Rivals Upgrading Star Rankings

[Stallion]

PONYBOY: "Again, TCU is no longer our rival -- "

This tells you everything you need to know about Ponyboy

[NickSMU17]

BCS BCS....blah blah blah...

UCF has 34 4 stars looking at them...

[ponyboy]

Terrible way to look at it...taking that point of view is defeatist.

No, I agree that they're the standard, that which we ought to be striving for. But you're not suggesting that we are anywhere in the same stratosphere with them right now, are you? In other words, they're not a fair comparison. Goal absolutely, comparison right now, no.

Houston is fair game and UCF is fair game.

To Nick's point, holy smokes on UCF. They have not just the aforementioned four star commits and interest, but interest from five star recruits as well. Yes, they are clearly beating us on paper right now.

Houston not so much, though again that goes to the question whether you give any credence to top level recruit interest. I think you do, even though the overwhelming majority of those recruits will not sign with us in February. Sure commits are best, but interest is merely a gauge to be used for lack of better data this early in the recruiting game.

[NickSMU17]

Its a terrible way to measure and even with trying to manipulate the data we are doing a poor job of recruiting and keeping guys eligible....


At 2.75 mil, we deserve more...

[ponyboy]

Ok, so you can't use recruit interest. What's the way to measure, then? Commits only? Do you include offers?

[abezontar]

I agree, with as little interest as it takes to be considered interested in a school, I don't think number of recruits interested in us is a good indicator in any way whatsoever. It may make us feel good, but of little substance.

[ponyboy]

One thing is clear to me. Without reference to comparable schools, interest is an extremely poor indicator. The data mean nothing in isolation, it is true.

[abezontar]

One thing is clear to me. Without reference to comparable schools, interest is an extremely poor indicator. The data mean nothing in isolation, it is true.

Even in context of other schools it is a poor indicator as a recruit could simply have received a single call from the school and then put them on his list. He may have no actual interest, instead just indicating that he has been contacted by the school. Without some objective measure of interest that can be compared recruit to recruit and school to school, it is meaningless.

[ponyboy]

Ok, I can probably buy that. Thank you.

So how do we measure how well we're doing? Are commits the only way to judge? Offers? Official visits? Too early to tell?

[smudubs]

I preface this comment by saying that I have not read every entry on this tread, so if someone has said this already, please ignore me. There seems to be a decent deal of discussion concerning what it means for a player to "have interest" in a school. The one thing that I have not seen mentioned is that because commitments are non-binding, the verbals that several schools have at this point are no more than public statements of strong interest. This early in the game, commitments to non-BCS powers are relatively meaningless because, as we have seen, kids can and do change their minds.

It makes little sense to poo poo the arguments that have been made concerning the number of kids who express interest in a particular school and then celebrate when a kid commits to your school. Are these not, in essence, two sides of the same coin?

The kids who express interest are the ones from whom SMU will get commitments. As fans we can hope that those who commit stick with the program and ultimately sign in February. Let's see the finished product before we rush to judgment.

[abezontar]

I preface this comment by saying that I have not read every entry on this tread, so if someone has said this already, please ignore me. There seems to be a decent deal of discussion concerning what it means for a player to "have interest" in a school. The one thing that I have not seen mentioned is that because commitments are non-binding, the verbals that several schools have at this point are no more than public statements of strong interest. This early in the game, commitments to non-BCS powers are relatively meaningless because, as we have seen, kids can and do change their minds.

It makes little sense to poo poo the arguments that have been made concerning the number of kids who express interest in a particular school and then celebrate when a kid commits to your school. Are these not, in essence, two sides of the same coin?

The kids who express interest are the ones from whom SMU will get commitments. As fans we can hope that those who commit stick with the program and ultimately sign in February. Let's see the finished product before we rush to judgment.

Verbal commitments and interest may be similar. I think the issue I have is looking to anyone factor as the sole indicator of how we are recruiting in any particular year. When comparing recruiting efforts/success you have to look at not only the interest SMU is receiving but the number of offers out, the number of commitments, the quality of the commitments, the number of other offers those commitments had, etc. I do think a commitment is a greater indication that the recruit is actually interested in the program, and I think it is eaiser to compare commitments against rivals, particularly in situations where rivals have offered the same recruit. Again though, all indicators are somewhat dubious becuase these kids can and will changer their minds many times before signing day in February.

[mrydel]

One of the keys is to develop a program from which a kid will drop a commitment to join rather than being a safety school with an early commitment and then be ready to leave if a better offer, in their mind, comes along.

We as fans are stuck in the same frame of mind. Anytime we get a commitment we like, we hope and pray that he will not leave. But if a person commits to another program we automatically say he is gone and there is no chance to get him to switch to us.

We need a program that kids want to be a part of rather than one that is the best they think they can do.

No answers here, just an opinion.

[West Coast Johnny]

TCU won the rose bowl with 2 star evaluated tallent like Andy Dalton and Tank Carder. Neither one had any big offers. The fact is that it took TCU ten years and two BCS games to improve its recruiting to this level. The player development program at TCU came first. They made chicken salad out of chicken [deleted], and now they are starting to get better recruits. I think that de-emphasizing recruiting in Texas has been a terrible mistake for June Jone. You have to establish a home turf.

[Stallion]

TCU outrecruited about 10 out of 12 schools on its schedule on average for the last 13 years. It has recruited w/o question among the Top 3 non-BCS teams in the country over that period. Arguably TCU has outrecruited (more like demolished) SMU for the last 23 years in a row (although I admit an SMU homer might argue about 2 of those 23 years). For example for the last 4 years including this year TCU has been No. 1 in either Total Points or Average per recruit among all non-BCS schools. I have previously posted these numbers to prior years as well but Rivals has stopped listing classes past No. 50. That's why I'm considered a TCU homer on this board because I've documented that after every recruiting year. Recruiting is relative to your opponent and that's how they've built their program. That and retaining, and graduating their players.

BTW Andy Dalton was a 3 Star No. 23rd rated QB in the Country and that was before the 100% grade inflation in Rivals rating system-probably would be about a 5.7 3 Star these days. He also was a Texas Top 100 and rated No. 98.

[EastStang]

Stallion to be honest, we were out recruited for 23 years in a row because we started out hog- tying ourselves in recruiting and ever so slowly released one appendange at a time. I would say that now, we can probably offer almost any kid that TCU would offer. The problem is that would they rather go to a BCS program that will dominate the BE, or would they rather go to a building non-BCS program in CUSA? We have two things to sell these kids. Life after college (not every 4 star makes the NFL) and academics (not every four star makes the NFL). That said, we have more players getting NFL looks than before and we have greater name recognition than most non-BCS schools. And CUSA has most of those teams in the fold (SMU, Tulane, Memphis, Rice, Houston). Only perhaps Navy, Army, Boise and AFA have greater name recognition.