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General User Member Since: 8/31/2005 Location: United States Post Count: 10,064 Status: Offline     Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/23/2015 7:34:32 PM  I thought I'd do a quick comparison of how teams in the MAC have done versus how you'd expect them to do, based on the recruiting services. Three services rank the MAC in order, Rivals, 247, and Scout (ESPN does not). I took their ranking for each of the years 2008-2015 and averaged those, to get the ranking for each class for each team. Next, I took a weighted average. The 2102 team, for example, will include members of the recruiting classes from 2008-2012. The classes which impact the quality of the team the most would be the 2008-2009 classes, as those would be Seniors/4-th year Juniors, and the least impact would be the class of 2012, which would be true Freshmen. Next I projected what the order of finish would have been for 2012-2014 if things played out as you would expect from the recruiting rankings, and then compared that to the actual finish. First, here is 2012, the first number is the projected finish, followed by the actual finish, and then the difference (with minus numbers meaning a worse than expected actual finish): EAST Miami 1, 4.5, -3.5 Kent 2.5, 1, +1.5 Akron 2.5, 7, -4.5 BG 4, 2, +2 Ohio 5, 3, +2 Buffalo 6, 4.5, +1.5 UMass 7, 6, +1 WEST Toledo 1, 2.5, -1.5 (Projected MAC winner) WMU 2, 5, -3 CMU 3, 4, -1 Ball St 4, 2.5, +1.5 NIU 5, 1, +4 EMU 6, 6, 0 Next, the same thing for 2013: EAST BG 1, 1, 0 Miami 2, 7, -5 Kent 3, 5, -2 Akron 4, 3.5, +.5 Ohio, 5, 3.5, +1.5 Buffalo 6, 2, +4 UMass 7, 6, +1 WEST Toledo 1, 3.5, -2.5 Projected MAC Winner WMU 2, 5.5, -3.5 CMU 3, 3.5, -.5 NIU 4, 1, +3 Ball St 5, 2, +3 EMU 6, 5.5, +.5 And for 2014: EAST BG 1, 1, 0 Miami 2, 6, -4 Kent 3, 7, -4 Ohio 4, 2, +2 Akron 5, 4.5, +.5 Buffalo 6, 3, +3 UMass 7, 4.5, +2.5 WEST Toledo 1, 1.5, -.5 Projected MAC Winner WMU 2, 3, -1 CMU 3,4, -1 NIU 4, 1.5, +2.5 Ball St 5, 5, 0 EMU 6, 6, 0 Now, looking only at the differences for the three years, you notice that some teams are consistently positive, others are consistently negative, and others are close to zero each year. Sorting the teams by the total differential: NIU +9.5 (+4, +3, +2.5) Buffalo +8.5 (+1.5, +4, +3) Ohio +5.5 (+2, +1.5, +2) Ball St +4.5 (+1.5, +3, +0) UMass +4.5 (+1, +1, +2.5) BG +2 (+2, 0, 0) EMU +.5 (0, +.5, 0) CMU -2.5 (-1, -.5, -1) Akron -3.5 (-4.5, +.5, +.5) Kent -4.5 (+1.5, -2, -4) Toledo -4.5 (-1.5, -2.5, -.5) WMU -7.5 (-3, -3.5, -1) Miami -12.5 (-3.5, -5, -4) Given that the errors do not seem to be random, and given that there is a horizontal consistency (some teams always positive, some teams always negative), it seems to me that there are several possible explanations for the positive/negative numbers: 1. The recruiting services consistently underestimate the classes from some schools, and overestimate them for other schools. This could happen for 3 reasons: a. Some schools like NIU recruit areas that are not widely recruited (or covered, so they might be under-rated), such as the northern plains, while other schools, like Toledo, recruit in hotly contested areas (so they might be better covered, slightly over-rated). b. Some schools may be better at finding hidden gems than others. Schools that uncover more hidden gems would perform better than the ratings might indicate. c. All schools probably have some players that they announce as a part of their class, but who end up being no-shows, or who leave the program, but this may happen more at some schools than others. Schools with a lot of no-shows or departures would perform worse than expected. 2. Perhaps the coaches at some schools coach their players up (giving plus numbers), while other schools don't get the maximum potential from their players (giving negative numbers). If coaching is the explanation, you'd expect to see a shift in the numbers when the coaches change. You do see a shift upwards in Bowden's second year, and in Fleck's second year, plus a drop at Kent after Darrell Hazel left, and a jump in UMass with their new coach, so coaching seems to be at least part of the differential we see. FWIW, here are the projections, using the same method for 2015: EAST BG 1 Miami 2 Ohio 3 Kent 4 Buffalo 5 Akron 6 UMass 7 WEST Toledo 1 (Projected MAC Winner, as always) CMU 2 WMU 3 NIU 4 Ball State 5 EMU 6 Now, for grins, let's apply the average error, since they seem pretty consistent: EAST BG .3 (Projected MAC Winner) Ohio 1.2 Buffalo 2.2 UMass 5.5 Kent 5.5 Miami 6.2 Akron 7.2 WEST NIU .8 Toledo 2.5 CMU 2.8 Ball State 3.5 WMU 5.5 EMU 5.8 This is a lot more reasonable order, I think, though Buffalo and CMU will have new coaches, so this won't predict them accurately, and WMU will certainly be higher than that. Last Edited: 3/23/2015 11:31:33 PM by L.C. