Dumb Rivals Question

[mrydel]

doubt Rivals has a single scout that really knows Hawaii High School Football or analyzes Tongans etc.

So you upcoming graduates that want to work in the field of athletics, call Rivals and apply for a job as a Tongan analyzer.

[me@smu]

Hawaii got beat by arguably the best team in college football. They were definitely Top 25 material.

Again it is all a matter of opinion but getting beat by possibly the best team in NCAA doesn't make you top 25 automatically, especially when the only positive from the game was the coin toss.

Hawaii ended number 17 and 19 in the AP and Coaches poll respectively. They achieved this honor and their game against GA by going undefeated through a creampuff of a schedule. Including two D1AA teams that went a combined 6 and 16. However despite the ease of this schedule, they still struggled against Louisana Tech (45-44 OT), San Jose St (42-35 OT), Nevada (28-26). Overall Hawaii's opponents were 54 and 93 for a 36.7% winning percentage.

All this said, they would have taken us to the woodshed but still questionable whether they were really one of the top 25 best teams in college football last year.

[SMU_is_bowling]

ponyboy wrote:

Hawaii got beat by arguably the best team in college football. They were definitely Top 25 material.


Again it is all a matter of opinion but getting beat by possibly the best team in NCAA doesn't make you top 25 automatically, especially when the only positive from the game was the coin toss.

Hawaii ended number 17 and 19 in the AP and Coaches poll respectively. They achieved this honor and their game against GA by going undefeated through a creampuff of a schedule. Including two D1AA teams that went a combined 6 and 16. However despite the ease of this schedule, they still struggled against Louisana Tech (45-44 OT), San Jose St (42-35 OT), Nevada (28-26). Overall Hawaii's opponents were 54 and 93 for a 36.7% winning percentage.

All this said, they would have taken us to the woodshed but still questionable whether they were really one of the top 25 best teams in college football last year.

Notice any running themes about those close games . . . all on the road, the rainbow warriors seemed to struggle on the road and dominate at home. though this year they had closer games at home too . . (washington, fresno, boise) but against solid teams.

[SMU Football Blog]

and you've severely underestimated the talent that was in that program from non-traditional means-not to mention the Polynesians who flew under the Rivals radar. I doubt Rivals has a single scout that really knows Hawaii High School Football or analyzes Tongans etc.

While I agree with the idea that Hawaii is under-scouted, I don't believe that the percentage of DI level HS football players in Hawaii is any greater than any other state; more likely, it is a smaller when you consider available coaching and resources.

In other words, I think it is a mixed bag. A few more diamonds in the rough but fewer diamonds overall as a percentage of the whole. I'm not sure being locked-in to the Hawaii HS scene is that significant. And as I understand it, there still was quite a bit of fighting over those kids with PAC10 schools.

I confess I haven't looked at the Hawaii 2-deep to see how many Polynesians there are.

[Stallion]

I know it has been reported all over that there are 78 Polynesians-(his predecessor had 18) but I have no idea (well I do but don't care to spend the time and effort to try and trace) how many originally came from the mainland, Hawaii, Tonga or Samoa-so we'll just say that he built his program to a large extent off a population base that was all but ignored by his predecessor-and will be difficult for SMU to replicate to the extent Hawaii did. We got one and Mao Leota from Trinity looks like a pretty good chance. Hawaii is something like 5th in the country in NFL players per capita. Samoa and the Tongans have a huge numbers of kids in the NFL. These are damn good athletes especially in the offensive and defensive lines and LB

[Big Hoss]

Another thing to remember about HS football in Hawaii is that there are some islands that do not have enough large high schools to put together an average-sized conference. I remember reading an article about one island (I believe it is Kauai) that only has like 4 HS football teams. They play each one 3 times for a 6 game season.

So the fact that Rivals doesn't know much about these kids isn't surprising. It's a lot like the really small schools in the midwest and they barely have enough kids to field a team. Tough to judge talent when you play against real competition, much less see them play at all.

[SMU 86]

It almost makes me want to call Steve Lineweaver and tell him to send Mao Leota to JJ's office. Because I am sure that with all the tapes he is having to dig through from everyone sending them in that he has probably not had time to go over to Trinity.

[Stallion]

It was reported that he went to Trinity already and we are recruiting Leota I believe

[SMU 86]

Do you know if it was this week or last week when he visited Trinity?