Based on some earlier conversation throughout a few threads, over the last couple days I have gone into 247 and pulled data to break down our average Recruit Rating according to the 247 composite for the first 5 years of the Fuente era as well as the last 5 years of the Beamer era, to total the past decade of recruiting.
All of this is out of the 64 teams that made up the Power 5 at the time
Beamer
2011 - 84.49 - 33rd Natl - 6th ACC - 3rd Coastal
2012 - 86.46 - 24th Natl - 4th ACC - 2nd Coastal
2013 - 87.70 - 20th Natl - 4th ACC - 2nd Coastal
2014 - 85.99 - 26th Natl - 5th ACC - 3rd Coastal
2015 - 86.35 - 28th Natl - 5th ACC - 3rd Coastal
Fuente
2016 - 84.85 - 37th Natl - 7th ACC - 5th Coastal
2017 - 86.13 - 26th Natl - 5th ACC - 3rd Coastal
2018 - 87.46 - 23rd Natl - 4th ACC - 3rd Coastal
2019 - 87.39 - 28th Natl - 4th ACC - 2nd Coastal
2020 - 84.98 - 54th Natl - 12th ACC - 7th Coastal
Couple of things stand out to me here. First, despite what it might seem like to some, recruiting hasn't fallen off a cliff under Fuente. The numbers just don't back that up. The problem is, they're not really improving. Our average rating per recruit might be trending slightly upwards, which I mean if you discount last year, it is, but its also worth pointing out that the average rating per school in the Power 5 has risen from 85.10 in 2011 to 87.34 in 2020. We also just don't see as many absolutely terrible classes in the Power 5 than we did back in the 2011-2014 range. Nowadays, the bottom class pulls in averages that bottom out between averages of 79 and 80 in 2011 and 2012 to classes that now bottom out around 83.7 and 83.6 in 2019 and 2020.
Across the board, recruiting is improving in the Power 5. The bad schools are pulling in classes that would have been in the low-average range 10 years ago. And the top of the food chain is getting more crowed as more and more teams raise their level to where we are. Last year might have been an aberration, but the charts show that with the trajectory we've been on, schools are catching up, and we're slowly falling back from those we were on an even playing ground with 10 years ago.
Some other observations I've made through this.... Pac 12 recruiting is absolutely terrible. They are a 3 horse conference when it comes to recruiting - USC. Oregon, and UCLA. And honestly, no school is as skilled at absolutely wasting talent as UCLA. They routinely get highly rated classes that should vault them to the top of the sport, especially in the conference they are in, and the fact they still can't manage to put it together is noteworthy. They are a sleeping giant that just can't figure it out right now.
Comments
I think Arizona State is on the path to joining the relevant recruiting race.
More importantly, I really appreciate the work here.
Based on this data point, class rankings per year 2011 to 2020
Az St - 40, 50, 41, 25, 17, 25, 34, 40, 18, 22
UCLA - 37, 22, 8, 12, 4, 18, 15, 24, 46, 30
ASU peaked at where UCLA was bottoming out for a span of 5-6 years there.
Antonio Pierce putting in work...and an Arizona alum, no less. For shame!
The overall upward trend is an interesting stat. Flat line could be (and apparently is) a downward trend vs the average P5 school.
If you got this far, does that represent an overall inflation of the average national recruit? Or just the higher ranked guys are ALL going to P5 schools?
Higher ranked guys have always gone to P5 schools, for about as far back as the designation has been defined (used to be "Auto qualifying conferences" and "Non-qual conferences").
The ceiling of the top G5 schools is right around the floor of the P5 schools, with a small band of overlap.
To visualize this, check out the 247 Talent Composite.
In 2019, The top ranked G5 school is UCF (#54).
The bottom ranked P5 school is Kansas (#74)
The other part of your question (the inflation of recruits scores over time) seems to be driven in large part by more evaluations (more camps, ranked athletes, access to video), by the services incorporated in the composite. It's quite likely that the average kid coming out of high school might be a little stronger physically than, say a decade ago. But that doesn't seem to explain why the scaling for the composite should change so drastically.
Here's an idea of how much the scale has changed from top to bottom when ranking the individual FBS signees from top to bottom by composite score:
Rivals has actually been far more consistent in grading players top to bottom over the years than the 247 composite, which is telling.
Basically, the 247 composite is a messy dataset. I've been working on both patching and rescaling the composite, but it's a time consuming project and it's still a work in progress.
The composite has become the primary language of recruiting, but over the last 4-5 years, as 247 has poached the best talent from Rivals and other places, and increased their own scouting and eval departments I actually trust their in house rankings the most currently. If there is a notable discrepancy between a player's composite and their in-house 247 ranking, I'm always leaning towards the in-house rank. Especially for their evals of blue-chip guys.
Just thinking out loud, but how much are those scores affected by "the big dogs" recruiting players. In other words, are scores affected by how heavily players are recruited by highly-regarded teams, and are rankings partially affected by the feedback loop?
If you got a chance to read the recent Athletic article about the OG Recruiting gurus, one thing kind of stood out to me: Tom Lemming began driving around the country watching & meeting recruits and their coaches to generate recruiting lists. A few years AFTER he started compiling his lists, one of his clients (Vanderbilt) sent their coaching staff up to meet him and teach him how to review film.
