Sipple Nailed It With This One

[Wingback Reverse]

Steve Sipple nailed it in his LJS column this morning on the Thunder Collins episode (Collins' story a cautionary tale) and all of the ridiculous recruiting hype that has polluted college football since the on-line recruiting "experts" became the gods of recruiting knowledge.

Just a few exerpts:

This isn’t necessarily a great story or an inspiring story. It’s basically a sad story. Perhaps more than anything, it’s a cautionary tale about the ridiculous nature of recruiting hyperbole � just a little something to stash away as the Feb. 6 national signing day nears and we crank up the hype machine once again for various Husker recruits.

It’s possible there have been Nebraska football players who received more recruiting hype than Thunder Collins, but I can’t think of many. In the summer of 2000, the Husker radio network breathlessly counted down the days until Collins’ arrival on campus by playing the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck.�

Oh, the newspapers got into the act, too. No question, we had a hand in creating a mythical figure before he ever donned the scarlet and cream. We produced long and glowing feature articles about the big-time transfer from East Los Angeles Community College. His provocative name and credentials stirred the imagination. He was a can’t-miss kid, rated by SuperPrep as the Numero Uno juco running back in the nation.

Sipple went on to say later in the article:

Coaches can leave the hype part to the rest of us � the media, the Internet-based recruiting services, the message boards and blogs, all of that. The Web sites that specialize in recruiting, as I’ve written previously, are getting rich selling hope at 10 bucks a subscription. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. People have been getting rich selling hope for decades.

One thing to consider as Nebraska fans gnash their teeth over lost verbal commitments: Can you truly consider it a loss when you’re not sure there would have been a gain in the first place?

I admit I’m a sucker in this game. I watched video on Rivals.com of Marque McCray a few years ago and instantly proclaimed him to be the next Johnny Rodgers. You remember McCray, right?

Here is a link to the entire article:

http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/01/06/huskerextra/football/doc47801ece72442852781530.txt

[Bills1]

Recruiting is just really really hard tell what is going to happen.  You are talking about a 17 or 18 year old kid.  It is really hard to say what is going to happen.

[tfree32]

Good post Wingback. He makes a compelling case about the uncertainty of recruiting. There were also some good articles in the Omaha World Herald's Sports section today about recruiting that discussed some of Pelini's thinking.

[zeke573]

Good stuff. Thanks

[Valiantsailor]

I read that story this morning and just shook my head.  Here we have a person who had a golden opportunity which he flushed down the crapper.  How many guys on this board would give their left testie for the opportunity that loser had.  I just hope he leaves Nebraska so the good people there won't have to pay his maintenance in the future.

Lemming, Rival, or Scout can look at the athletes but they can't see in their hearts.

[husker71]

I read that story this morning and just shook my head.  Here we have a person who had a golden opportunity which he flushed down the crapper.  How many guys on this board would give their left testie for the opportunity that loser had.  I just hope he leaves Nebraska so the good people there won't have to pay his maintenance in the future.

Lemming, Rival, or Scout can look at the athletes but they can't see in their hearts.

I second that one! Well said.

[HuskerFan2002]

Can anyone realistically say he has a chance to make it into professional football say the CFL or the NFL?

[sweetkorn]

Recruiting is very subjective.  You have different kinds of kids raised different places with different values.  Inner city kids, east coast, the flaky west coast and kids with more familiar mid west values.  Those hard working kids that were willing to work hard.  Then you added them to big city and inner city types that hadn't a clue about hard work yet had some talent.  You get too many outsiders with the hype and you sometimes get a poor chemistry.  Some become impatient, some leave. Some never get it. Very subjective indeed.  Too many believe their hype.  To many never had a chance because of where they came from and the attitudes that came with them.

  We have seen over the years Nebraska recruiting classes that were not rated high from some self promoting, self made experts.  Nebraska at one point was the winningest program in the country for decades and never had a top rated class.  Seldom ever in the top ten.  Many times not in the top twenty from the so called experts of recruiting.  Yet they kept winning with great consistency.  One recruiting service full of self proclaimed experts rated a Husker class as the 38th best in the country one year.  That class won three national titles.  Nebraska had many classes rated lower than most because they had saved scholarships for the walkon program.  They failed in the ratings because of their system of development.  Thus Nebraska was rarely rated with the supposed elite.

Young men with limited exposure to other places can be a gamble.  Will they adapt.  Will they conform.  Will they be patient when they have never learned patients or humility before.  It's a gamble.  It's always a crap shoot.  This is why development of underclassmen is important.  You need that foundation when the flakes blow away in the wind.  You need those smart, dedicated team players who are the mortar between the bricks of what you are building.  Some recruits are all about themselves.  Then there are the few who want to be a part of something bigger.  It is tough to rate what is in a kids brain or heart.  You can rate his speed.  His physical attributes, but it takes a good coach to see through the baggage they bring with them.

