Class Rated Based On Offer Lists

BillySee58 · December 19, 2019

Alright, everyone knows this is my schtick by now. I have all of the offer lists for all of our signees going back to 2011 (Mccarney’s first class), and I came up with a grading system for each recruit based strictly on who offered them. No other FBS offers besides us is a “C”, one other FBS offer is a “C+”, 2-4 is a “B”, 2-4 with one being a P5 offer is a “B+”, 5-9 is an “A”, and 10 or more is an “A+”.

Also, more recently I started grading these classes by giving the recruits offer points, with G5 offers being worth 1 point and P5 offers being worth 1.5 points. I made some nerdy-ass charts to visualize.

1st chart shows what percentage of our signees have a “B” or higher offer list. This year we are at 61%, down from 82% that we had last year. That’s the 3rd highest in this range behind 2014.

2nd chart shows what percentage of our signees have an “A” or higher offer list. This year it’s at 33%, down from last year’s 45% and tied with 2014 for the 2nd highest in this range.

3rd chart shows how many offer points each class had. This year we are at 72, down from 114 that last class had, and 4th highest in this range behind 2014 and 2015 which both had 75. 2015 was pretty heavily boosted by Kevin Dillman and the QB offers he received early in his high school career. He alone had 23 offer points. This class has a chance to pass up 2014 and 2015 with a few more solid signings to finish out.

The conclusion here is that based on offer lists, this class was a step down from last years but not too majorly. Still a very solid class as we all knew. But we had a lot of players who were rated pretty highly but did not have the offer lists that would seem to substantiate the rating. Can’t help but wonder if maybe some of these guys would have had more if they didn’t commit so early and weren’t so pro North Texas on Twitter. Plus, had we been able to hang on to guys like Dempsey and Renfro, this class would have been in the 90s in terms of offer points. But still a chance to get there with these last 4 or 5 spots.

Edited December 19, 2019 by BillySee58

NorthTexasWeLove · December 19, 2019

Those last 4 or 5 spots could be pivotal, good or bad.

Mean Green Matt · December 19, 2019

Kind of disappointed in those figures. This one felt like much closer to last year. Then again, I’m no expert.

outoftown · December 19, 2019

The dip is a bit bigger than I would have thought it would be seeing the 247 rating. I understand Billysees interpretation of the results though. Considering how the season went, this is still pretty good recruiting. I feel in terms of successful battling for recruits is one point where SL has really improved from where he was during his first two years. Now he needs to make it pay off on the field.

Felozano · December 19, 2019

1 hour ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

Those last 4 or 5 spots could be pivotal, good or bad.

That's a good point. SL said there are still 4 scholarships available during his press conference yesterday. Those could be huge!

Wag Tag · December 19, 2019

Davontae may have the best offer list that I have seen for a commit. I was wondering if he would be our highest rated player in our history that we have signed based off your measurements? Thanks

Edited December 19, 2019 by Wag Tag

Cerebus · December 19, 2019

12 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

Davontae may have the best offer list that I have seen for a commit. I was wondering if he would be our highest rated player in our history that we have signed based off your measurements? Thanks

Jamario had offers from aTm, TT, Colorado, Ark, and Arizona St.

meaniegreenie · December 19, 2019

I'd be okay if a few more "C" level recruits pan out like that little ol' #6 we've had for the last few years. (I'm not crying, you're crying!! Sniff, sniff.)

BillySee58 · December 19, 2019

1 hour ago, Wag Tag said:

Davontae may have the best offer list that I have seen for a commit. I was wondering if he would be our highest rated player in our history that we have signed based off your measurements? Thanks

1 hour ago, Cerebus said:

Jamario had offers from aTm, TT, Colorado, Ark, and Arizona St.

