Recruiting rankings for this years 1st team All-ACC

T

TIARB

Varsity Lurker
Joined
Dec 3, 2001
Messages
303
Lots of threads below about the value of recruiting rankings in terms of establishing how kids will pan out in their careers.

This is a topic that comes up every year, and one could have endless debate.

I thought it is interesting to look back and see how the 2003 1st Team All-ACC stacks up wrt recruiting rankings for these kids. Yes, many other things contribute to success, such as coaching, etc., but certainly the 1st Team All-ACC does indicate some level of successfull performance on the field.

The ACC Area Sports Journal just recently broke these down into the following categories:

Prep All-Americans
Many Div-1A offers from BCS conf schools
Some Div-1A offers from BCS conference schools
Low number of Div-1A offers (i.e only 1 from BCS conf school, others from non BCS conf schools)
One Div-1A offer

The breakdown is as follows:

Prep All-Americans
Alex Barron - FSU OL
Michael Boulware - FSU LB
Darnell Dockett - FSU DL
Carphonso Thorpe - FSU WR
Randy Starks - Maryland DL (offers from Michigan, Penn St., UVA, others)
Philip Rivers - NC St. QB (magazine does not list his offers, but states he was a Super-Prep All American, Top Ten in Alabama, with mulitple offers from several BCS conf schools. IIR, he was not offered by either Auburn or Alabama, and personally it is tough for me to label a prospect in the highest category when he was not even offered by any of his in-state major programs. But the ACC Area Sports Journal is the one ranking kids here)

Many Div-1A BCS conf school offers
C.J. Brooks - Maryland OL (GT, USC offers)
James Butler - GT DB (Alabama, AU, UGA, USC, UT)
Chris Douglas - Duke RB (Clemson, NC St, others)
Keyaron Fox - GT LB (AU,UGA, UVA, others)
Eric Henderson - GT DL (Clemson, Iowa, Kansas St., Tulane)
Hugh Reilly - GT OL (UNC,UVA, UT)
Stanford Samuels - FSU DB (GT, Miami, others)

Some Div-1A BCS conf school offers
PJ Daniels - GT RB (Northwest, Stanford, Tulane)
Leroy Hill - Clemson LB (GT, Lousiville, Marshall)
Heath Miller - UVA TE (Iowa)
Matt Zielinski - DL Duke (BC, Wake)

Low Div-1A offers
Tyson Clabo - Wake OL (Marshall, MTSU)
Jerricho Cotchery - NC ST WR (So. Miss, UAB)
Andre Maddox - NC ST DB (UCF, UConn)

One Div-1A offers
Sean Locklear - NC ST OL
Eric King - DB Wake
 
BW, and it did a good job of it! It's really about the OFFERS, not the stars. It's pretty basic in that the 85 scholly limit requires coaches to not make too many mistakes, lest they become unemployed. They become unemployed because they lose. They lose because they don't get the better players. It's embarrassing how hard so many work at trying to convince others and themselves, how it's perfectly ok to more often than not, sign players who receive fewer offers from major programs, than do the players on the teams you have to face on Saturday.

Isn't this basic? Look at the offers our own ALL ACC players rec'd...ok?! We can cite exceptions all day long, but it's the rule that wins out. THWG
 
It is almost impossible to talk about how many 'stars' a kid had while recruiting, and compare that to later years.

First off, the stars vary from one recruiting service to another - what is 3 stars in one is often 2 in another, and vice-versa.

Second, the star system for ranking within the same recruiting service varies from year-to-year. Per one of the recruiting guys at Rivals, for example, it is 'much harder to get 3 or 4 stars this year than last year' and that 'many 2 star kids this year would have been 3 stars last year'.

So the only real metric that is worth-while for detecting 'sleepers' is to see what other competition missed on the kid. For example, Jonathan Smith was a 'one star' recruit, but he had offers from F$U and others. I certainly would not consider him a 'sleeper'. The same can be said for Reco Wimbush.

I think what this analysis does tell you is that probably 2/3 of the kids were of the 'highly though of' variety, just a couple were out of nowhere (largely due to academics), and probably 1/5 could be considered 'sleepers'.

All in one idiot's opinion, of course!
 
I can tell you that roughly speaking only Boulware, Dockett, and Thorpe were 5 stars on this list. Barron was around 4. Brooks was 2. Fox was 3. Henderson was 2/3. Reilly was 3. Samuels was 3. Miller was 2.