[BigRedArmy]

Keep in mind that just because it's subjective doesn't mean its not important.

Those of you with "flights of fancy" that all Nebraska used to recruit a bunch of nobodies and "coach them up" to All-Americans, need to come back down to earth.

Yes, some players get over hyped, but so does the phrase "coach 'em up."

In both the Bob Devaney documentary AND Dr. Tom's documentary, both coaches remarked that recruiting better and faster athletes contributed to their title runs.

So don't ever forget that recruiting IS an important factor in winning.

[sweetkorn]

Never said it wasn't important.  Did I miss something.......

Speed in todays game is what is important. Nebraska has got to import a lot of it's speed.  Osborne talked of it in every interview I can recall about recruiting.  He also talked of the great work ethic that was important from the homeboys.  It's the combination of the two that caused a sparsely populated state to overachieve for decades.  Osborne recruited the kids he deemed worthy.  Not the kids the self proclaimed experts told him were worthy.  His system left many scholarships open to lure the walkons to come to Lincoln.  Thus his recruiting classes were full at 18 or 24 kids on average.  Those numbers caused his ratings to be less than others when the so-called experts sold their lists to the rags.  It wasn't the quality it was the numbers that caused the services to downgrade his classes.  Add those hard working kids to the imported speed and every once in a while it rubbed off on the imports and made a great difference maker.  Nebraska always had quality.  Even when they took the field with locals boys.  Some coaches got it and others need the services to help them.

[Wingback Reverse]

You're exactly right, Sweetkorn.  

Nobody, that I am aware of, has ever said recruiting isn't important.  The point many of us have been trying to make, for all too long, is simply that what the supposed "experts" have to say is really not all that important.  In most cases, the number of stars (and the accompanying "rave reviews") a prospect receives are based on how he does at camps, etc. (as opposed to how he actually does in game situations), and which "name" schools are interested in him.  

The bottom line is that a player from Podunkville, Montanta, in spite of the fact that he may be 6' 4" quarterback who runs a 4.7 and completed 60% of his passes,  won't get many stars unless USC or Notre Dame shows interest in him.  That's the sad reality.

[BigRedArmy]

Just fyi, Dr. Tom's classes were rarely ranked below 15-20 and his 1985 class (Steve Taylor, LeRoy Ettienne) was ranked #1 by Super Prep magazine.

While it's true that the Nebraska class rank were normally "held down" from the number of low star to no-star instate talent offered, if you were to take away those players, Dr. Tom would have classes ranked right with Miami and Florida State.

Also, Tommie Frazier's recruiting class was ranked in the top 10.  I don't blame anyone for getting a little "romanticized" about forgetting class ranks.  It seems during the whole Solich to Callahan recruiting backlash, Dr. Tom suddenly won National Titles with classes filled with wheelchair bound "Special Olympics" athletes that the staff "coached up."  Like I said, Dr. Tom rarely finished outside of the top 20 and if he did, it was a one class thing.

[sweetkorn]

There is more than one service.  That 10th ranking was the best ranking of the services.  A different year I believe.  I don't recall off the top of my head but one of the major magazines of the day (SI TSN or ESPN) did an article on NU's system back then and made a big deal about the 38th ranking.  It was about the total number of recruits that drew that ranking down, and not the number of stars.  Add ten walkons with or without many stars to the twenty or so star players of that class is what brought the ranking down.  If you just add the stars by the number of scholarships used, Nebraska ranked well.  If you add the stars and divide by the total number of scholarships allowed by the NCAA then you get a lower ranking.  Back then each of the services had their own way of ranking. Besides, that year I was referring to didn't have Frazier.  He wasn't a part of the 97 team.

[tfree32]

Just fyi, Dr. Tom's classes were rarely ranked below 15-20 and his 1985 class (Steve Taylor, LeRoy Ettienne) was ranked #1 by Super Prep magazine.

While it's true that the Nebraska class rank were normally "held down" from the number of low star to no-star instate talent offered, if you were to take away those players, Dr. Tom would have classes ranked right with Miami and Florida State.

Also, Tommie Frazier's recruiting class was ranked in the top 10.  I don't blame anyone for getting a little "romanticized" about forgetting class ranks.  It seems during the whole Solich to Callahan recruiting backlash, Dr. Tom suddenly won National Titles with classes filled with wheelchair bound "Special Olympics" athletes that the staff "coached up."  Like I said, Dr. Tom rarely finished outside of the top 20 and if he did, it was a one class thing.

Awesome post, and good point.

[Merlin]

The point is still well made though, Cally had all these top recruiting classes and where did it get us.  Recruiting is important but recruiting what you need and assembling a group that can play well together may be more important and I think that was part of the point of this post.  Yes we do need to recruit speed but you don't have to be a five star player to have speed.  Although I would love to have some 5star recruits, sometimes them guys are so full of themselves that they can't be coached and they fail.