Kevin Dillman is the highest rated based on the offer points scale I use. He had 14 P5 offers and 2 more G5 offers for 23 total offer points. That was as a QB recruit but when we signed him he had completely fallen off the map and we signed him to play tight end.

https://247sports.com/Recruitment/Kevin-Dillman-21141/RecruitInterests/

MeanGreenDan · December 19, 2019

Offer points would be negatively impacted (and artificially skew it down) at this point because last year's class we signed everyone during early signing period, and this year we've got 4 or 5 still unaccounted for, right?

Cerebus · December 19, 2019

1 hour ago, BillySee58 said:

Kevin Dillman is the highest rated based on the offer points scale I use. He had 14 P5 offers and 2 more G5 offers for 23 total offer points. That was as a QB recruit but when we signed him he had completely fallen off the map and we signed him to play tight end.

https://247sports.com/Recruitment/Kevin-Dillman-21141/RecruitInterests/

Yes, the data is kind of dirty because in the end the offers are self reported, we don't know what has been pulled, and not all the offers are at the position the recruit signed for. However, it's more or less the best their is.

Are you hand building those lists? 24/7 doesn't offer API access so I was thinking of building a site scrapper to collect all that data. Wanted to compare ranking and/or offer lists of players in G5 conferences, and see if those metrics relate to success within that schools conference record over the lifetime of the recruit.

Have you ever used PowerBI? It's a very good vis tool and has some good data cleanup tools built in.

Ping me if any of this sounds interesting.

BillySee58 · December 19, 2019

25 minutes ago, MeanGreenDan said:

Offer points would be negatively impacted (and artificially skew it down) at this point because last year's class we signed everyone during early signing period, and this year we've got 4 or 5 still unaccounted for, right?

Correct. The offer points chart is a quantitative measure, whereas the first two (percentage of “B” and “A”) are qualitative.

So yeah, if we sign some guys with good offer lists, this class could push towards 100 offer points still. Alternatively, if we use a couple spots on grad transfers then that would hurt from an offer points standpoint as I don’t think we’d be able to track grad transfer offer lists, although I believe 247 is trying to get there.

BillySee58 · December 19, 2019

10 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Yes, the data is kind of dirty because in the end the offers are self reported, we don't know what has been pulled, and not all the offers are at the position the recruit signed for. However, it's more or less the best their is.

Are you hand building those lists? 24/7 doesn't offer API access so I was thinking of building a site scrapper to collect all that data. Wanted to compare ranking and/or offer lists of players in G5 conferences, and see if those metrics relate to success within that schools conference record over the lifetime of the recruit.

Have you ever used PowerBI? It's a very good vis tool and has some good data cleanup tools built in.

Ping me if any of this sounds interesting.

Yes, these have been hand built over the years. I would be interested in doing something because I would like to track other teams in the conference but have no intentions on hand-building charts for each of them the way I have with UNT.

Harry · December 19, 2019

39 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Yes, the data is kind of dirty because in the end the offers are self reported, we don't know what has been pulled, and not all the offers are at the position the recruit signed for. However, it's more or less the best their is.

This is such a good point. I am not sure if you remember this, but we had scenarios in the past where we would land a player who had an offer from Okie State and the coaches at Okie State would remove their offer so it wouldn't look like we beat them on anything. Crazy but true.

I agree 100% though that offers are just the very best data point we have to measure value in this recruiting game. I would be interested in doing something as well to track it.

UNT 04 · December 19, 2019

If one was so inclined they could program a bot to gather the info from the site and insert into a database.

FirefightnRick · December 20, 2019

On 12/19/2019 at 8:27 AM, Mean Green Matt said:

Kind of disappointed in those figures. This one felt like much closer to last year. Then again, I’m no expert.

Charlotte, Rice, La Tech Southern Miss etc have all beaten us with recruits that had few if any offers. No reason why we can’t return the favor. That’s why I don’t sweat recruiting.

Rick

NorthTexasWeLove · December 20, 2019

50 minutes ago, FirefightnRick said:

Charlotte, Rice, La Tech Southern Miss etc have all beaten us with recruits that had few if any offers. No reason why we can’t return the favor. That’s why I don’t sweat recruiting.