Not sure about the others
 
GoldZ

I would like someone to do a study on the 1990 GT National Championship Squad on every single player on our roster and the ACTUAL offers each player had....It would have to be an Accurate Study not just hear say....I will gurantee you this..if you compared it to Uga's 90 Squad or to say Fsu's 90 squad the List of offers their players had compared to ours would have been so much more impressive....GT has done very well with Athletes that have not had an impressive offer sheet from other well known schools....Nebraska in the 80's and 90's was another school that had a lot of players on their squad that didnt have the offers of some of the other National Powers....I can understand your point...and i agree that you have to have good players to win...But you cant judge it on who a player has an offer from...Who was the kid? that was said to have had like 2 or 3 bigtime offers and another School was tricked into offering him...It was discovered that his dad had made up those other 2 offers..That was in the paper a month or so back.....
 
For FSU, the vast majority of players on the ALL ACC team were three or more stars. For the rest of the ACC the correlation between stars and performance looks weak at best. If you throw in the fact that FSU only rarely takes a two or one star then you might argue that there is little correlation for them also.

Having said that, FSU's success indicates that they by and large have more talent than the average ACC team.

But IMHO, if FSU starts getting predominantly three star recruits they could be in trouble. If Wake lands mostly three star guys we will feel lucky that they are in the other division.

As long as our classes look as good or better than the ones O'Leary landed we should expect similar results to O'Leary's. Last year's class was nice on paper and this one looks good so far. Why won't we be competitive?
 
BW, interesting question about the '90 team. It would probably be difficult to do it accurately now, but it's fairly safe to say that: Swilling,Jones,Clay,M.Williams,Battle,Rudolph,Bell,Chubbs,Siffri,Mooney, & Martin all rec'd offers from other major programs.

As for comparing our classes to ugag's and fsu's, well shortly after '90 the following tells the tale: 3/13 & 0/12...ok? THWG
 
GoldZ i know for a FACT that outside Swilling and Jones NONE of those players were highly recruited...I remember VIVIDLY that Ray Goff was asked about Shawn Jones on his Call-in Show and UGA did NOT recruit Jones and projected him as a Def.Back....Sound familiar concerning Reggie Ball...
 
Specifically Marco Coleman - his 2nd and 3rd most impressive offers were from The Citadel and Dayton.

I can't think of a SINGLE player I would trade for Coleman. (Not saying he is better than all - just equal or better - and not replaceable in our history.) Some matched his talent and some matched his leadership, but FEW had both.

Five and ten years later, I would turn on the TV and hear NFL guys talking about how MC changed a play, a game, a season, or team chemistry with his leadership skills.

Calvin Tiggle only had one D1 offer - from GT. He was only noticed by accident when Ross went to watch a JUCO teammate of his.

Info per "Jackets Football 2000", by Danny Cameron.

Don't know about the rest.

Cameron also mentions that others completly unrecruited by any except GT include:

Bill Curry
Randy Rhino
Jerry Mays
Clint Castleberry
Rock Perdoni
Mike Kelly
Harvey Middleton (wasn't he JH's cousin?)
George Godsey - who Cameron says, "would have been arrested for trespassing if he stepped foot on an FSU practice field."
 
BW, interesting question about the '90 team. It would probably be difficult to do it accurately now, but it's fairly safe to say that: Swilling,Jones,Clay,M.Williams,Battle,Rudolph,Bell,Chubbs,Siffri,Mooney, & Martin all rec'd offers from other major programs.

As for comparing our classes to ugag's and fsu's, well shortly after '90 the following tells the tale: 3/13 & 0/12...ok?

Thanks for pointing this out Goldz. Fans keep pointing to the 90 GT team as a reason that recruiting rankings don't matter, but they fail to take a step back and look at the big picture.

There is a big difference between being a great team one year and a great program over several years. And for the most part, those great programs usually can be found bringing in the top ranked recruiting classes on a consistent basis.
 
Originally posted by BLACK WATCH:
GoldZ

I would like someone to do a study on the 1990 GT National Championship Squad on every single player on our roster and the ACTUAL offers each player had....It would have to be an Accurate Study not just hear say....I will gurantee you this..if you compared it to Uga's 90 Squad or to say Fsu's 90 squad the List of offers their players had compared to ours would have been so much more impressive....GT has done very well with Athletes that have not had an impressive offer sheet from other well known schools....Nebraska in the 80's and 90's was another school that had a lot of players on their squad that didnt have the offers of some of the other National Powers....I can understand your point...and i agree that you have to have good players to win...But you cant judge it on who a player has an offer from...Who was the kid? that was said to have had like 2 or 3 bigtime offers and another School was tricked into offering him...It was discovered that his dad had made up those other 2 offers..That was in the paper a month or so back.....
Click to expand...
<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Blackwatch, awhile ago someone on the Hive posted the recruiting credentials our 1990 team had and it was astounding. There were many with Prep All American status, Super Prep honors, etc. etc. That team was loaded with solid recruits. Of course we had others who were unheralded too that contributed, but for the most part, that team had its share of All Americans from the HS level.
 