I'm not an insider, so I'll stop my answer at that. But it would appear that evaluations and networking are both tools you would use to make accurate rankings.
A good amount. If Alabama recruits a 3* player then you as the rating service will think "what did we miss that Saban saw". Obviously Bama know what they are doing, so those recruits will get more scrutiny, or just get a bump.
To this point, it would be great if Alum07 could add an average of all schools curve to use as a point of reference. Thanks for this work, Alum07.
Might take me a while to get that added. But I can quickly give the Yearly Averages here:
2011 - 85.10
2012 - 85.99
2013 - 85.51
2014 - 85.70
2015 - 86.20
2016 - 86.09
2017 - 86.42
2018 - 87.28
2019 - 87.33
2020 - 87.34
ouch
Greater than 1.0 above Average: 0
Between 1.0 Above and 0.5 Above Average: 0
Between Average and 0.5 Above: 5
Between Average and 0.5 Below: 1
Between 0.5 Below and 1.0 Below: 1
Less than 1.0 Below Average: 3
Considering most classes have been 20th-30th ranked and we are hitting about average that means the top teams are killing it compared to everyone else.
You can see it in the top chart, the space up near the top is a lot more sparsely populated than the big logjam right around the average.
Nowadays, the bottom class pulls in averages that bottom out between averages of 79 and 80 in 2011 and 2012 to classes that now bottom out around 83.7 and 83.6 in 2019 and 2020.
Is that inflation, or is it related to stipends, which put teams outside of the P5 at a disadvantage?
It's not just stipends working against teams outside the P5. It also works against teams within the P5, like VT. I read an article recently (and linked it in another post) that showed the LS for LSU "made" $17k in stipends while playing there. VT's COA is lower than Auburn or Alabama.
Here's a story from 5 years ago with P5 COA numbers (then) listed.
https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/full-cost-of-attendance-e...
Yeah, there needs to be better regulation for that. Stipends should be fair.
But now that athletes can get paid on the outside, I wonder if that will have an even bigger effect.
I guarantee that it will- and it won't favor VT if you're expecting a national championship.
This is an interesting chart. Thanks for putting it together, Alum07.
Looks like it's primarily the 2020 and 2021 classes that are really going to drag Fuente down. Best we can hope for is a rebound very quickly, whether we pick it tf up for 2021 or land a stellar 2022 class.
My $.02 on the subject
I've been working on something similar. I think a box plot is a good way of comparing our recruiting over the years:
Takeaways:
This further supports my theory that, in order to get 10 wins, you should recruit with the goal of having at least one All-American each season.
TL;DR - Fuente needs to increase the ceiling on his classes, even if it means (significantly) dropping the floor
Disclaimer: Analysis only considers HS recruits, not JUCO/Transfers
Isn't that exactly what he's been beaten up for on here for the past year? We've taken some bigger swings at nationally ranked dudes (pretty sure naming them at this point amounts to a CG violation, so I won't do that), meaning we've been spending less time chasing that mid/low 4* guy that we've been pretty good at getting the past few years. It means that when we miss, the bottom falls out a little bit, because there are teams that have been giving the full sales pitch to that mid/low 4*, and we don't have the clout to come pluck someone away from a UNC or a Pitt necessarily. It sounds like Fuente agrees with you, but that the fan base revolts when it doesn't work.
i'm not gonna vilify the guy for trying, but man is it pretty damning if that's the strategy and you can't even land one in back to back classes
So, I think your argument is around recruiting strategy; how do we maximize return given available resources? And this is a valid point. But, if you look at the numbers, you basically need to recruit at least 2-3 players in the 0.90-.95 range to get the same output as a single player in 0.95+ range.
Yea - it looks like an execution issue rather than a strategy issue. I don't have enough (read: any) insight into how VT recruits, so I don't know what the problem is (VT brand image, bagmen, facilities, W/L record, relationship building, etc), who's responsible (Athletic Dept, Fuente, Staff, bagmen, etc) or how fixable it is. Perhaps BAG or LAHokie who seem to know would be willing to talk more in a thread behind the paywall.
Whatever the case, I think the data show that the average/median rating of a class doesn't matter a whole lot (within reason) and that getting a couple stellar players and a bunch of average joes can be better than a bunch of above average players. But... I acknowledge your point about the risk/execution challenges.
Yeah it seems to me Fuente recognized we had to change up how we approach recruiting. A big part of that was the texas movement and generally increasing the recruiting footprint. We obviously received very encouraging results from that early on in the approach and is likely what inspired the discussion revolving around this being an elite class. Since then, many of those guys we were in early on are get plucked away for whatever reason. Maybe we are getting big dogged or maybe that distance starts to weigh on some of these guys as it becomes closer to a reality. So yeah, Fuente did exactly what everybody wanted and is now getting criticised for it.
On top of that, the entire 757 seems to have an odd chip on its shoulder where VT isn't good enough for the best talent and VT is the devil for not being interested in the "lesser than power 5" talent.
This is awesome work, and I'd love to see some of the continuations of this work that you have hinted at during the breakdown.