Rick

Charlotte and Rice most certainly did.

Not LaTech and SoMiss.

The recruiting you don't believe in is typically why SoMiss and LaTech have winning programs. On the contrary, the lack of recruiting is why Rice and Charlotte are doormats. This isn't all some big coincidence.

NorthTexasWeLove · December 20, 2019

Just now, FirefightnRick said:

i disagree, nothing beats the eye test.

Tell me....when you and I were sitting at Wichita Falls’ Memorial Stadium that summer watching Booger Kennedy embarras some of the best O linemen the state of Oklahoma had to offer...did the thought ever cross your mind who in hell offered or didn’t offer him?

Of course not. Who offered or didn’t offer didn’t mean shit to us. All that mattered was he was fast, quick as hell and he was coming to Denton.

Rick

You talk in outliers when you talk recruiting. Outliers is not the sole premise on having a solid foundation to build a program on. It's great to pull those diamonds up. The programs that recruit with consistency are the programs that are going to be putting themselves in positions to win football games. Recruiting has been just about turned into a science. And every expert that has associated themselves with this science will disagree with your outlook.

Go do your own research. Go back 10 years and look up the 10 best recruiting 'G5' programs in the country. And then correlate that recruiting to their on the field success, good or bad. Then go look at the worst 10 recruiting programs in the country. And then correlate that recruiting to their on the field failures. You'll see this just doesn't happen on a whim or luck. There's a method to the madness, and stars/offers matter.

FirefightnRick · December 20, 2019

22 hours ago, Harry said:

I agree 100% though that offers are just the very best data point we have to measure value in this recruiting game.

Disagree. Nothing beats the eye test.

When you and I were sitting at Wichita Falls’ Memorial Stadium that summer watching Booger Kennedy embarras some of Oklahoma’s top O linemen the furthest thing from my mind was who didn’t offer him and who did.

All that mattered was he was damn good and he was coming to Denton.

Then we went to watch the first day in pads and we knew we were in for something special.

Nothing beats the eye test.

Rick

Edited December 20, 2019 by FirefightnRick

NorthTexasWeLove · December 20, 2019

Great recruiting debate. Thanks.

BillySee58 · December 20, 2019

1 hour ago, FirefightnRick said:

Disagree. Nothing beats the eye test.

When you and I were sitting at Wichita Falls’ Memorial Stadium that summer watching Booger Kennedy embarras some of Oklahoma’s top O linemen the furthest thing from my mind was who didn’t offer him and who did.

All that mattered was he was damn good and he was coming to Denton.

Then we went to watch the first day in pads and we knew we were in for something special.

Nothing beats the eye test.

Rick

Context matters. I actually like throwing in some under-recruited kids in each class provided the proper context. If it’s a Mason Fine, Booger Kennedy, or Brelan Chancellor type where the player has the talent and ability but they are being passed over because of height, I like those type of pickups. But when it’s a 6’ cornerback or a 6’4” 300 lb linemen and they aren’t picking up offers because of ability, that’s more concerning.

UNTLifer · December 20, 2019

1 hour ago, NorthTexasWeLove said:

You talk in outliers when you talk recruiting. Outliers is not the sole premise on having a solid foundation to build a program on. It's great to pull those diamonds up. The programs that recruit with consistency are the programs that are going to be putting themselves in positions to win football games. Recruiting has been just about turned into a science. And every expert that has associated themselves with this science will disagree with your outlook.

Go do your own research. Go back 10 years and look up the 10 best recruiting 'G5' programs in the country. And then correlate that recruiting to their on the field success, good or bad. Then go look at the worst 10 recruiting programs in the country. And then correlate that recruiting to their on the field failures. You'll see this just doesn't happen on a whim or luck. There's a method to the madness, and stars/offers matter.

How about you do that research and show us the results.