W/L % vs Conference and Recruiting Opponents

Caw Caw · July 27, 2017

I'm always a little taken back when I get the "we should beat that *insert team you view as crappy* for recruits". This inspired me to dig a little into the win-loss records on the field. Eventually I'll hopefully dig through the offer lists of kids we went head to head for and see if the data compares well, currently, I'm too busy for that.

We are currently 49-56-3 vs our current conference mates. The only winning records are UTEP and MTSU. We currently have ties with La Tech and WKU. Several others, like USM, are decided by a game. Also, I understand that this isn't the only factor in recruiting battles. Facilities, Proximity to home, Staff, Media/NFL attention, Championship potential (conference and greater), pure salesmanship, etc. This is just some statistical information to the discussion. My argument here is really that there isn't a school we should beat, hands down, every time in a recruiting battle. Football teams are a lot like clothes to recruits, one size doesn't fit all and even if it fits they just may not be your style. Even the periods of conference dominance don't last for decades, no team in our conference, and maybe even in G5 has a dynastic period of dominance. This is a shortcoming compared to the 'Bamas of the world, but it allows for a lot greater parody throughout the G5 landscape.

I've included some of our other recruiting rivals or schools i've seen us go head-to-head with a lot.

C-USA WEST

La Tech: 50% win rate (Dropped four of the last five. Our lead was built in the late 70s)

UTSA: 25% win rate (One in four)

UTEP: 63% win rate (Dropped 3 straight)

Rice: 42% win rate

USM: 45% win rate (we're only one loss behind after last year, it's like that with a few teams)

UAB: 0% win rate (0-2 all-time vs the Blazers)

C-USA East

WKU - 50% win rate (all tied up)

ODU: Never Played

MTSU: 53% win rate (Another Sun Belt Alumn, the only active conference we have a winning record over by the way)

FIU: 38% win rate (we won the last won, but dropped the previous 5)

Charlotte: Never Played

FAU: 40% win rate (we're streaking with 4 straight at the moment)

Marshall: 33% (first win last year)

Other Common Recruiting Opponents

Arky St: 36% win rate

ULM: 45% win rate (ULM dominated the Belt on our way out including beating us the last seven straight)

Houston: 50% win rate (four game losing streak from 1980-2012 our last match up)

SMU: 15% win rate (not pretty at all)

Texas Tech: 50% win rate (tied at four games a piece, they won the most recent two)

Tulsa: 29% win rate (We did win our last meeting, however they won the ten previous)

DISCLAMER: I AM ALSO NOT SAYING THIS MEANS WE SHOULD NEVER BEAT THEM AT RECRUITING JUST A FRAME OF REFERENCE FOR SOME CONTEXT TO OUR ONGOING RECRUITING DISCUSSION. I BELIEVE THE LAST DECADE ACTUALLY MEANS MORE THAN ALL-TIME, ALMOST ALL OF THOSE MATCH-UPS LOOK WORSE FOR US WITHIN THAT SCOPE.

Ben Gooding · July 27, 2017

17 minutes ago, Caw Caw said:

I'm always a little taken back when I get the "we should beat that *insert team you view as crappy* for recruits". This inspired me to dig a little into the win-loss records on the field. Eventually I'll hopefully dig through the offer lists of kids we went head to head for and see if the data compares well, currently, I'm too busy for that.

We are currently 49-56-3 vs our current conference mates. The only winning records are UTEP and MTSU. We currently have ties with La Tech and WKU. Several others, like USM, are decided by a game. Also, I understand that this isn't the only factor in recruiting battles. Facilities, Proximity to home, Staff, Media/NFL attention, Championship potential (conference and greater), pure salesmanship, etc. This is just some statistical information to the discussion. My argument here is really that there isn't a school we should beat, hands down, every time in a recruiting battle. Football teams are a lot like clothes to recruits, one size doesn't fit all and even if it fits they just may not be your style. Even the periods of conference dominance don't last for decades, no team in our conference, and maybe even in G5 has a dynastic period of dominance. This is a shortcoming compared to the 'Bamas of the world, but it allows for a lot greater parody throughout the G5 landscape.

I've included some of our other recruiting rivals or schools i've seen us go head-to-head with a lot.

C-USA WEST

La Tech: 50% win rate (Dropped four of the last five. Our lead was built in the late 70s)

UTSA: 25% win rate (One in four)

UTEP: 63% win rate (Dropped 3 straight)

Rice: 42% win rate

USM: 45% win rate (we're only one loss behind after last year, it's like that with a few teams)

UAB: 0% win rate (0-2 all-time vs the Blazers)

C-USA East

WKU - 50% win rate (all tied up)

ODU: Never Played

MTSU: 53% win rate (Another Sun Belt Alumn, the only active conference we have a winning record over by the way)

FIU: 38% win rate (we won the last won, but dropped the previous 5)

Charlotte: Never Played

FAU: 40% win rate (we're streaking with 4 straight at the moment)

Marshall: 33% (first win last year)

Other Common Recruiting Opponents

Arky St: 36% win rate

ULM: 45% win rate (ULM dominated the Belt on our way out including beating us the last seven straight)

Houston: 50% win rate (four game losing streak from 1980-2012 our last match up)

SMU: 15% win rate (not pretty at all)

Texas Tech: 50% win rate (tied at four games a piece, they won the most recent two)

Tulsa: 29% win rate (We did win our last meeting, however they won the ten previous)

DISCLAMER: I AM ALSO NOT SAYING THIS MEANS WE SHOULD NEVER BEAT THEM AT RECRUITING JUST A FRAME OF REFERENCE FOR SOME CONTEXT TO OUR ONGOING RECRUITING DISCUSSION. I BELIEVE THE LAST DECADE ACTUALLY MEANS MORE THAN ALL-TIME, ALMOST ALL OF THOSE MATCH-UPS LOOK WORSE FOR US WITHIN THAT SCOPE.

