Signing day thoughts

Harry · February 7, 2013

Another national signing day is in the books.

That means two things.

One, I have used up my cell phone minutes for approximately the next six months talking to high school coaches, recruits, school secretaries and other random people on the annual hunt for news and information.

Two, its time for some thoughts.

Before we get to that, make sure to pick up a copy of tomorrows paper, which is loaded with goodness and covers all the nuts and bolts.

The question of the day is just how did UNT do?

Recuiting roughly equates to the old saying about beauty being in the eyes of the beholder.

Dan McCarney is like a lot of coaches, hes not a fan of services that rank classes and players. He firmly believes he and his staff are better evaluators of talent. They had better be. They are being paid a small fortune to prove that is the case.

Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2013/02/signing-day-thoughts-2.html/

UNT90 · February 7, 2013

Funny that all the coaches who have lowly rated recruiting classes aren't a fan of recruiting services, isn't it?

Edited February 7, 2013 by UNT90

Wag Tag · February 7, 2013

Funny that all the coaches who have lowly rated recruiting classes aren't a fan of recruiting services, isn't it?

It really is about winning and having a strong head coaching figure. Look at Arkie States class on 2012 with Gus Mulsan! 18 3*** signees. A school in the middle of nowhere with marginal facilities but winning. I think Dan is the man, but he has to start setting a winning trend.

GrandGreen · February 7, 2013

Dan McCarney is like a lot of coaches, hes not a fan of services that rank classes and players. He firmly believes he and his staff are better evaluators of talent. They had better be. They are being paid a small fortune to prove that is the case.

Nobody likes to be ranked when the rating is low. The problem with this view IMO is that the rating services are not evaluating talent on their own, they are basically depending on the universities coaching staffs to do it for them. They are not analysing film and making sound evaluations the way that they may want you to think they are. Their ratings are primarily based on who and how many are recruiting an athlete. Thus a player with one offer is not going to be rated high. Likewise a player who is pursued only by low tier schools is not going to get much attention.

So when you state you and your staff are better evaluators of talent, you are not really comparing your abilities with a few low paid rating agency staffers with nothing riding on their projections. What you are saying is that your staff is better evaluators of talent than other schools.

I hope that is the case, but I see no evidence thus far to support that claim.

Mean Green 93-98 · February 7, 2013

Dan McCarney is like a lot of coaches, hes not a fan of services that rank classes and players. He firmly believes he and his staff are better evaluators of talent. They had better be. They are being paid a small fortune to prove that is the case.

Nobody likes to be ranked when the rating is low. The problem with this view IMO is that the rating services are not evaluating talent on their own, they are basically depending on the universities coaching staffs to do it for them. They are not analysing film and making sound evaluations the way that they may want you to think they are. Their ratings are primarily based on who and how many are recruiting an athlete. Thus a player with one offer is not going to be rated high. Likewise a player who is pursued only by low tier schools is not going to get much attention.

So when you state you and your staff are better evaluators of talent, you are not really comparing your abilities with a few low paid rating agency staffers with nothing riding on their projections. What you are saying is that your staff is better evaluators of talent than other schools.

I hope that is the case, but I see no evidence thus far to support that claim.

Rivals/Scout etc. ratings may be affected by what schools and how many schools recruit a player, but that is certainly not the sole influence. For example, in our 2008 class (the best in quite a while), Lance Dunbar was only rated a 2-star player by Rivals. Yet he had offers from Colorado, Okie State, and Virginia. Kylee Hill was rated 3-stars, and yet we were his only 1A/FBS offer, at least as far as Rivals knew. You can find numerous examples of highly-recruited 2-stars and of lightly-recruited 3-stars.

GrandGreen · February 7, 2013

Rivals/Scout etc. ratings may be affected by what schools and how many schools recruit a player, but that is certainly not the sole influence. For example, in our 2008 class (the best in quite a while), Lance Dunbar was only rated a 2-star player by Rivals. Yet he had offers from Colorado, Okie State, and Virginia. Kylee Hill was rated 3-stars, and yet we were his only 1A/FBS offer, at least as far as Rivals knew. You can find numerous examples of highly-recruited 2-stars and of lightly-recruited 3-stars.

So they poured over hours of film and went to many of the practices and games and decided Dunbar was only a two star.

Something else to consider, college coaches can not talk to them at least according to rules, so they depend on getting their information from published reports and discussions with the players, relatives and high school coaches. The later sources tend to be more than a little bias and sometimes that conversation with a recruiter turns into an offer and that form letter becomes interest.

I am sure they also take into consideration honors such as all state, etc. I also think they can be influenced by which schools use their services.

So you are absolutely right, there is no sole contributor. However, I still believe who and what schools are recruiting an athlete, is the largest factor by far.

Whatever criteria they are using, all the agenies seem to be in agreement on the NT class.

mockcode911 · February 10, 2013

Time will tell but I think the coaches have some serious issues getting talent and reading the players. I also think that someone needs to look inside the organization and find a common link that is self destructive to this football program. Where there is smoke there is usually fire and I don't think that all the good guys that feed Mac his information are good. I smell a rat that controls behind the spotlight...

Glad I had some time to check back in as I always find the fellow members of my alumni very intelligent and interesting!!