recruiting vs. results analysis

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nova97jacket

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A couple of the recent threads on recruiting got me to wondering how teams do compared to how well the "experts" think they recruit. So I did a little analysis and whipped together a few web pages:
recruiting vs. rankings web page

Looking forward to what you all have to say, but as I point out, "Citing some hair-brained statistics to support an argument is an important part of college football discussion."
 
after a quick look, I notice one major flaw. He didn't include '01 recruiting ranking in his average, which should probably be there (though perhaps weighted half?) to account for redshirt seniors.

And Navy doesn't really count, I dont think they should be in the rannkings, academies just arent the same as other schools.

Also, I think this gets skewed tremendously after about the 50 ranking (not recruit ranking), I mean who sucks more Duke or Temple, its a toss up. Bit with those teams which are in or near the top 30 or so, I think this has a lot of validity. But as everyone knows, lies, damn lies, and statistics, so you can spin this pretty much any way you want. This either looks great for our coaching staff, or very poorly on the recruiting services.

Edit: I see that he mentions that he didnt have data for 2001
 
Interesting. What I'd like to see is a table that shows all teams, and some statistical analysis of the overall result. It might be as subjective as the rankings themselves, but I'd love to see the normal error in rankings and results. You'd have to do this for a number of years of course to really draw conclusions, but my initial reaction is that very few teams are in single digits of difference. Is that the right measure? Maybe within 15? or 20? Good start on the analysis.

I'd pose a hypothesis that there is a point where the rankings are meaningless in predicting a team's performance, up or down. That is, for the top 10, it may predict well. But as you go further down the rankings my guess is the error gets larger and larger. Of course, you'll probably find a point where the predictive ability improves again at the bottom of the rankings.
 
Thanks nova,
This is all new for me, and it's an eye opener. I have claimed this year that CCG is a better coach that UGA's Rieght. Although this article claims to not show how good or bad a coaching staff has done, I believe it to be to the contrary. It does appear to be partially a barometer for coaching.
 
Rome. I don\'t know if he is a better coach or not.

...but what I have noticed is that when we played the likes of Miami, Uga,Auburn we weren't noticeably overmatched athlete-wise as we have so often been in the past. I have been critical at times of CCG but I am comfortable with this staff's recruiting regrdless of the infamous star rankings.(Now if we could just address that issue with special teams!)
 
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CCG is a better coach that UGA's Rieght.

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FACT. He definitely does more with less.
 
You can't really say he does more with less, cause we don't. Perhaps, he does better than the numbers say he should, but still not all that great, with less. More with less would mean beating teams with better recruits consistantly and winning conference championships.

But, you could read this either way. Our guys are definitely less hyped, but the differences in talent are not that large, except in a few key areas (TE/QB).
 
Interesting, the ranking also needs to take into account teams that recruit players for a particular system, change head coach and then are stuck with previous recruits that aren't necessarily optimal for the new coach's system (Urban Meyer @ UF and Bill Callagham @ Nebraska are examples of this). Also it could go into more depth on the units within the team, how a defense or offense performs as a result of the recruits it got since some classes are unbalanced, meaning more top recruits on Defense while light on Offense or vice versa.
 
Don't really get your point RR. Why would doing more with less include beating better teams consistently or winning championships? Wouldn't it mean winning more than predicted?

Actually that's kind of an interesting point. For those who believe the rankings, this kind of analysis should produce a formula to predict outcomes based on recruiting. It would be pretty simple then to score a coach's results versus predicted values to make a judgement on his ability.
 
Nevermind, just saw the disclaimer about new coaches on the link, yet I would still love to see a comparison between Defense and Offense performance vs Defense and Offense recruit ranking.
 
well, I would define doing more, as doing more than those we compete agianst. Just semantics, I fall on the side of thinking that our talent is just underated, because we have some very talented kids, but I also think we have a problem with developement.

Completely agree about the coaching changes, but tracking all that info for something like this guy put together would be a beast. You would also have to take changes in assistant coaching (or at least coordinators) into account, etc. Also doesn't account for kids/coaches who just don't mesh for whatever reason. Lots of variables in there that can't be quantified, but an interesting set of data anyways.
 
Last week I got to thinking that if the recruiting rankings were available, this might be an interesting exercise to put together. I was able to find the recruiting rankings, so I started it without strong feelings one way or another about our coach. They're a bit stronger now that I believe either our staff is better than average (other teams and/or analysts) at evaluating talent or they are better than average at coaching up players. Or both.

If someone sees another way to look at it, please let me know. I only see two negative possibilities: either you chalk the better than expected results to a particular assistant (many who feel this way would point to Coach Tenuta) or you think, "why aren't we able to get top ten/twenty talent consistently?" For the first critique, I can't say much more than it is a team sport, and the head coach has to make everyone work together. As for the second critique, I think some of our recruiting limitations at GT (score/GPA expectations, choice of majors, etc) have been debated enough already. I know some here don't accept those reasons, but to one degree or another they exist and will have an impact. We should always hope to have a premiere class, but in the end we should also expect our coaches to be better talent evaluators than someone writing an on-line magazine and to better understand which student athletes are a better fit for GT.

In any case I appreciate the constructive criticsm and in a few days I'll see if I can make any changes based on it.
 
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Interesting, the ranking also needs to take into account teams that recruit players for a particular system, change head coach and then are stuck with previous recruits

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Yeah, that would be nice but very difficult to quantify. I think it is best to use "coaching change" as just a possible explanation for why a team underperforms once you look at the results.
 
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Yeah, that would be nice but very difficult to quantify.

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Speaking of difficult, how can you quantify subjective data?

If the so called experts did not revise the amount of stars given after certain schools signed them, you may well have had something.

If possible, you should use the stars a kid has well in advance of his verbal. I think this would remove some of the BS, and give you something more worthwhile.
 
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Last week I got to thinking that if the recruiting rankings were available, this might be an interesting exercise to put together. I was able to find the recruiting rankings, so I started it without strong feelings one way or another about our coach. They're a bit stronger now that I believe either our staff is better than average (other teams and/or analysts) at evaluating talent or they are better than average at coaching up players. Or both.

You just pretty much nailed what I was posting. At least what I was attempting to post. When we see the recruiting job UGA has compared to ours, you have to admit, there is a pretty wide difference there. I think it was last year UGA brought in the two top DE's in the nation. Anyway, they are in the top nation's top ten from what I saw, in recruiting. Soooooooo, I'm saying we're doing better with what we have than UGA is with what they have. I think our coaching is a big factor in this equation.
 
Which comes first...the chicken or the egg?

Most of the "star ratings" do not come out until signing day...or start moving around a lot in Dec/Jan. based on offers.

In other words....if the college coaches conspired to create a fake athlete...and FSU, Miami, and SoCal offered him despite him really being mediocre...he would get a 4 or 5. However, if a true '4' or '5' kid were to hide his offers from Miami, FSU, and SoCal...and tell the "experts" that he only had offers from James Madison, Charleston Southern, and Wofford...he would get bumped down to a '1'.

Which comes first?...the offers or the rankings? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/soapbox.gif
 
Wooooooooops,
Sorry Nova, I didn't work that quote thingy right on there. Please excuse.
 
Does this

account for JUST the guys who got in school or does it list ALL the signees regardless of whether they really ever made it into that school?.Some schools have 3-7 guys EVERY yr after signing not actually get to school that next yr, or ever.
 
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