Football recruiting analysis

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psychlone99

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Apr 6, 2006
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I sat down during my afternoon off to take an objective look at 3 recent recruiting classes. I wanted to compare, for the sake of discussion, Chizik's first full class (2008) to McCarney's last 2 full classes (2005 & 2006). I decided to exclude the 2007 class from my analysis as it was somewhat of a hybrid, which is difficult to analyze. I was hoping to include a few more classes for a stronger sample, but the work was daunting and I have plans this evening!

Before I explain my process, I want to preface my findings by saying this was not done to tear down one coach and build up another. As I said, I just wanted to take an objective look at the numbers and see how things shake out.

What I did was look at the total number of commits from each class, the total offers EXCLUDING IOWA STATE, and the total BCS offers EXCLUDING IOWA STATE. I then calculated the average offers per commit and the average BCS offers per commit.

Keep in mind that this is entirely based on the Rivals database, which isn't perfect. An example from this year is Ruempolhamer who, according to Chizik, had late offers from Nebraska and Texas Tech. These offers are not listed in the database, but for the sake of consistency I used Rivals data only.

Here's what I found:

2005 Class
Average offers/commitment: 2.04
Avg BCS offers/commitment: 0.96

2006 Class
Average offers/commitment: 2.03
Avg BCS offers/commitment: 1.17

2007 Class (excluded)

2008 Class
Average offers/commitment: 2.43
Avg BCS offers/commitment: 1.65

Again, keep in mind that these averages do NOT include Iowa State. I checked, double-checked, and triple-checked my counts, so I'm confident they are correct based on the Rivals database.

Without adding too much in the way of commentary, I will simply say that I think this shows a strong start to the Chizik era. Mix in an improvement in player retention, and I think we're heading in the right direction.
 

LeaningCy

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Jan 18, 2008
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Pretty sure when I first looked at this, your rep was around 20K. Not that it matters, just kind of interesting to me.
 

lennon3

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Apr 11, 2006
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I posted the exact same thing last year comparing Chizik's first class compared to the last two by D-mac, and there was a very noticeable difference in offers by BCS schools!
 

jumbopackage

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Sep 18, 2007
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Those numbers don't really mean anything without comparative data from other teams. What does Nebraska look like? Colorado? Texas? Oklahoma? Missouri?

I mean if the average is still something like 5 or 6 for other schools, a very very minor improvement isn't really saying much.


And, again, there are a ton of assumptions made when you're using rivals data. Some schools are better represented in rivals than others.

That being said, I do feel this is a better class than DMac's last few.
 

ultracreative

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Sep 8, 2006
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Those numbers don't really mean anything without comparative data from other teams. What does Nebraska look like? Colorado? Texas? Oklahoma? Missouri?

I mean if the average is still something like 5 or 6 for other schools, a very very minor improvement isn't really saying much.


And, again, there are a ton of assumptions made when you're using rivals data. Some schools are better represented in rivals than others.

That being said, I do feel this is a better class than DMac's last few.

F other schools, we're talkin' about ISU baby!
 

ripvdub

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Mar 20, 2006
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It means were getting better players. Couple that with a better coaching staff and weight trainer... and we win more games. We dont need to concern ourselves with what other teams are doing, its more important we get better.
 

Wesley

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Apr 12, 2006
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Or recruiting is getting tougher with more competitive offers than ever.
 
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psychlone99

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And, again, there are a ton of assumptions made when you're using rivals data. Some schools are better represented in rivals than others.
Some schools may be better represented when it comes to star ratings, but this analysis had nothing to do with stars. This is all about confirmed offers, which is pretty solid information in the Rivals database. It's not perfect- there may be some offers missing- but it's extremely accurate in most cases.

Regardless, there's no real way to manipulate the data. A recruit either has an offer from a school or he doesn't, and I think offers is a probably the most objective tool for judging a recruit. Do you learn more about a recruit by seeing that he is a 2-star? Or do you learn more by seeing that he was offered by Iowa State, Wisconsin, Colorado, Virginia, and Kentucky? (Jeremiah Schwartz)
 

jumbopackage

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Sep 18, 2007
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Some schools may be better represented when it comes to star ratings, but this analysis had nothing to do with stars. This is all about confirmed offers, which is pretty solid information in the Rivals database. It's not perfect- there may be some offers missing- but it's extremely accurate in most cases.

Regardless, there's no real way to manipulate the data. A recruit either has an offer from a school or he doesn't, and I think offers is a probably the most objective tool for judging a recruit. Do you learn more about a recruit by seeing that he is a 2-star? Or do you learn more by seeing that he was offered by Iowa State, Wisconsin, Colorado, Virginia, and Kentucky? (Jeremiah Schwartz)

No, confirmed offers are NOT reliable, since schools can't disclose that information. While it may be fairly accurate, you can't guarantee that, because nobody really knows for sure except the schools that offer, and it's an NCAA violation for them to tell you that.

On top of that, offers isn't necessarily a reliable indicator, since a guy might or might not be offered by a school based on the needs and desires of that school. We aren't going to be offering a bunch of QBs because we've already got enough in the pipeline.

And it DOESN'T mean we are getting "better" players based solely on how many guys have offers. Just like stars, a million offers doesn't make a guy a better player, just a more popular one. Also, it does matter what everyone else is doing in our conference, because we can be an awesome team, but we won't win any more games if everyone else gets better at the same rate we are.