I think looking at this on a class by class basis would be interesting as well. I've seen a few recruiting guys mention that a hit rate of 50% in any given class is usually pretty good (seen other %'s as well), now "hit rate" is a bit subjective given your criteria of a "hit" and I've seen some higher percentages used as the baseline for solid classes as well. Would be interesting to see if perhaps our contributor/bust rate is starting to overtake our stud rate. This idea of hitting on about 50% of the class also seems to align with your suggestion that...
because that means you already know that about half the class won't pan out for one reason or another, so you'd rather have 12 studs, and 13 lower ranked guys in a 25 man class, know that your hit rate will be higher on the 12 studs, and if a few bust, you only need 2-3 lower ranked guys to develop to meet your hit rate. Additionally, once you've met that 50% hit rate, you probably hit on a lot more higher ranked, higher ceiling guys. So of that 50%, I'd bet the avg recruit ranking of the hits is much higher than a class where you take 5 studs, 15 middle of the road, and 5 lower ranked guys, for example.
I did a tangentially related, non-visualized version of this looking at our 2016 transitional class (and I ended up doing a few others), where I broke down the whole class into 3-4 different buckets (I think starters, contributors, busts, transfers) just to see if they were truly as bad as it seemed. I remember finding there were a lot more lower-rated guys that panned out than you might think, but that of the guys who become starters/contributors perhaps they weren't as good as the average starter/contributor of our better days in the past.
This is a great visual. I don't know how hard it would be, but an additional chart that attempts to adjust the data relative to the overall trend in P5 would also be telling.
I think that would be doable... Maybe one line that plots the ACC Median class each year, and another line that plots the P5 median every year? I have that data from 2005-2019. My data for 2020 was last updated before ESP, so there's a ton of uncommitted players, and players who flipped.
This is amazing work. I don't know if you're planning a more formal writeup, but reach out if you do.
Thanks. I think I want to do a stud/contributor/bust analysis on each class and recruiting bracket. Might take a while though. I'll keep you posted.
At what point in time did the rating services begin to not have any real D-1 recruits not be evaluated and come in with 2*s, and is this a factor in the bottom ranking being higher now, or is this another thing on the long list things that happened much longer ago than it seems to me?
A lot of people call 2011 to now as the 'modern era' or recruiting. I'm not sure exactly what changed, but I think social media and the adoption of smart phones were huge contributors to the improved accuracy.
Here are a few visualizations of recruit evaluations/scores that might help answer your question:
The first chart shows the difference in variance among star rating between the 247 Composite and Rivals (primary difference being that 247 tends to have more 3*; Rivals tends to have more 2*).
The second chart shows the wide variance at the lower end of the ratings between the 247 composites rankings over time, and the relative consistency of Rivals.
The third chart provides only players ranked in the Composite. Rivals generally has far more recruits ranked (I think in recent years they've evaluated nearly 10,000 recruits a year).
In General, Rivals has a pretty complete data set by 2003.
247 didn't exist until 2010, so the composite from before then was retroactive. There are lots of gaps and holes in the composite pre-2010, and the player ranking scale from that time is inconsistent and appears to be fairly arbitrary.
Keep in mind- these sites have their own evaluation scores. The composite is supposed to be an average of these evaluations- composite scores are not actually evaluations of any specific player.
Can you provide a little more explanation about what you're showing in this chart? (Like a key for the ranges, dots, x's and shaded regions?)
It's a standard box-and-whisker plot that shows the distribution of recruit rating (not rank) for each year's class:
TBH, I don't know what the 'X' in each plot represents. I suspect it's the mean rating for that class, but I'm not sure. I'll validate later and update.
Thank you! This has got to be by far the most concise way of showing our recruiting history I've ever seen.
viva Bud Foster!!!
Ah, I love a good data visual. Thanks Alum (and Bar). Looking at these, you cant deny that recruiting is definitely not a dumpster fire, but you also cannot deny that 2020 was bad. I think recency bias is driving much of the discussion on recruiting right now (as has always been the case honestly)
Yeah, I agree that recruiting isn't bad. But at the same time, its also not good. We've generally been able to tread water above the glut of College Football, not able to rise to the level of legitimate contenders, but still keeping our heads above water. Over the last 3 recruiting cycles, we've kind of allowed the fray to catch up to us and pass us, which is definitely worrisome going forward. Even if we had maintained the pace of 2018 and 2019 with the 2020 class, we still would have been solidly falling back within the masses.
It really highlights how football staffs across the country are putting a heavy emphasis on improving recruiting. The average rising 2 points in 10 years shows this, and seeing the ratings above 91 get far more crowded than it ever was before while watching the bottom line steadily rise just furthers it.
It really shows that we absolutely need to make a very deliberate emphasis to improve recruiting to a higher level than we've been able to manage before. Otherwise, trends are showing that we're in danger of falling way behind our peers (and at this point, I'd call the 2nd tier of programs our peers) and its much more difficult to catch up than it is to maintain.
This has really been the core of my entire perspective. Yeah, recruiting isn't god awful, but it's not good either. No question a lot of the recruiting issues are institutional, because the resources it requires to perform at a top level in today's climate have never been emphasized or a priority at VT. People wonder why the Hokie Club didn't make growth a bigger priority during the Beamer heyday - frankly I don't think Beamer and his staff would have known what to do with the added resources or have thought there was a need at the time.
