recruiting: the eval pick vs the guru pick

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

one of the more interesting things to me in every class is watching our staff do evaluation (eval) picks. guys the gurus don't think much of, but our coaching staff has a premonition about - guys like mark clayton.

the interesting thing about our eval picks is how they come about. typically if we "need" someone, we go after someone with a lot of stars. whereas if we are fairly safe, they'll throw an eval pick in there.

lets take the following scenario:


in 2004, texas and OU waged an all out recruiting war for one player, rhett bomar. both OU and texas only offered 2 QBs that year -> OU offered mcgee (aTm) and bomar. texas offered kirby freeman late after bomar committed (he ended up going to miami). so for the most part, both schools were "bomar or bust" at the QB position.

now, texas had vince young at QB (RS Fresh) and OU had jason white at QB (5th year senior). so bomar naturally went with the place with early PT, expecting to start as a true freshman (we also had tommy grady and paul thompson on the roster). of course, white was given a 6th year and that didn't happen.

the next recruiting class OU didn't sign a QB leaving us with thompson, grady, and bomar going into the fall. texas got an early commit from an eval pick - colt mccoy - for depth and then went after their crown jewel - ryan perriloux. after perriloux committed colt took a trip to tulane and was most likely heading towards a decommit when perriloux suddenly changed his commit to LSU. there really wasn't time for another QB so they secured colt and called it good.

that summer, it looked like OU was set at QB with 3 young guys going into fall camp

JR - thompson
SO - grady
FR - Bomar

so we took an eval pick early - sam bradford - and called it good. we then lost grady to transfer before the season and thompson was moved to WR leaving us with 1 QB on campus and we scrambled to find a QB. we struck out time and time again and finally signed halzle as a juco.

then crap happened to both clubs - bomar screwed up, vince young declares early.

OU - we have halzle and bradford, so they move thompson back from WR to QB. they go after a guru QB.

Texas - they scramble and sign 2 QBs one guru (snead), one for depth (harris).

2006 - mccoy wins the QB battle over the name kid and goes on to become the winningest QB in college football history (total, not %). guru kid (snead) transfers.

2006 - we go after the guru QB that can come in for the spring (keith nichol). thompson QBs.

2007 - bradford wins the QB battle over name kid (nichol). guru kid transfers.

[goingoneight]

The guru cats of 2008 are pretty much all gone. I remember people saying this by was far and away the greatest recruiting class Stoops had ever had.

Ouch.

Meanwhile, a guru's "meh" class in 2009 saw plenty of future stars take the field if only on special teams and shored up serious problems there.

Eval pick of note for 2010 offense: Ryan Broyles
Eval pick of note for 2010 defense: Ronnell Lewis

Guru pick of note for 2010 offense: Jermie Calhoun
Guru pick of note for 2010 defense: RJ Washington

[fwsooner22]

Very well thought out and an interesting historical reference.

The thing we cannot control is the location of the University of Texas, its size and its relevance to one of the three "hot beds" of high school football (the others being Florida and California). We recruit better in the state of Texas than anyone but **, including the other Texas state schools. We should be proud of that.

There are always ebbs and flows of college football; we just had an injury plauged season that cost us the enjoyment of another championship season. It happens. It always comes down to what we do next. The past is gone. Bradford is gone. Colt is gone. The game changes right now. I for one, am looking forward to next season with more excitement than in awhile.

Your post was thought provoking. In the off-season that's rare.

[goingoneight]

I don't like 5-loss seaons, and I certainly don't like injury situations... but I did enjoy 2005 and 2009 for watching the n00bs get out there. With them, you really have to dig deep and see the potential that Stoops and Co. saw. Sort of a "baby steps" thing. It's very rare to have guys like Sam, AD and Broyles come in and just tear it up from day one.

[rawlingsHOH]

2006 - we go after the guru QB that can come in for the spring (keith nichol). thompson QBs.

2007 - bradford wins the QB battle over name kid (nichol). guru kid transfers.

I think it was Cam Newton (UF), first choice. Steven Garcia (SC), second choice. Guru Keith Nichol, plan C.

[rawlingsHOH]

The guru cats of 2008 are pretty much all gone. I remember people saying this by was far and away the greatest recruiting class Stoops had ever had.

Ouch.

Meanwhile, a guru's "meh" class in 2009 saw plenty of future stars take the field if only on special teams and shored up serious problems there.