My main point is that you don't know how much of an increase .4 or .6 is without comparing it to other schools who are at the tier we wish to reach. If the "average" for top 25 teams is 10 offers/kid, .4 probably isn't statistically significant, especially given the accuracy of the data.

At the end of the day, it's totally pointless in the first place, since all that matters is how they perform once they are in the program.
 

isugcs

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No, confirmed offers are NOT reliable, since schools can't disclose that information. While it may be fairly accurate, you can't guarantee that, because nobody really knows for sure except the schools that offer, and it's an NCAA violation for them to tell you that.

On top of that, offers isn't necessarily a reliable indicator, since a guy might or might not be offered by a school based on the needs and desires of that school. We aren't going to be offering a bunch of QBs because we've already got enough in the pipeline.

And it DOESN'T mean we are getting "better" players based solely on how many guys have offers. Just like stars, a million offers doesn't make a guy a better player, just a more popular one. Also, it does matter what everyone else is doing in our conference, because we can be an awesome team, but we won't win any more games if everyone else gets better at the same rate we are.

My main point is that you don't know how much of an increase .4 or .6 is without comparing it to other schools who are at the tier we wish to reach. If the "average" for top 25 teams is 10 offers/kid, .4 probably isn't statistically significant, especially given the accuracy of the data.

At the end of the day, it's totally pointless in the first place, since all that matters is how they perform once they are in the program.

I disagree with most everything you just said simply because there's no perfect way to analyze a class before they hit the field. That said, this is a pretty good analysis.

A comparison to other schools would be useful, in that it would be a good indication of a "offer inflation rate", of sorts, year over year. However, an increase is an increase and that's a trend. The trend is positive that indicates we're getting better and I think the results reflect that.

I like the use of this data because an offer indicates that a school feels confident enough in the ability of the player that they would rather have that guy on the team, as much or more so than someone else. You make a valid point if it is true that schools cannot release information about who they offer, however, it would be awfully ballzy for a recruit (or recruiting service) to claim an offer from a school when in fact they do not. If anything offers are probably under reported. That's my opinion.
 

jumbopackage

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Sep 18, 2007
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I disagree with most everything you just said simply because there's no perfect way to analyze a class before they hit the field. That said, this is a pretty good analysis.

A comparison to other schools would be useful, in that it would be a good indication of a "offer inflation rate", of sorts, year over year. However, an increase is an increase and that's a trend. The trend is positive that indicates we're getting better and I think the results reflect that.

I like the use of this data because an offer indicates that a school feels confident enough in the ability of the player that they would rather have that guy on the team, as much or more so than someone else. You make a valid point if it is true that schools cannot release information about who they offer, however, it would be awfully ballzy for a recruit (or recruiting service) to claim an offer from a school when in fact they do not. If anything offers are probably under reported. That's my opinion.


The fact that you don't know if offers are actually there or not is my point. It makes the data invalid, and that makes the analysis invalid.

A single increase is NOT a trend. It's a data point. And it's maybe not even a valid data point because you don't trust the source data. On top of that, there's no way to determine if it's statistically relevant without looking at other classes, or at least more than 2 other years of our own data.

My point is that there is NO real way to analyze a class before they hit the field. There's no point getting worried or excited about a class of kids before they hit the field. That's why the whole recruiting world is so pointless. It's like breaking down the technical ability of a race car that's never turned a lap on the track while it's sitting on blocks in the pits.

Look at Notre Dame, or Miami (FL), or Nebraska, or TAMU. All have had awesome classes in the recent past that really haven't turned into much success. People obviously care about recruiting, and I admit that it's interesting to keep an eye on the future of the program, but reading anything into these kids other than they are going to be part of our program in the future is really sort of pointless.
 

psychlone99

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I think you're splitting hairs here for the sake of being argumentative. If you understood how this information is collected and confirmed by the Rivals publishers before being put in the database, you would know that it is very reliable. Not perfect, but reliable. Sure, there could be a few bogus offers here in there in a class, but out of 55-65 total offers it's really an inconsequential number.

I will admit there is no perfect way to evaluate the quality of a recruit before he actually steps on the field. Anyone that claims to have a perfect method would be lying. But an offer represents a school's belief that a certain player is a quality player. The more schools that believe a player is a quality player, the more likely I am to believe he is as well.

It's the best tool we have available to us as fans.
 

Bobber

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Apr 12, 2006
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It's not fair comparsion for McCarney's last two years to Chiziks first two. You should compare McCarnery's first two years at ISU(when he was the new stud coach). That will be the more telling stat.
 

Wesley

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Apr 12, 2006
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Whatever happens, we need to win more than 3 or 4 games next year to make more recruiting headway.
 

psychlone99

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It's not fair comparsion for McCarney's last two years to Chiziks first two. You should compare McCarnery's first two years at ISU(when he was the new stud coach). That will be the more telling stat.
You probably wouldn't want to see those classes. Iowa State didn't set the world on fire with recruiting just because they had a new coach.

If anything the comparison should favor McCarney. Afterall, it's comparing his final two classes, after he had almost 12 years to establish himself on the recruiting trail, to the first full class of a rookie head coach. The fact that the average 2008 recruit has more offers than those in 2005 and 2006 speaks volumes, in my opinion.