Now we are at this huge debate on whether it's the staff or resources. I think it's a combination of both. Fuente's mindset seems to be if we had more resources the recruits would simply start being more interested. I disagree, I think you have to have a recruiting-oriented staff who can execute and make use of the resources. You can't afford to just have a staff full of coaches only who aren't effective recruiters or effective communicators. You can have a few, but not a whole staff. There's way more to it than strictly coaching.
There is also limited evidence to suggest that the system in place can be an equalizer of sorts and allow us to compete with lesser talent. So something has to change - either we start recruiting better athletes or develop a system and culture of consistency. So far, I just don't see either really materializing, and that's my worry.
I don't think this is quite the thought process. I think it may be more accurate to say that with more resources we could:
Getting 'more resources' assumes that you use the resources well.
The other thing is that the more people you have working with recruits, even if staff members, the more different personalities that a recruit might click with. Every person is different, no one thing can draw people to a college. Having as many different people as you can should help.
That's sort of what I'm saying. It's not just getting more resources and hiring more people. We have to use those resources wisely and hire the right people. I don't think it's more about getting the word out and communicating, but branding our program and effectively selling why you should commit to VT over X school. Our brand is stale right now, and we don't have the resources or a clear plan to fix it.
And this isn't just a Fuente issue, this is a Whit and Sands issue. Is VT investing a lot of resources in baseball (a low return program) w good use of resources? Is VT actually committed to the resources and culture needed to be a big time modern football program? Something has to change or else we will be continually spinning our wheels at best and slowly falling behind the pack.
Funny thing about baseball... it's actually a revenue generator for the school, but not the athletic department. NCAA gives baseball 11.7 scholarships can be divided between a maximum of 27 players. That means you have ~15 kids paying tuition for 4 years at $15k/year (if they're all in state) = ~900k. Increase that for out of state kids.
That said, I do question how much Sands cares about football. My guess is that he'd rather turn VT into Purdue than a UF/PSU/OSU (meaning that he'd prioritize small gains in research/academics over big gains in athletics), which is not what I want.
I agree, major concerns about Sands and his vision for the football program. VT has made immense strides and growth on the academic side in the last 30 years. I would hate to see us completely abandon football which also brings so much more attention, revenue, and notoriety to the school. I would hate to see us turn into a Purdue frankly.
Strong agree. For what it's worth, I don't have any insight into Sands' opinion of the athletic department, or his goals for university culture/comparisons (beyond what has been stated publicly about pursuing AAU membership). But I really, really, don't want to be Purdue.
No offense to anyone with affiliation with Purdue, but the word that comes to mind is irrelevant. And I can't help but see us slowly hurling ourselves toward that. A good but not elite massive public university with no notable sports programs makes me sick to think about.
Honestly, I would rather us be well rounded like Purdue than be football dominant like Alabama. I grew up locally in the boom of the Beamer years and saw what the national football attention did for the area. You can directly attribute the 460 bypass, CRC, and the growth of businesses between Chrisiansburg and Blacksburg to Beamer/Vick. However now that we are at this point Sands is making the logical next step.
Let's face it we have hit our football ceiling. We would have to hire a sleazy salesperson type coach (Hugh Freeze, Lane Kiffin, James Franklin, Mack Brown) to recruit to a 50% blue chip ratio and I do not want a part of that. The only other option is to strike it rich with a Dabo type coach which is a wish not a safe bet.
Instead he has forged a partnership with Carillion that has us on the road to a med school. That puts us a law school away from tier 1 status which is huge for the value of our degrees. As a land grant university practical education should always trump athletics so I see this as a universal win.
Athletically, investing in non-football sports has us in front of more faces year round. The basketball team and wrestling teams have been fun to watch and are competing at a high level. Track and soccer are also competitive in the acc and climbing nationally. Keeping fan interest year round shortens the football off-season and reduces the crazy fan noise that takes over.
Sands has us on a good track, he may have made a few mistakes but I am excited to see where this goes!
I would rather VT be a good state school with a nationally known football program and once every few years top 1/3rd of the ACC basketball program than a big blob of known-for-nothing in the middle of nowhere Purdon't. Sorry but HARD pass.
Furthermore, let's play devils advocate. How much more is the med school realistically going to grow? Let's think about this socioeconomically and politically. UVA dominates the state as far as a med program. VCU is also far more entrenched than the VT school. That's not even factoring in regional competition from UNC, Duke, Wake, UMD. How much more can you grow before you reach an over saturation point? Like in VA already where there are too many damn law schools. Why do we have to try to out-UVA UVA in everything? Why can't we accept and embrace our place as the ag/engineering state school with the better football program? It's like one game this past fall where we are playing like dog shit and looking soft against Furman and they're showing clips of the ESPN crew wine and cheese tasting with Boyer (all due respect to the man). What in the hell universe did I wake up in?
I can understand your point up until you bring up competing with UVA. The goal isn't to compete with UVA, we are distinct schools with unique student populations. Duke and UNC are 7 miles apart and are both AAU schools. The goal is to be in the top tier of schools nationally. I graduated in Horticulture, one of the original 5 majors. AAU status puts our program in the realm of Cornell, Cal Davis, University of Florida, etc. That is good company in my field.
