On Stars

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Not based on this article: http://cfn.scout.com/2/726341.html


In fact, 13 of the 30 five star athletes were given less than three stars based on their actual career production.

Well one guy was given two and a half stars though being a two year starting LB for Georgia. I'm guessing he would have been a star at BYU. Most of the guys that didn't pan out were due to injuries it appears.

I'd like to see a stat that showed % of 5,4,3,2 star recruits that became productive college players. If the data showed it turned out to be 30%, 28%, 26%, 24% then I would back off and totally support Bronco's approach.

I doubt any of you guys really even believe that though. You want to hold onto this idea that stars don't matter and Bronco's staff is better at talent evaluating, but logically it just doesn't make sense. You have to accept a pretty wild assumption that Bronco's better than every other staff at evaluating.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by jay santos

You want to hold onto this idea that stars don't matter...

No one has said that. However, there is fairly decent anecdotal evidence that Bronco is doing a good job identifying underrated talent vis a vis the spread in recruiting rankings versus football top 25 rankings.

I think anyone that is even remotely acquainted with the process of how recruiting services identify and rank recruits would also have to admit there are some serious holes in terms of methodology and coverage.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Spaz

Why bother? If they want to take two Linebackers, and they have two top-tier athletes already pegged, why spend the resources on the Utah kid? Besides which, their recruiting pool is significantly different than ours is. They wouldn't be well-served by doing this.

Thus, if they like who they're targeting, they wouldn't spend the resources on someone they just found out BYU is excited about...

OK then, we can clearly say in this case that USC's getting better recruits than BYU.

Let's step it down a notch. Cal or Kansas State. These guys are always ahead of us in recruiting rankings and always could make a compelling case to a recruit to go there instead of BYU. Whey don't they sweep in and cherry pick our recruits after we've done the evaluating? This logic you guys are behind would support that Cal/Kansas State is blindly going by stars and getting sub-par recruiting classes.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by jay santos

OK then, we can clearly say in this case that USC's getting better recruits than BYU.

Let's step it down a notch. Cal or Kansas State. These guys are always ahead of us in recruiting rankings and always could make a compelling case to a recruit to go there instead of BYU. Whey don't they sweep in and cherry pick our recruits after we've done the evaluating? This logic you guys are behind would support that Cal/Kansas State is blindly going by stars and getting sub-par recruiting classes.

Oregon has tried quite a bit the last few years to cherry pick BYU and Utah recruits, with relatively successful results.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by jay santos

So is USC stupid then? Instead of letting the star system do their evaluation (which you guys believe is a bad system), why not let BYU coaches do their evaluation. They seem to easily take what we believe is ours. Why not offer a schollie to everyone we offer?

Jay, enough about USC. Let it go, brother. Let's focus on the Cougs! either that, or take it to an SC board.

[cougjunkie]

Rivals did an article a few months ago (I will try and dig it up) where they recapped the 2004 top 150 and where they are now.

10 had made the NFL, 20 more were projected to make the NFL.

50 of them had not started a college game. 35 of them never even made it to their college of choice.

Stars are about as inexact of a science that you can have. BYU falling 30 spots for losing Kaveinga on Rivals?

How about Kevin Hart, not having a single schollie offer, yet he makes up his own recruiting and commits to Cal and is automatically a 2 star. The Cal Message board throws out quotes like:

"I have seen this kid play, he is a steal for cal."
"This kid is truly the sleeper of this class, a great get."

Then you have other kids like Austin Holt for example who makes the US Army All-american game which is the premier game in the country for highshcool seniors and is sponsored by Rivals. Yet Rivals has him ranked as the 27th tight end overall eventhough he has offers from everyone. Both teams had 2 tightends, did the other 23 tight ends decline Rivals offer? No its because the left foot doesnt know what the right foot is doing.

There has also been numerous times where kids have committed to BYU and lost stars.

The bottomline is that the BCS controls the star systems as well.

[Spaz]

Originally Posted by jay santos

Well one guy was given two and a half stars though being a two year starting LB for Georgia. I'm guessing he would have been a star at BYU. Most of the guys that didn't pan out were due to injuries it appears.