Originally posted by BLACK WATCH:
GoldZ i know for a FACT that outside Swilling and Jones NONE of those players were highly recruited...I remember VIVIDLY that Ray Goff was asked about Shawn Jones on his Call-in Show and UGA did NOT recruit Jones and projected him as a Def.Back....Sound familiar concerning Reggie Ball...
Click to expand...
<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">You would be VERY wrong in that regard.
 
look and see how many game GT won in 87, 88, 89,

that will tell you MUCH about the "perceived" quality of that class. Also take into consideration that Ugag and OTHERS were on TV much more than GT back then.

Now with EVERYONE on TV and Everyone going to a bowl it is MUCH easier to recruit.

the first thing that a kid does is look at your depth chart. The fact that CG started a true freshman at qb is going to get us MANY quality recruits in the future. These kids want to play early. CG will always be able to say I started a true freshman at QB, so if you are ready you will play.

one of the recruits on the insiders (i think TE) said out of GT, UF, LSU? and some other big names stated "GT and UF both have openings at TE so they are at the top"

so ironically if you are down in talent you have the oportunity to be up in recruiting.
 
Personally I don't doubt that five star recruits are going to end up on the ALL-ACC list more often than others. Why?

Firstly, because they have inherit star power. ALL-ACC is a media show, and these guys generally have the name right off the bat.

Secondly, I think it's a bit much to see very often a walkon or lower tier recruit to work his way all the way to the top. It happens but not often enough to outweigh the top recruits.

Thirdly, the top recruits are almost always more physically ready than the tiers below. This allows them to get more top playing and practice time which adds to their built in advantage to play well AND get the media exposure.

To make a long story short, this study doesn't tell me anything. Football is played by at least 35 guys (11 O, 11 D, 11 ST, 2 Kickers). Certainly there can be some carryover from one to another, but you need a large diverse strong group of players. Where the study would make the most sense would be "where did each teams 10-35 best players come from?"

Having said that I want to add that we'd be a fool to not get as many 5 star recruits as we can. Generally the analysist don't miss on those guys. They miss on the other end all the time though.
 
BW, not gonna dispute your FACTS, but at a minimum; Bell, Clay, Martin, & Williams got a lot of attn. from the likes of Miami,PSU,AU,& UF. Actually most of the others drew a lot of interest from majors as well. I did not list the names that techfowl offered because I knew of their offers. THWG
 
GoldZ,

Sounds like you are the most qualified to find all this info on the '90 team. You actually seem to know more about these guys than the rest of us.

Please do it - or ask on the Hive (I read, but don't have access to post) and maybe the last guy to do so would post a recap. I shot my wad with Coleman and Tiggle.

I did not know that Rudolf was highly pursued - in fact, I thought he was one of the sleepers.

Keep posting on this subject - it's the most interesting thread in a while.

Thanks for what you've already posted.
 
TB,
I'm not sure that Rivers never got an offer from Au or Ala but they sure didn't rate his QB skills highly.Au was talking more about TE or Def as I understand.For some reason,although he put up great #s they were leary.(he had a strong team to support him and his Dad was the coach as I recall).
 
So in essence, the overwhelimg majority of the guys on the All ACC team were probably 3 star or higher players when they were being recruited, with a good bit of them being 4 and 5 star players.
 
Alabama....

Good point...In fact the Prior NcState Head Coach Recruited Rivers NOT Amato...Amato quickly secured the committment once he was named coach.That great Asst Coach Chow really thought highly of Rivers...It just goes to show you that Great Coaches can Find the Players..Another point as to how recruiting rankings of players is often time way off!!!
 
The problem I see with this post is the star ratings are not shown for each player.

A player may be a two star, but a lot of major schools may be recruiting him.

Someone may be a five star, but is culled by many schools because of grades. It would be nice to know the star ratings of each of these kids, since that is the most dominant controversy regarding recruiting on the board.

The only thing that can be gained from this post are 13 players were considered by some bigger schools, while 9 were considered by the lesser schools. This still does not tell us anything about the star rating system.

Father Time
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top