It would be great to win a National Championship in football but our alumni base is never going to buy in enough to compete at that level. That is the reality. What we can do (and are already doing) is churn out hokies with high demand degrees. If adding a med and law school brings more people to hokie nation that didn't have that opportunity before, what's the harm? What it does do is grows our alumni base so that we will have more support for athletics. So if we try to be UT-Austin, OSU, or UF and land at Purdue that is a lot better than stagnation and an empty trophy case because we went all in on becoming Alabama without the resources.
I disagree about the alumni never buying in to compete at a higher level. First, I honestly don't know if Beamer's staff would have known what to do with the money (I'm serious, it wasn't a priority then); and second, nobody ever asked! That's what boggles my mind. It's not that tech fans don't want to give, it was never asked of them or made a priority. Shit, when I was a student, I thought the Hokie Club was some shadowy organization. It's always been supported by a few wealthy donors and a bunch of people who give decent money for seats. That model has to change, and I believe wholeheartedly if this school and administration wants to change it, we can. I'm not satisfied to resign myself to being Purdue forever. If that's the reality, then I'll hop off the train now. I don't want to see VT devolve into a blob of irrelevancy, which we are heading straight forward to if we don't do something.
And as far as adding a med school and law school - at this point, to borrow from Joe Pesci in the Irishman, "It's what it is." Any attempts at expanding those areas are a pure money grab. The state is already so saturated with elite medical and law schools - why can't we just be VT?
I get what you're saying, but research medicine and engineering do fit together, so it seems like organic growth to me.
I think the way they're doing it is not "out UVAing UVA". It's more VT being a better VT.
If they can do a high-quality job of it, and the degrees are worth pursuing, it's all good.
I don't think that there's anything that VT could do that would damage our reputation and my opinion of the University more than opening a law school. The reasons are many and diverse, but VT's never going to have an elite law school, it's not going to bring in any kinds of significant money on either the front end or the back end, and the reputational costs would completely unacceptable.
True.
There is already overcapacity on the law school front.
I think this is why we needed a medical school considering all science research funding we've generated in fields like biomedical systems engineering, medical chemistry, nanomedicine, nanoscience, etc. that it VTCSOM was the next logical step. Like it or not, no self-respecting school is content to just maintain the status quo. I'm fine with taking chances and building a better school.
But I still have no answer for Boyer's wine bar and the push-up robot dog ending up on ESPN.
I don't want to be Alabama (the university) but UF, OSU, Michigan, Penn State, Texas A&M, Michigan State, etc are all research universities that are ranked similar or better than VT, that have also invested heavily in athletics. I'd rather be a top 50 university with a top 25 football team than a top 20 university with a top 75 football team.
Hard disagree, on so many levels.
Having a deal with Carillion does not put further away from being a great football school. You know what does? Trying to rebrand the school without considering the impact to the athletic department. Having a blanket fundraising policy where the athletic department/Hokie club is not allowed to solicit from donors until the academic side of the university tries first.
We should not be getting a law school. Law schools and Business schools are VERY network and reputation dependent. VT should focus on being the best engineering/science/ag school possible. Frankly, I'd much rather see us develop a quality, affordable, online program than a Law School.
This (the emphasized text) is categorically false. The top 25 football programs right now have more eyeballs on them during the offseason than any non-revenue sport at VT. Ever heard of the Flutie effect? Remember how applications to Virginia Tech rose after our national championship appearance? This idea that have a top-5 olympic sport and a top 50 football team is better for the university than having a top 25 football team and a top 25 olympic sport is complete bullshit.
I'm not saying I don't care about non-football sports (quite the opposite), but I, and most of our fan base, care about football more than anything else. Football is deeply ingrained in the university's culture. I would hate to lose that.
I'm not as confident as you are. I don't pretend to be connected, but from my point of view, he's most concerned with growth, even if it puts the university's culture and history at risk. I'm all about the med school and the innovation campus, but I'd be devastated to see VT become Purdue. That's what I'm afraid of.
This 100%. The reality is that VT, in the current landscape of CFB, will never be a top dog, compete for a natty, or "win" the coveted recruiting battles. It's just how things are, the rich are only getting richer. I much rather Tech be a revered academic institution than a football factory. Unfortunately, that is a binary choice. Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed and still do watching the football team play. But when I was student, I loved catching the random wrestling, volleyball, baseball, etc. games. Getting a bball game ticket in the lottery was just as exciting as winning one for football. Ultimately, I didn't chose Tech to watch sports, I chose it because I wanted a quality degree. It's kind of like a college should provide education first. All the sports are amazing extras, that provide amazing opportunities to some students that may not get a chance at higher education, however, they shouldn't be the end all be all. CFB and BBALL have started to twist the landscape of college as a whole, and to be nationally competitive in the former, you have to drop some sports, pool extra money, and double down into one sport, that honestly may not be around in the form we know it in 10 years. Education, imho, is worth putting more effort into than trying to achieve a goal that we are not realistically going to compete for.