I'd like to see a stat that showed % of 5,4,3,2 star recruits that became productive college players. If the data showed it turned out to be 30%, 28%, 26%, 24% then I would back off and totally support Bronco's approach.

I doubt any of you guys really even believe that though. You want to hold onto this idea that stars don't matter and Bronco's staff is better at talent evaluating, but logically it just doesn't make sense. You have to accept a pretty wild assumption that Bronco's better than every other staff at evaluating.

AGAIN (sigh) it's not about being 'better'. It's about resources.

I don't know how to put it more simply than this: Neither the recruiting services nor the top-tier BCS schools has tasked the resources necessary to PROPERLY evaluate the talent BYU has signed, and therefore these recruits are UNDERVALUED compared to those to whom those resources HAVE been tasked.


What would be, to me, more interesting than straight percentages assigned to each recruit would be to take each program's success rate with properly evaluating talent. Which, of course, would be impossible in real terms. The best way, IMO, to determine this is by the program's success rate long-term.

[SoCalCoug]

Originally Posted by jay santos

At some point you have to believe we're better than every else at talent evaluation OR you have to admit stars are important and our recruiting class isn't that hot.

Okay, let's look at the stars by year (using Scout.com):

2002: 3 5-star (Olson, Walt Williams, Scott Young), 2 4-star (Kuresa, Chad Barney), 2 3-star (Coats, Nu'a); the rest were 2- and 1-stars (so 7 recruits were 3-star or better, and only 5 ever contributed.

2003: 1 5-star (Ofa), 1 4-star (Brian Soi), 3 3-stars (Speredon, Dallas Reynolds, David Nixon); the rest were 2- and 1-stars (so 5 recruits were 3-star or better, and only the 3 3-stars ever contributed.

2004: 1 4-star (Vince Feula), 6 3-stars (Bower, Collie, Luettgerodt, Eddie Scipio, Watkins, Joe Griffin); the rest were 2- and 1-stars (Bower, Scipio and Griffin never contributed, and I can't remember if Feula did, which should say a lot, itself - so we have 3 3-stars who contributed.

2005: 2 4-stars (Matt Reynolds, So'oto), 3 3-stars (Tialavea, Spencer Hafoka, Chris Bolden) - all of which either have contributed or are expected to contribute - 5 recruits of 3-star or better; the rest are 2- or 1-stars.

2006: 2 4-stars (Lark, Matangi Tonga), 4 3-stars (Jacobsen, Ryan Freeman, Tico, Saulsberry) -the rest are 2- or 1-stars. Lark may or may not contribute, Jacobsen and Saulsberry did, and Freeman, I believe is in the mix somewhere. 6 recruits of 3-star or better.

2007: 4 3-star (Munns, Matthews, Cooper, Mauga), 11 3-stars; so that's 15 recruits of 3-stars or better.

2008: 3 4-stars, 8 3-stars; so that's 11 recruits or 3-stars or better.

The answer to your question is that Bronco's recruiting over the past 2 years has been 2-3 times better than the previous 5, going by the star ratings. If you factor in how few of the 4- and 3-star recruits actually contributed, (assuming Bronco can keep the 2007 and 2008 recruits around, it could be even more significantly better.

And, the point you seem to be missing is that BYU's gone 11-2 the last 2 seasons, and ranked in the top 15 in the country, with primarily 2- and 1-star recruits contributing.

Can you answer your own question now?

[cougjunkie]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Oregon has tried quite a bit the last few years to cherry pick BYU and Utah recruits, with relatively successful results.

Oregon State and Utah offered like 7 of the same recruits this year.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

However, there is fairly decent anecdotal evidence that Bronco is doing a good job identifying underrated talent vis a vis the spread in recruiting rankings versus football top 25 rankings.

Is this true? If so, how true? For every Dulan are there three or four Van Sweden, Attig, and Singhs?

Utah and UNM usually have good defenses without top 25 recruiting rankings. Would BYU, Utah, and UNM D be even that much better with higher recruiting classes? Or are they really top 25 classes that are getting undervalued?