So what you're making the argument for the other side of the coin with your analytics. We are almost break even as a whole vs our opponents. And as you even said, other things are applied when a recruit is selecting his destination. Though our facilities are not great, I would stack them up against 65-70% of the conference with comfort. And proximity...Moot point, by if we just recruited and hung onto CUSA guys at a 100 mile radius of Denton, we'd be endless conference or at least division champs. As far as NFL...If we took care of 1-3 above (win %, facilities, proximity), as they are taken care of as they stand, we should be vying for local guys that have good offer sheets and ratings every single year. But we're not, and that is why you keep hearing the same old chirping.

Caw Caw · July 27, 2017

10 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

So what you're making the argument for the other side of the coin with your analytics. We are almost break even as a whole vs our opponents. And as you even said, other things are applied when a recruit is selecting his destination. Though our facilities are not great, I would stack them up against 65-70% of the conference with comfort. And proximity...Moot point, by if we just recruited and hung onto CUSA guys at a 100 mile radius of Denton, we'd be endless conference or at least division champs. As far as NFL...If we took care of 1-3 above (win %, facilities, proximity), as they are taken care of as they stand, we should be vying for local guys that have good offer sheets and ratings every single year. But we're not, and that is why you keep hearing the same old chirping.

Again, I think this applies most to the "I can't believe we don't beat every sunbelt, cusa team every time for every recruit crowd mostly. And, until someone digs through the endless amounts of offers every school puts out we can track down, no one really knows the differences between the two analytics. We could say of based on an estimate that La Tech does way better than 50/50 against us if we just look at this year I can think of three or four kids we've offered they've scooped. Proximity is both a pro and a con, depending the kid. I don't present the data to say we're just falling short against some teams, or that we're over-performing against others. You actually just avoided my point entirely to make yours. My point was, again, we aren't handing out losses on or off the field to any team carte blanche with any consistency. I'd love for you to dig through all the offer sheets the last five or six years to come up with a win/loss ratio. And again, if we were to change the data to recently, say last 10 years, these percentage tank.

Tyler Maryak · July 28, 2017

This did nothing but depress me. I hope we can just break even with most teams before I die now...

And I plan to live to 125.

GrandGreen · July 28, 2017

16 hours ago, Caw Caw said:

Again, I think this applies most to the "I can't believe we don't beat every sunbelt, cusa team every time for every recruit crowd mostly. And, until someone digs through the endless amounts of offers every school puts out we can track down, no one really knows the differences between the two analytics. We could say of based on an estimate that La Tech does way better than 50/50 against us if we just look at this year I can think of three or four kids we've offered they've scooped. Proximity is both a pro and a con, depending the kid. I don't present the data to say we're just falling short against some teams, or that we're over-performing against others. You actually just avoided my point entirely to make yours. My point was, again, we aren't handing out losses on or off the field to any team carte blanche with any consistency. I'd love for you to dig through all the offer sheets the last five or six years to come up with a win/loss ratio. And again, if we were to change the data to recently, say last 10 years, these percentage tank.

I don't think it needs a lot of analysis to determine that NT is getting beat by nearly all their peers in recruiting when it comes to recruits choosing one over the other. Most everyone realizes that, but the division occurs when trying to determine why. There is a big group that believe that because of NT lack of success, culture, lack of support, poor facilities, voodoo, etc. that the coaching staff at NT have an awful hurdle to be able to recruit against their peers.

This view is actually supported by the poor recruiting records of a long line of coaches. To me, before McCarney does not count because NT truly was in a bad situation because of conference, facilities, and budget levels.

With the hiring of McCarney, the building of Apogee and the substantial budget increases, NT is actually in a plus position via most of their CUSA, Belt and MAC peers. We know McCarney could definitely not recruit and it was hoped that Littrell would be much better. Littrell has not demonstrated he is any better at this point in beating out of other teams for players. Sure the losing hurts recruiting, but many others have been able to raise up bad programs. Based on his first class, although not many recruiting victories; Littrell did find some players. Hopefully, he can find enough talent to move NT up the ladder and build a program that can beat out teams for recruits.

Edited July 28, 2017 by GrandGreen

casual fan · July 28, 2017

From the recruiting side, it matters more about coaching changes than what happened 8 or 10 years ago.

According to 247 recruiting:

Texas State hired Everett Withers last year and their national recruiting rank went from 110 in 2016 to 92 this year. They beat us out of the only 3 star recruit we both made offers to this year.

UTSA hired Wilson last year and they went from 103 in 2016 to 75 nationally in 2017. They beat us out of all three 3 star recruits we both made offers to this year.

UNT hired Littrell last year and we went from from 102 in 2016 to 116 in 2017. However, I really think he recruited better than the rankings they gave it.