No it's not. There's plenty of programs that are in between Purdue and Alabama - both in terms of athletics and academics. Why do you think it's binary? We can be a top 25 football program and a top 50-75 research institute at the same time.
For sure. However, we aren't going to compete for a national title. That was more my point.
I mean, the likely hood of one of the perennial top 25 schools being a top 50-75 research institute is pretty high I would think. However, they don't seem to be competing for national titles.
Of recent national title winners (5 years) only Clemson makes the top 100 coming in at #74
-Given a ten year span you get Ohio State (#58) and Florida State (#62) in the top 100.
-15 years, add Florida (#26) and Texas(#27).
-The highest ranked academically being Florida (#26) and they haven't won since 2008
-For reference VT is #46
Everyone besides Ohio State and Clemson are struggling and/or trying rebuild. Like the OP on this thread said, you need to hit a homerun hire for HC and/or pour tons of resources into football to compete nationally. I agree in the sentiment that the majority of alumni are not willing to put towards the funds to make us a national title contender. However, I'd be ecstatic if we were a perennial top 25 team as I think that is our current realistic ceiling.
Edit: I didn't see Bar's post about "that football is championship or bust." Which I wholeheartedly agree with, and is why I am arguing against Tech making the push to compete nationally. But then my question is, what is the measuring stick for success in a sport?
I feel like this is the tough question that we might as well ask. How much money should we spend when we're almost certainly not going to win a championship anyway?
First of all, I can't tell you how much I disagree with the notion that football is championship or bust. That's not what college football is about, and if that's all you care about, then you're doing it wrong.
Anyways, to address your question, you have to start by defining what the value of football/athletics is to the university. It's something that shapes the student experience, a means to engage alumni, and a HUGE economic boost for the town of Blacksburg.
I don't know exactly how much we should spend/invest, and I do think the Athletic department should be run without university funding, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be considered when the university makes strategic decisions.
Well said, and while it might not happen again do to the inflation if Athletic department budgets, the VT athletic department was a major donor to get the library built. So there is a lot of value to the academic side of campus.
I think this is how most people view college athletics.
As providing a lot of intangible (and some tangible) benefits to the university.
Virginia Tech has absolutely been a beneficiary in terms of name recognition from it's association with college sports.
I don't agree with that either but based on discussions here over the last year, that seems to be the case for a whole lot of fans. Some would even accuse you of lowering the expectations, making excuses, and causing the program not to reach its true potential.
really really appreciate the good work illustrated here -- thanks Aum and Bar!
Finally, Alum07 posts something worthy of some legs.
But seriously, great work. Oh, also, I re-hosted the original charts on Imgur for posterity's sake; brinkleys.org kills its files off periodically.
Man that gif still makes me smile and pissed off at the same time. It is funny because that is what makes sports great but it pisses me off how unprofessional it is in that setting. Admittedly, probably not that pissed if they are cheering for us.
Having that broadcast on ESPN because one team scored should been reason enough to remove at least one of those guys from the booth going forward, at the very least removing them from games involving either of those 2 teams again (Miami and VT, if I remember correctly)
Yall are like rabid dogs when it comes to the VT victim complex lol. I'm sure there have been times that announcers have gotten plenty pumped up about a VT score or great defensive play but the camera weren't on them. They got pumped over a football play, a really exciting football from a neutral stand point. But everyone thinks that there is some systemic conspiracy against VT for some reason.
I don't give a shit that it was VT. It could have been the other way around, and I still would have the same opinion.
Unless you're employed by the school and broadcasting on their behalf, you're supposed to remain impartial on these national broadcasts. Reacting like that is showing favoritism toward a given result, which brings your own integrity as an impartial broadcaster into question.
But then again, with ESPN and their tendency to put guys like Vitale into Cameron Indoor Stadium as often as they do, I guess being an impartial announcer is something that went out the door for their college broadcasts long ago.
Yeaaaaah, I dont believe that for one moment lol. I've never heard fans here complain that the announcer is too favorable towards their team. There is so much whining and crying about favoritism by users on this site. They are announcers, their input doesn't change a single thing. There is no integrity involved. I'd rather listen to someone getting jacked up on great plays than some smuck sitting in the booth remaining as neutral as possible in fear of offending people.
A team scored a hail mary TD to end the half. That's exciting as hell, who cares if they high fived afterwards. If it were us they would have done the same thing.
I thought it was a funny moment, captured in time forever to look back on how "ridiculous" that was that they were seemingly rooting for one team.
However, the legitimate anger and vitriol they got from VT fans was too much. In my opinion it was not remotely worth getting as upset, and then for many lashing out a those guys over social media.
Damn Joe off the top rope today
It was the comment you made earlier got me thinking how we stacked up nationally, and kicked this off. My new job is basically running reports all day, so I was able to make it look like I was working while putting this together. I just wish there was an easy way to export that data from 247, but that probably wouldn't be a good business decision for them.
Another way to measure this is how much closer each coach was able to clear the Blue Chip Ratio benchmark that is now a solid indicator of how a team has a chance to compete at the top of college football. Basically, the ratio reflects your program's ability to bring in more 5/4 star talent than 3 stars and below talent.