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus Back to Top L.C. General User Member Since: 8/31/2005 Location: United States Post Count: 10,064 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/23/2015 9:37:42 PM  Note that the consistency of the errors on a team by team basis surprised me a lot. Apparently the recruiting rankings, even at the 2-star, are not totally off. They do have some built in biases that vary from one team to another, but they seem to be stable errors. Thus, the rankings have meaning after all, if you adjust for the biases. Not only are the numbers consistent, but they seem reasonable as well. I definitely don't think it's a coincidence that all teams that I think have a coach that is better at "coaching" than "recruiting" have plus numbers for errors, while all teams that I think have a coach that is a better "recruiter" than "coach" have minus numbers for errors. Also note that there is no right balance between coaching and recruiting, nor any wrong balance. You can win, or you can lose with any combination. Among schools heavier on "coaching", NIU, Ball State, and Ohio were typically winners, while Buffalo was not as successful. Among teams with balance, BG was a winner, while EMU was not. Among teams that were heavier on recruiting, Toledo has been a consistent winner, while Miami has been a consistent loser, and WMU has been all over the place. Last Edited: 3/23/2015 11:38:26 PM by L.C. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus Back to Top OhioCatFan General User Member Since: 12/20/2004 Location: Athens, OH Post Count: 14,016 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/24/2015 8:39:26 AM  Very interesting analysis, L.C. This confirms what I've always heard about the Nebraska program from which Frank comes -- masters at coaching up players who might not be sought by their peers. Of course there is an interesting interplay between coaching and recruiting here because you have to be able to identify the players who are coachable. It seems to me, with a few notable exceptions (particularly early on), Frank has been very good at that at OHIO. The only BLSS Certified Hypocrite on BA "It is better to be an optimist and be proven a fool than to be a pessimist and be proven right." Note: My avatar is the national colors of the 78th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, which are now preserved in a climate controlled vault at the Ohio History Connection. Learn more about the old 78th at: http://www.78ohio.org Back to Top L.C. General User Member Since: 8/31/2005 Location: United States Post Count: 10,064 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/24/2015 5:04:29 PM  This wasn't intended as a "pat someone on the back" analysis. Instead, the point of it was to answer the question that we have often debated on here, as to whether the recruiting rankings of G5 teams have any meaning at all. Recruiting services spend most of their time and effort on the P5-level of recruits, and very little on G5-level (i.e. 2-star) recruits. If they give them a rating at all, it's often an afterthought. That makes sense for them because, if you look at their subscriber base, it is mostly made up of P5 fans, and it's the subscribers that pay the bills, so naturally they want to be as accurate as possible on their P5 analysis. With few G5 subscribers, there isn't a strong incentive to spend a lot of time on G5 recruits. Worse, when I look at individual recruits, there seems to be a low correlation between a player's rating and the ability that the player shows later. Players from the MAC that get drafted almost invariably have minimal ratings. Edelman, Lynch, Archer, Mack, Carrie, and Brazill all had bare minimum ratings. On the other hand, it isn't uncommon for a player to come in with a high rating, and never play much, or at all. When I set out to do this, I expected that I would get the usual result, that there was little to no relationship between ratings and results. That's what it looked like at first, as I was doing the analysis. It was only after I had the whole thing done that I realized that the errors were stable, year after year, for each team. I guess as a result of this, I'll take the various recruiting rankings as a whole more seriously, even if I continue to take the individual ratings with a grain of salt. FWIW, the rating service that was the most accurate overall was Rivals, followed closely by Scout, with 247 not far behind. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus Back to Top OhioCatFan General User Member Since: 12/20/2004 Location: Athens, OH Post Count: 14,016 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/24/2015 11:06:05 PM  L.C. wrote: This wasn't intended as a "pat someone on the back" analysis. . . . I understand that, and I think you did an admirable job of making the case that player rankings from the rating services when viewed in the aggregate have some predictive validity and also that some schools perform better -- or worse -- than would be expected solely from analyzing the ratings. However, it is also true that if you look at certain specific coaches and programs you can see those who do a better job at "coaching up" lesser ranked players, those who recruit better than they coach, and those who both recruit well and coach well -- with gradations in between. As an aside, there are also coaches who simply do better with lower ranked players who want to improve and have a good work ethic. Switching sports for a minute, it was a real irony back in the Jim Snyder basketball era that Coach Snyder coached a team to the Elite 8 in the mid-1960s and had multiple victories over B1G teams in the late 1960s with "diamonds in the rough" kinds of players but when he finally reached the point where he started to recruit what would today be 4- and 5-star rated athletes that he falter and could not coach the prima donna athlete. The only BLSS Certified Hypocrite on BA "It is better to be an optimist and be proven a fool than to be a pessimist and be proven right." Note: My avatar is the national colors of the 