Eval pick of note for 2010 offense: Ryan Broyles
Eval pick of note for 2010 defense: Ronnell Lewis

Guru pick of note for 2010 offense: Jermie Calhoun
Guru pick of note for 2010 defense: RJ Washington
Kind of hard to already label a bunch of RS freshmen (Calhoun, Washington, Good) failures already, wouldn't you say?

I think I'll watch some more.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

i don't think he was calling them failures, i think he was referring to incoming expectations vs reality. it isn't the kid's fault that some moron attached a bunch of stars next to his name that he can never hope to live up to. now while our fanbase on this board are kind of meh on recruiting rankings (compared with people on hornfans/ouinsider/etc) we still have those that use them as justification of their point one way or the other.

take washington for example. when i first saw that we had picked up a 5* DE i was like "oh, joy" because that is one position that has proven time and time again to elude the recruiting gurus. there is a post around here somewhere when i went back and looked at guru rankings for DEs from the chris long class (he was like 6th or 7th).

at DE, i'd much rather we find some unknown like jeremy beal who shoots up the rankings after he commits than get a 5* on campus who is never going to play a down (its happened a couple of times for us and the pokes around 2000) and has to live with the disappointment from fans.


calhoun's achilles heal is vision. to his credit, it did improve over the course of the year to where he was at least avoiding the guy right in front of him. that is enough to keep the jury sequestered on him.

[rawlingsHOH]

As I've said in another thread, 5-stars across the board are about a 50/50 prop. That being noted, I'd be pretty surprised if Calhoun, Good, and Washington all end up being busts.

The following players were labeled 5-stars by either Rivals or Scout. Granted, Scout is MUCH more liberal with their 5-stars, especially in their early days, and have generally found not to be as accurate as Rivals.

02
Jackson, Rivals/Scout
Mitchell, Rivals/Scout
Latimer, Rivals
Carter, Scout
Pool, Scout
Roberts, Scout
Hawkins, Scout

-Mitchell and Pool, clearly as good as advertised. Jackson and Latimer, solid players but a little overrated. Carter, not worthy. Roberts and Hawkins flaked out.


03
Chijioke, Sco
Dampeer, Sco
Cade, Sco
Nicholson, Sco

-Nicholson was worthy, but not all-world. Chijioke was very good, just not as billed (injured). Dampeer and Cade flaked out.


04
Bomar, Riv/Sco
Patterson, Riv/Sco
Peterson, Riv

-Peterson, no-brainer. Bomar had skills worthy of the ranking. Patterson was overrated and was a poor fit at KSU.


05
Granger, Riv/Sco
Smith, Sco
Reynolds, Riv
Kelly, Sco

-All four guys definitely worth their billing, in my opinion. Though Reynolds and Granger's injury rap sheet cost them an NFL career.


06
McCoy, Riv/Sco
Murray, Sco

-Both worthy. Special talents.


07
Reed, Riv

-Bust. Who knows if he could play?


So from 2002-2007, I counted 21 5-star players. 10 of those I highlighted as no-doubt worthy of merit. Another 3 (Jackson, Latimer, and Chijioke) were good contributors, but didn't live up to billing. The one thing that really stands out, most of the failures on the list more had to do with being knuckle-heads than lacking talent.



JURY STILL OUT....

08
Calhoun, Riv/Sco
Good, Riv
Washington, Riv/Sco
Johnson, Sco

-Johnson was vastly overrated, big miss by Scout. Other 3, unknown.

09
McFarland, Sco
Lynn, Sco
Lewis, Sco

-Looks promising for the 2 who saw action this year.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

and how many of the ones in bold bailed early? bailing early, and the position being weak the next year has to account for something in the risk.

[gaylordfan1]

Great thread!

[VA Sooner]

Great analyses... love this board!

[Eielson]

I've personally always said that great teams are built on 4-stars.

[Eielson]

I've personally always said that great teams are built on 4-stars.

Having said that, I bet there are a lot of 4-star players that never played as well as they were supposed to. Five stars aren't locks to be great, but I think they're probably great at a much higher percentage than the others.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

Having said that, I bet there are a lot of 4-star players that never played as well as they were supposed to. Five stars aren't locks to be great, but I think they're probably great at a much higher percentage than the others.

of course they are, its a stacked deck. its like you picking 5 teams to finish in the top 25. the problem is when you deal with the player in a vacuum and don't take into account how much better he made the team, your w/l record, or if he bailed early and left the team in a bind.

for example, brodney pool & TGRW -> we were HURTING in the secondary after they left early.

as cobrakai says though, 5* guys tend to be street cred guys for recruiting.