to Saban which was 15 years. Tennessee hasnt been relevant in 20 years but have good classes still. USC is approaching that 15 year mark, but I dont see them having issues. Texas will always be Texas no matter what. Notre Dame will always be Notre Dame yet they've had one relevant season in 30 years.
It's interesting that you didn't list players drafted as one of the factors. I would think that's a big one.
Also, location - you mention near a recruiting hotbed, but I think geographic location desirability (Miami, UCLA, LSU, etc.) plays a part (to some extent) as well.
Here is the thing with recruiting:
You can establish a culture and identity that translates to a lot of wins without bringing in top ten classes. Beamer proved that year in and year out from 1999-2011. We won 10 games all but two years in that stretch, entered the top five in the polls in 9 of those 13 seasons, made a BCS bowl six times during that span, and even went to a national championship.
That approach to winning football is fine. Obviously it translate to success that a lot of teams envied during that time and that we all certainly want right now. With that being said, we still wanted more back then. We won one game against a top five opponent. We won one of those BCS bowl games. We regularly choked when we got those top five rankings.
When you have an identity and culture that you execute close to perfection, you can beat up on teams with less talent easily and even teams with equal talent if their identity isn't as strong. When you play against those more talented teams, though, they will expose your deficiencies. It's why we couldn't beat those Miami teams from 2000-2002. It's why we couldn't beat Auburn in the Sugar Bowl. It's why LSU smacked us in 2007. It's why Alabama beat us in 2009. Our only win against a top five team was against a Miami team in 2003 that was trending downward. They lost to Tennessee the next weekend.
My point is, if our ultimate goal is a National Championship, and it should be, that becomes much more achievable if we recruit elite talent. Otherwise, we have to hope to catch lightning in a bottle like we did in 1999. Another example of that is WVU in 2007. Of course, they choked against Pitt before they could actually play in the National Championship, but if they play that game 10 times, they win the other 9. Washington a few years ago is another good example. Right now, though, we don't even have that much of a culture or identity meaning we can't even catch lightning in a bottle.
I believe this year, 2020, is Clemsons first top 5 class. They've done really well of getting the talent that they need and coaching them up. They've had 2 really good coordinators for a long time now. I am not saying they did this on the back of 3* recruits, they didnt, but they haven't been recruiting like Bama or even FSU.
EDIT: 2018 (Willie's first class) was the first time clemson out recruited FSU.
I still believe Clemson has recruited much better than we did when we were cleaning up the state of Virginia.
They were top 5 in avg recruit ranking twice in a row in 17 and 18. They just took small classes that held them out of the very top classs by algorithm. They had 5-6 five stars in the Lawrence class.
I still contend that the Auburn game and the Alabama game were closer than the box score.
Auburn I can see. Pace missed a field goal and Jesse Allen dropped a touchdown on 4th and goal. Alabama not so much. Mark Ingram dominated that game, and our offense was putrid. If Dyrell Roberts didn't take that kickoff back, we would have lost by a lot more.
This sort of overlaps with a post I made a couple weeks ago comparing star ratings to NFL Draft success. This post compares
recruiting rankingexpected draft probability (which factors in stars, recruiting ranking, home state, and position) to if actual draft rate (not team wins). You'll see that VT players are slightly under performing (in the NFL draft) given their recruiting rank. Over the last 10 years, FSU, Clemson, and BC are the only ACC schools to significantly out perform their recruiting rankings in the draft.EDIT: clarified the x-axis variable
Really interesting, and a little surprising. I wonder what this looks like for the period between 1999 and 2009. I bet we're on the good side of that curve for that period.
Would be challenging to figure out given that recruiting sites are generally thought to be quite inaccurate prior to 2004/5.
Maryland and UNC recruit better than VT, yet win less. It's about selling your program. Locksley and Mack Brown can recruit- losing seasons and military bowls aside. Bottom line.
Maryland? They haven't recruited better if the above chart is correct.
UNC? Barely better if the above chart is correct - and they were....something, something, fake classes...
Maryland's coaches killed a kid last year and have more 4 and 5 stars in 2020 than VT- who hasn't signed a 5 star since 3x legacy Kendall Fuller. UNC coming off a 2-9 season in 2018, signed a better class than VT. That's what I mean.
Both Maryland and UNC got their "new coach" bumps this year.
I seem to remember VT having some improved recruiting under Fuente as well.
I think a new coach is selling future wins to recruits.
Maryland is good at selling them, bad at delivering.
At some point though, a coach has to stop selling an idea and start selling an actual actual product. Fuente is yet to do that. Additionally, even if UMD and UNC are only successful recruiting for 1-2 years, that still chips away at our depth. Any way you slice this, recruiting success of any school within a 6 hour radius of us is something to be concerned about.
We need to be concerned about our own recruiting, not someone elses.
And Fuente so far has these seasons:
10-4
9-4
6-7
8-5
Bowl games every year, only one loss to the in state rival. That's about the smoothest transaction we could have hoped for following the retirement of our 29 year legendary coach.
I think he can still sell wins, since he's been getting them, and is only just now getting what are 100% his players on the field. Next year we'll be working with almost entirely experienced players.
My opinion is that the fan base has been completely unrealistic about what was a turnaround job for Fuente. I do think the jury is still out on him, and it's time to see an uptick in results: Domination of UVa, getting to the ACC Championship, and a bowl win. Maybe start taking out some of the better teams we're playing. Maybe showing some mettle against Clemson.
