Recruiting: CPJ vs CCG

What I was addressing was a few comments I've seen over the past few weeks about how CPJ can't recruit. My point is that he appears to be recruiting significantly better, relatively speaking, than CCG did.
I hear ya. I don't understand why people are comparing his recruiting to CCG. I also don't see any basis to think he is a better or worse recruiter than CCG. All I know is that apparently he ain't recruited well enough, if he hasn't recruited linemen who can block, centers who can snap, kickers who can kick, linebackers who can stay in their gaps, etc.
 
I crunched some numbers using a published set of recruit ratings to do a comparative evaluation of CCG and CPJ recruiting. As I expected, people then said well CCG's recruits were better anyway, yada, yada, yada. So I then suggested other measures of each coaches on the field success.

I mean it doesn't really matter who gets drafted when you can look at the actual win/loss records and who won the big game, etc. Why wasn't CCG around to coach in the Orange Bowl with his recruits. Who got curb stomped, by the way.

Gailey recruited better talent, but CPJ is a much better coach. A big part of the problem was having Nix as the OC.

I thought we were talking about who recruited better, not how the teams performed on the field. If you watch the games it's pretty obvious our talent level has gone down, and the NFL draft confirms that belief. The last few years we've had a kicker drafted, and that's it. I don't see that streak breaking this year or next, either. Maybe Braun will get drafted for us.
 
If you're just arguing that CPJ was able to realize a higher ceiling with the players he had, I don't think too many people are going to disagree with you. But that's another question than the on-field talent, which is itself a separate question than recruiting rankings.

We pretty much always had a formidable front 7 under Gailey, whether you want to chalk that up to recruiting, development, or whatever. When has that been the case since Gailey's players left?

Gailey recruited better talent, but CPJ is a much better coach. A big part of the problem was having Nix as the OC.

I thought we were talking about who recruited better, not how the teams performed on the field. If you watch the games it's pretty obvious our talent level has gone down, and the NFL draft confirms that belief. The last few years we've had a kicker drafted, and that's it. I don't see that streak breaking this year or next, either. Maybe Braun will get drafted for us.

All good points, of course. Nix sucked as an OC. Groh, Roof sucked as DCs.

But I still stand behind my evaluation, which is using data from a presumably reputable source to compare recruits. This evaluation shows that CPJ has gotten significantly more of the higher rated recruits than CCG did. Folks have mentioned grade inflation, and I certainly get that this could be an issue.

One other thing I can do is to take the other numbers at that website, which are relative rankings by position, and see how that works since that will take the grade inflation out of the picture.
 
All good points, of course. Nix sucked as an OC. Groh, Roof sucked as DCs.

But I still stand behind my evaluation, which is using data from a presumably reputable source to compare recruits. This evaluation shows that CPJ has gotten significantly more of the higher rated recruits than CCG did. Folks have mentioned grade inflation, and I certainly get that this could be an issue.

One other thing I can do is to take the other numbers at that website, which are relative rankings by position, and see how that works since that will take the grade inflation out of the picture.

In my opinion, NFL draftees is a better evaluation of talent than high school recruiting rankings.

So then the question becomes, since CPJ has had better recruits does that mean CCG was better at coaching up players when they got here? Or were his classes under-valued by the recruiting services/CPJ's classes have been over-inflated? I'm not sure we can ever know the answer to that 100%.
 
In my opinion, NFL draftees is a better evaluation of talent than high school recruiting rankings.

So then the question becomes, since CPJ has had better recruits does that mean CCG was better at coaching up players when they got here? Or were his classes under-valued by the recruiting services/CPJ's classes have been over-inflated? I'm not sure we can ever know the answer to that 100%.


I've added a tab to the spreadsheet with the NFL draft results for each coach.

CPJ - 11 players drafted / 1.1 player per year
CCG - 16 players drafted / 2.67 players per year

In terms of coaching up, Shaq Mason is number 244 or so in the list of Top 250. I guess that means Sewak is a good developer of OL talent, eh?
 
In my opinion, NFL draftees is a better evaluation of talent than high school recruiting rankings.

So then the question becomes, since CPJ has had better recruits does that mean CCG was better at coaching up players when they got here? Or were his classes under-valued by the recruiting services/CPJ's classes have been over-inflated? I'm not sure we can ever know the answer to that 100%.

A good case could probably be made that Gailey, with his experience in the NFL, was better at getting players prepared for the next level. He wasn't great at getting wins, though. We also had some years early in Gailey's tenure where the talent level was pretty weak, but I'd say his teams from 2005-2007 had quite a bit of talent, regardless of whether or not the recruiting rankings reflect that. Once the vast majority of those guys were gone in 2010, we haven't seemed to able to get back to that level of talent again (maybe 2014?).

To me, the disappointment isn't as much that CPJ has underachieved in recruiting relative to his predecessor, but that he wasn't able to build off 1) the recruiting successes at the end of Gailey's tenure and 2) the on-field success of in 2008-09. We already know CPJ can be successful when he has the players in place, and a good recruiter would have been able to capitalize on an ACC championship.
 
We already know CPJ can be successful when he has the players in place, and a good recruiter would have been able to capitalize on an ACC championship.
I was and am a big supporter of CPJ, and I am hoping we turn it around and all the reasonable people are happy again.