Using the BCR, the best classes thus far for Fuente were in 2018 (7 four stars vs 19 three stars) and 2019 (7 four stars vs 16 three stars). This initial jump from the end of the Beamer era was primarily due to the 'new coach shine' and initial buzz from appearing in the ACC championship and giving Clemson a close game. (BTW, during his time recruiting in the modern era, Beamer and staff pulled one class with 7 four stars which was their best BCR result, the remaining years were usually 4 or less top end recruits per class)
Considering the average class is about 24-25 players, that means Fuente and company need to double the amount of 4 stars in order to consistently get in the 14-15 four star range per class to even be considered at the lowest end of the Blue Chip Ratio group of teams that can compete for a CFP. Problem is, I do not believe they will achieve that goal. Too much damage was done over the last two seasons (2018 disaster and the 2019 roller coaster that ended with Fuente flirting with Baylor) that all but erased the 'new coach shine'.
The only thing left now is how we set expectations as a fan base. We can re-litigate Beamer vs Fuente all we want but it will never be an apples to apples comparison considering how much modern recruiting has narrowed the competitive landscape. The truth is, the top (~15 teams) have absolutely separated themselves itself from the rest of the group.
The VT standard in the new recruiting era under both Beamer and Fuente is competing for the Coastal, getting an average recruiting ranking class somewhere in the 0.86 to 0.87 range, hopefully getting close to 10 wins, and appearing in a nice bowl game. If that is the standard, Fuente can probably deliver that outcome more often than not. However, if we ever want to compete at the top, the mission should be to find the head coach (and staff) that can pull elite recruits and get to a roughly 50% BCR.
FYI, I'm curious to see how a successful 2020 season (beat PSU, win 10 games, Coastal champ, give Clemson a shot, win a NY6 bowl game) would impact the final 2021 recruiting class but it is probably wishful thinking to imagine Fuente pulling in a bunch of 4 stars considering VT currently has none.
One unfortunate thing is that one of our great selling points is a full Lane Stadium on game day.
And this year most stadiums may end up looking like Scott stadium.
We win there a lot though....
Could you imagine losing in that place? Man that would suck
I don't think this is a feasible expectation. Let's pretend for a second that there is a coach out there that could make that kind of recruiting impact at VT. Now, tell me what that guy would be worth? The ROI for jumping into the elite echelon of talent in college football is huge and would allow us to shell out some serious cash for that guy. So, if it was that easy, don't you think everybody would do it? Truth is, that is more like a fairy tale than a realistic expectation. It is an oversimplified solution to an overcomplicated problem.
To be honest, well more than double what Fuente makes ($4M) when you compare to what the other top college football coaches are making. Consider it the 'VT Premium'.
No it isn't easy because not every team has that kind of cash on hand to spend NOR are they willing to spend that much of an aggressive investment on one head coach. However, considering how programs at our around the top spend to be in the elite group, it would appear that teams correlate spending with success. It may actually be that easy.
If all of the discussion is around how to dramatically increase athletic department revenues (which VT is improving), then my first investment as an AD (when revenues increase to make it feasible) would be to find the best candidate willing to coach at VT for ~$8-10M a year. My hunch is, someone would pick up the phone if that is the offer on the table.
VT would have to go WAY outside its comfort zone to do so, but its not a fairy tale to think that we could afford a top coach at that price range with a nominal increase in athletic department revenues.
It's not just the head coach. So you also have to pay at the top end for assistants, and be willing to invest in facilities and other resources that this coach feels are necessary to take the program to the next level.
So at a certain point that turns into real money.
It gets truly impressive when success doesn't come fast enough, and the fan base drums said coach out of town, and then you have to add buyouts to that expense...
i'm not going to drop any fancy graphs but what I did see from the last 10 years of recruiting is that Fuente isn't doing a better or worse job (in terms of results) compared to Beamer. Beamer average 86.198, and Fuente has averaged 86.162. What has changed is everything around the program - our average rank has dropped by 1.6 spots in the ACC, and 7.4 spots nationally.
Takeaway - we haven't changed, but the football world around us has/is. If we dont change tactics then we're going to trend down to the bottom of the barrel.
I think we have changed tactics. Fuente has changed plenty about the program.
Seems to me we're in the nervous stage where we haven't seen positive results, and it's worrying.
Not to be overly pessimistic, but the change in tactics hasn't been fruitful (yet). Our 12th(?!?!) ranking in the ACC doesn't look good, and if that is directly tied to our change in tactics then we are doing things very wrong. That said, I would love to see what our rankings would be like had Davis reneged on his commitment.
Update:
So I went into the data and started putting together charts based for the other Power 5 conferences as well, and I'm noticing some.... interesting behaviors.
Simply put, in each conferene, I'm noticing periods of time (3-4 years in a row, minimum) where the progression of a group of schools follows the same path, if not identical paths, just separated by ranking. You can kind of see what I am talking about in the ACC chart where from 2014 to 2019 the lines of VT, NC State, Georgia Tech, Virginia, and Boston College all follow the same trend, separated by roughly the same gap at every data point, and you can also see it through Clemson, Miami, North Carolina, and Louisville from 2016 or 2017 through 2020.
I'm not exaggerating, I am seeing these trends in every. single. chart.