UNC is going to start to become a monster, so that will be a game I'll be circling on the calendar. We've got an opportunity with Penn State coming to town.
It's Fuente's team now. Tyrell Smith- if he pursues a 6th year- is the only possible Beamer player on the 85 man roster next year, and I doubt he comes back. No more excuses. If we finish 3rd in the Coastal next year at 5-3 behind UNC and UVA for example, I think that is what we have with Fuente.. a 7-8 win coach, nothing more. No magic bullet. Every team in the coastal has question marks going into next year. UVA loses all of their offense, Miami is a dumpster fire that was shut out by a directional school in a bowl, UNC has a nice QB, but holes throughout the roster and they are as young as we were this year, Duke is just not that talented, GT is meh, and Pitt loses their QB and aren't ever that good anyway- if we can't beat them, see my point above. 2020 will tell us alot about Fu. He needs to win the coastal- no more excuses.
Sure, it's Fuente's team now.
And I think he's got a decent shot at the Coastal. UNC will be interesting. They've got a QB who I think is the real deal.
If I had to guess right now, I'd say it's between UNC and VT. I'd give the edge to VT.
We already know a lot about Fuente. He's had winning seasons 3 out of the 4 years he's been here, with a team in transition and lots of moving parts.
You also have to factor in schedule, both those games are on the road next year and we go to Louisville. UNC goes to a rebuilding BC for their crossover game, and Pitt goes to FSU which I don't think anyone knows what to expect from. So we could easily be the best team next year in the coastal next year and not win because we got a shitty schedule draw.
I think we are probably the best overall team, but I can buy arguments for Pitt and UNC. UNC lost all 6 of their games this year by 26 points or something nuts like that, so they are close and they finished the year hot. So I wouldn't be surprised to see them as the preseason favorite.
UNC's offense is scary. Returns 4 guys with over 1000 all purpose yards from this year, the QB, and 4/5 offensive line starters (though I think they had a senior shuttle in and out). Their defense sucks, though they have like 5 4 star recruits coming in on that side of the ball and a couple transfers.
Pitt is the interesting one to me, I think they bring 9 or 10 starters on offense and 8 on defense. They were a decent team this year, and Narduzzi has put a decent program together, douche or not. They had huge turnover on the offensive line this year and I think they bring most back. They could surprise us.
Exactly, which is why I'm not really a big believer in the "litmus test" of winning the coastal.
I'd like to see that, but a lot can happen during the season.
The coastal has been the worst P5 division for several years now. if VT can't hold off a perennial 7 win Pitt program with zero juice in their own stadium and UNC- nice team but not 2015 Alabama by any stretch and plenty of question marks, well I dunno. In terms of schedule, VT also plays rebuilding BC and gets Miami, GT, and UVA at home. Not murderers row here. The time is now to win the one coastal game that we shouldn't lose every year, go up to heinz field and score more than 17 points and beat a top 35 Louisville team. Let'g go. Put up or shut up.
Assuming your talking the chart I posted - that chart is based on recruiting results from 2007-2019, so trends that started a year or two may not be evident. Also, average draft probability is determined based on star ranking, recruit rating, home state, and position; so it may not be wise to think of the x-axis purely as 'recruiting quality.'
Its all about location too. UNC is closer to several major population centers. Same with UMD. Hell, I think UNC is closer to NOVA mileage wise than VT is.
Fairfax to VT- 252 miles
Fairfax to UNC- 262 miles
Obviously varies slightly where in NoVA you are, but its about equidistant. I'll take I-81 over I-95 any day though.
Hear, Hear. To get to DC from UNC you have to drive through Durham, Raleigh, that weird stretch of I-85 forbidden forest between Oxford, NC and Petersburg, and then hit 95 through Richmond. It's miserable. (Why is there always a traffic jam in fucking Fredericksburg???)
81 to 66 is a cakewalk compared to that gauntlet.
(Why is there always a traffic jam from the belway to fucking Fredericksburg???)
FIFY
it's pronounced Occoquan
Winning doesn't impact recruiting nearly as much as people think it does.
Investing money into recruiting, building a staff that focuses on recruiting, and molding your entire program to revolve around how everything it does relates back to the recruiting trail is how you impact recruiting. UNC didn't just luck itself into a good recruiting class this year, they went out and hand picked some of the best recruiters in our region, and its going to pay off for them in the end. Clemson poured money into their recruiting staff and facilities and they were pulling in Top 10-15 classes long before they were in the national discussion.
Those who think, 'oh, all VT needs to do is just win' don't really have a great grasp on what it takes to succeed in all phases of the college athletic scene.
Yep, Clemson has an enormous support staff to assist recruiting, and has created a crazy network of connections for recruiting. They've been building this for a long time as well, and started these efforts when they had similar money to VT.
Winning gets fan support, which gets donations and sells clothing, which gets more money, which buys organization and staff.
So I think it's absolutely part of what it takes for VT to succeed in all phases of the college athletic scene. It certainly was the Frank Beamer approach.
Agree 1000%. When Mack hired Brewster and retained Bly, I knew VT would never sign a better class than UNC so long as Mack is there. IIWII. Tracey Claeys is not going out and competing with those guys on the trail under any circumstances. Who gives a shit if Brewster can actually coach football? I don't - he brings in the players... let someone else coach them up.
Enjoying that some butt-hurt victim is going through and downvoting completely innocuous comments ITT.
Keep going, it only makes the opinions worse. :^)