But there have been lots of moments where we could've "capitalized" on temporary success but instead let it slip through our fingers. Not just in recruiting, but in terms of national press, and momentum, and psychology. The disappointments have been piling up for years...

blown out by LSU in 2008,
massive upset by UGA in 2009,
losing to KU and ending our above-.500 streak in 2010,
going from 6-0 to 8-4 in 2011,
blowout losses to MTSU and BYU in 2012,
blowing a 20 pt lead at home to UGA in 2013,
ending our bowl-streak in 2015, etc.
 
I was and am a big supporter of CPJ, and I am hoping we turn it around and all the reasonable people are happy again.

But there have been lots of moments where we could've "capitalized" on temporary success but instead let it slip through our fingers. Not just in recruiting, but in terms of national press, and momentum, and psychology. The disappointments have been piling up for years...

blown out by LSU in 2008,
massive upset by UGA in 2009,
losing to KU and ending our above-.500 streak in 2010,
going from 6-0 to 8-4 in 2011,
blowout losses to MTSU and BYU in 2012,
blowing a 20 pt lead at home to UGA in 2013,
ending our bowl-streak in 2015, etc.

Yeah, we followed up our best years with subpar ones. Of course, there is some chicken and egg here. We failed to capitalize on our successes because we didn't have depth from our recruiting. And failing to capitalize didn't help our recruiting efforts. We need to put together a string of good classes (and it would help if we could somehow reduce the attrition, which has been a killer for us, too. But I don't know that this is possible).
 
Yeah, we followed up our best years with subpar ones. Of course, there is some chicken and egg here. We failed to capitalize on our successes because we didn't have depth from our recruiting. And failing to capitalize didn't help our recruiting efforts. We need to put together a string of good classes (and it would help if we could somehow reduce the attrition, which has been a killer for us, too. But I don't know that this is possible).

we don't/didn't have depth in not only recruiting but the leakage/losses of players from team (for whatever reason) is over 35% from 12-'15 and is going that way now for '16.
So replace 1-4 yr exp players with TRUE FR--oh,great.
 
I was and am a big supporter of CPJ, and I am hoping we turn it around and all the reasonable people are happy again.

But there have been lots of moments where we could've "capitalized" on temporary success but instead let it slip through our fingers. Not just in recruiting, but in terms of national press, and momentum, and psychology. The disappointments have been piling up for years...

blown out by LSU in 2008,
massive upset by UGA in 2009,
losing to KU and ending our above-.500 streak in 2010,
going from 6-0 to 8-4 in 2011,
blowout losses to MTSU and BYU in 2012,
blowing a 20 pt lead at home to UGA in 2013,
ending our bowl-streak in 2015, etc.
I've often thought about how different things might have been if we had beaten UGA in 09. Would the timeline for Kirby being at UGA been sped up if we had won that game and Richt had been fired in 09 or 2010?
 
And now..... the rest of the story.

By folding in the National, Position, and State ranks of the recruits, a different story emerges.
  • Rank of CCG’s average recruit by position: 33
  • Rank of CPJ’s average recruit by position: 55
So, it seems that there has been inflation of the scoring over time. Chan’s average recruit was a full 20 positions higher than Johnson’s.

This seems to align with what several of you have said earlier today. However, I would point out that CPJ’s players have in several instances been significantly underrated. Like Shaq Mason.
 
Does CPJ also handle recruiting for his security team? Is it compatible to Gailey?
Screenshot_20180924-205822_Gallery.jpg
 
I've often thought about how different things might have been if we had beaten UGA in 09. Would the timeline for Kirby being at UGA been sped up if we had won that game and Richt had been fired in 09 or 2010?
I don't know. In my mind, in that alternate universe, we win multiple NC and UGA disbands its program in shame.
 
Gailey definitely recruited more playmakers than Johnson did, even if their overall recruiting was somewhat similar. That's the biggest difference, IMO.
 
And now..... the rest of the story.

By folding in the National, Position, and State ranks of the recruits, a different story emerges.
  • Rank of CCG’s average recruit by position: 33
  • Rank of CPJ’s average recruit by position: 55
So, it seems that there has been inflation of the scoring over time. Chan’s average recruit was a full 20 positions higher than Johnson’s.

This seems to align with what several of you have said earlier today. However, I would point out that CPJ’s players have in several instances been significantly underrated. Like Shaq Mason.
It seems like this volte-face deserves more prominent position in this thread... Perhaps some @'s? An edit to OP?
 
It seems like volte-face deserves more prominent position in this thread... Perhaps some @'s? An edit to OP?

I will edit it tomorrow. I’m on my iPad and it won’t let me edit the Pivot Tables. I’m gonna make pivots to show the average rank by coach and position.
 
That's a BS stat in my opinion. In 2014 we had zero first-team representatives but took FSU to the wire and won the OB.

If you want to measure performance, we can measure by conference championships and Orange Bowl appearances if you want.

It doesn’t fit your narrative. That’s why it’s BS to you. You’d rather evaluate recruiting based on stars, which is like saying if I buy CD’s only on the Rolling Stone 100 list, then I have good taste in music.

How a player performs in college is the ONLY way to evaluate recruiting. Some say NFL draftees, but that only measures how good you recruit for the next level - not your own. I don’t care how well the Broncos do with Thomas only how he benefitted us. Stephen Hill got drafted and paid by the NFL, but Orwin Smith did at least as much as a receiver and never made a practice squad.

I like CPJ, but he isn’t close in the recruiting department. He’s a dick, and if Gailey could have been half the dick as CPJ, he would have retired here n
 
I dunno.... Even if we beat uga in 09 we probably are still killed by all groh's Charmin levels of soft defense.
 
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