78th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, which are now preserved in a climate controlled vault at the Ohio History Connection. Learn more about the old 78th at: http://www.78ohio.org Back to Top Casper71 General User Member Since: 12/1/2006 Post Count: 2,894 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/27/2015 1:22:24 PM  OCF, I am with you a bit about Coach Snyder...BUT: Rather than talk vague generalities, who are the 4-5 star guys you think he recruited but didn't fare well with and what years are you talking about? The elite 8 team was before my time. During my time there was Gerald McKie, Craig Love, Greg McDivitt, John Canine, etc. I doubt any would be classified 4-5 star guys. Maybe you are talking about players after the ones I named? I'm just not sure Ohio ever has ever really recruited more than `1-2 of those 4-5 star kinds of guys (maybe Luckett but I'm not sure Snyder was around then????) Back to Top OhioCatFan General User Member Since: 12/20/2004 Location: Athens, OH Post Count: 14,016 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/28/2015 11:37:48 PM  Two who come to mind right away Casper71: Ulice Payne and Larry Slappy. The only BLSS Certified Hypocrite on BA "It is better to be an optimist and be proven a fool than to be a pessimist and be proven right." Note: My avatar is the national colors of the 78th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, which are now preserved in a climate controlled vault at the Ohio History Connection. Learn more about the old 78th at: http://www.78ohio.org Back to Top oldkatz General User Member Since: 12/22/2004 Post Count: 1,421 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/29/2015 11:49:37 AM  OhioCatFan wrote: Two who come to mind right away Casper71: Ulice Payne and Larry Slappy. You are correct but both left: Payne to Marquette and Slappy to unknown. Most likely due to of the phenomena of Bandyball. "All my inside sources tell me I have no inside sources." Salvatore "money bucks" Mafiosiano. Back to Top OhioCatFan General User Member Since: 12/20/2004 Location: Athens, OH Post Count: 14,016 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/29/2015 12:28:00 PM  That's exactly my point, oldkatz. Snyder, I believe, retired when he did because of players like these. They were very talented, but they were also hard to coach and didn't take to his coaching style. On paper, his last few recruiting class were his best ever, but it didn't translate on the court because of a mismatch of coaching style to player ego. I know at the time that's what some "insiders" told me, and it seemed to make sense in terms of what I was able to observe. The only BLSS Certified Hypocrite on BA "It is better to be an optimist and be proven a fool than to be a pessimist and be proven right." Note: My avatar is the national colors of the 78th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, which are now preserved in a climate controlled vault at the Ohio History Connection. Learn more about the old 78th at: http://www.78ohio.org Back to Top L.C. General User Member Since: 8/31/2005 Location: United States Post Count: 10,064 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 3/29/2015 1:57:14 PM  oldkatz wrote: OhioCatFan wrote: Two who come to mind right away Casper71: Ulice Payne and Larry Slappy. You are correct but both left: Payne to Marquette and Slappy to unknown. Most likely due to of the phenomena of Bandyball. Per this, Slappy went to play for the Richmond Spiders, then had a professional career in Europe: http://www.bcshof.org/halloffamers/slappy2012.htm As for Payne, after winning a National Championship with Marquette, he was drafted by the Pistons, but never played. Instead he went on to law school, and went on to an impressive career. He became the CEO of the Milwaukee Brewers, and now is the Managing member of Addison-Clifton, a company that deals in global trade. http://triblive.com/sports/communitysports/3823557-74/pay... http://www.wisconsinenergy.com/aboutus/WEC_bios/payne_bio... “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ― Epictetus Back to Top Campus Flow General User Member Since: 12/20/2004 Location: Alexandria, VA Post Count: 4,952 Status: Offline     RE: Another look at recruiting services    Posted: 4/5/2015 2:32:20 AM  Some of the schools in the MAC have issues. Miami has always turned its nose up at partial-qualifiers. Akron is a fly over for the good MAC recruits in Ohio and EMU the same in Michigan. Almost always do recruits prefer BG, Toledo, CMU or WMU over those schools. Buffalo and NIU have more lightly covered recruiting areas. Its really difficult to compare different states in recruiting side by side. Ohio thinks more about upside and development so the MAC level players they pick don't always correlate with the highest rated MAC level players. Mostly I believe its better to sit in the stands on Saturday and judge the talent by what you see on the field. Or tabulate the amount of players a school has put in the NFL. Ultimately though with Athens being one of the smaller college towns in college football and not real close to Florida like an Auburn or Clemson, nor land grant like Virginia Tech makes it difficult to build up talent. The same issue in basketball. There is nothing stopping the school from having great facilities and playing strong schedules to put its best foot forward which we currently don't have. 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