Keep in mind, all of this data is based off the 247 composite, which is supposed to be a compilation of all the recruiting services out there, and... well... Look, I'm not a statistician and I didn't exactly ace my stats classes at Tech, but there are way, way too many moving parts here and way too many data points that we're comparing to see consistent trends like this. Something looks fishy here.
TL;DR - the pattern you appear to be seeing is 247's attempts over the years to make their conversion and scaling standard. Looks like they've gotten there, but some past seasons are a bit of a mess. I've started work on fixing that.
......................
DETAILS: The composite, as a dataset, has got some serious kinks. There are two major problems to using the 247 composite- SCALING is the most likely reason for the issue you've discovered. (The other is patterns of missing players and rankings from pre-2012).
There's an explanation you can see when you plot out all of the FBS signees composite scores each season from highest to lowest. in 2009 and 2010, the curve is really close to the 2018-2019 curve. Before 2009, this curve is way off, and after the messy 2011 and 2012 seasons, the trajectory drifts back towards the original 2010 curve.
Given the history timeline of 247 sports, it appears that the conversion from each service they applied to make their "ideal" retroactive curve in 2010 was simply applied backwards from there. Those seasons have less data, so those curves just drift downward and appear to "crumble". (The stair-step in the earliest season is simply because you're looking only at Rivals' scores- they use a far less precise scale, so this is how all of Rivals' seasons look when graphed). Don't pick on Rivals, though- they're really the only service that has been consistently ranking the FBS signees since 2002.
In 2011, it looks like 247 tried to use the same standard conversion to all of the ranking services moving forward. The grading curve instantly became a mess again. The number of FBS signees sharply dropped that season, and it looks like 247 themselves was to blame. Their standard for giving a recruit a composite score is to first have them in their own database. It looks like they were just behind in their evaluations so they never really got around to evaluating all of the recruits from the 2011 class.
2012 was a banner year for the overall percentage of 4* recruits (heck, we had 7 that year); it looks like they tried to make some adjustments at the top end of their curve, which was never really a problem that needed addressing.
Graphs from my comment above. These graph show both the natural curve that I used from combining the 2018 and 2019 seasons' FBS signees (the red "Reference" line), and the actual composite from that season.
When you "recurve" the composite scale, those weird jumps and trends pretty much disappear:
The "curve fixing" I've been doing is still a work in progress. Only after creating a giant patched and curved composite, I recognized that the service academies were skewing the ratings at the bottom end. (You can still see a slight general climb upwards in the ACC graph above. This is due to the major recruiting services completely ignoring the service academies until the 2010's).
So a final "standard" curve should exclude the service academies for several reasons: They have no limit for a signing class (I think one Army class has 70 ** signees). Also, they actually seem to compete primarily with the FCS schools for their recruit pool (for example, there has never been a blue chip since 2002 who signed with a service academy. Most G5 schools and even a couple of the top FCS schools have signed a Blue Chip recruit).
From my first draft of rescaling the composite, the scale that 247 seems to be aiming for, regardless of how many FBS signees are signed in a given season, is represented similar to this series of derived curves (Using every signee from the 2018 & 2019 classes):
With the service academies removed, the final curve would simply have a couple less 3* and a lot less 2*, so a sharper drop off at the end. I still expect ~13% of the top signed recruits to be 4*; but instead of the top 80% of recruits being 3* and up, it will probably end up more like the top 85-87% of FBS recruits.
Nice writeup, and that helps a little. But I am really talking about seeing trends like this:
And this;
As well as these:
And these are just the ones that I found at an initial glance.
And its not every school. But there are enough schools where this is happening, especially in the ACC, where it does lead one to wonder if there might not be something else going on. Its almost like there are some algorithms in place to ensure that some schools maintain a certain hierarchy regardless of what is actually going on. I mean I get what you're saying, but that would show there might be certain trends going on. What I'm seeing is that there are literal congruent paths being followed, which isn't only explained through 247 running adjustments on the whole, especially considering this is the Composite which should be taking into account multiple agencies that should be doing their own independent work.
Wow- this actually shows up on my adjusted graph as well.
I thought you were referring to earlier seasons where this happens across all schools.
I don't have a good answer for this phenomenon, but now I'm hella curious, too.
Edit: My first thought is- does the conference average follow this trend across these seasons?
My first guess was that there was some kind of conference bias in play, but then I noticed, at least at first look, that it appears it only impacts a portion of each conference. And then, more curiously, the ACC is impacted by 2 separate trends, in overlapping years.
It does appear that the ACC is hit harder for this than the others.
In your trends graphs above, the following hold true (exceptions in parentheses):
2015-2016: numbers drop (no exceptions)
2016-2017: numbers rise (Texas, TCU, Baylor)
2017-2018: numbers rise (OSU)
2018-2019: numbers generally trend towards the center (somewhere ~85-86 for P5 programs)
2019-2020: no clear pattern
I suspect the composite made a rather large correction somewhere around 2019 or 2020:
Edit: labels
I believe the composite may have dropped the service academies from their "scaling" in 2020.
The number of academy signees inversely skews the general ratings of the low ***/high ** players, since there are so many more of them present in some years than in others. This should be far more evident in the G5 conference graphs.
Not sure if this warrants a new thread, but was relevant to this discussion: