You get one guess.
Remember, these are the same people who just passed NIL legislation. ABC, baby.
Category Archives: Recruiting
The state, it is still run by us.
Shot.
Chaser.
Coach 404 still has a tough row to hoe, methinks.
Filed under Georgia Football, Georgia Tech Football, Recruiting
So long and good luck
But what about the carcass of the Big 12? Just how much will it be losing on the recruiting trail? How do teams like Oklahoma State, TCU, Iowa State, Baylor, and the rest measure up?
Predictably, the answer is a lot. In fact, without Oklahoma and Texas, the Big 12 is closer to the Group of 5 leagues than it is to any of the existing Power 5 conferences.
Eleven recruiting classes have come and gone since Nebraska, Missouri, and Texas A&M left the Big 12. In those 11 classes, Texas and Oklahoma have signed a combined 287 blue-chip players, which is about 13 per team per class. The rest of the league has combined to sign just 165, or slightly less than two per team per class.
Well, maybe it’s not as bad as that sounds.
But even given that the remainder of the Big 12 has significantly out-recruited the AAC in any relevant time frame, it is still well behind its other leagues. The Pac 12’s top eight recruiters have signed 270 four- and five-star recruits over the last five years compared to just 65 by the remaining eight Big 12 schools.
For all intents and purposes, the Big 12’s recruiting level without the Longhorns and Sooners is that of the best Group of 5 league, and far away from a Power 5 league.
Then, again…
Filed under Big 12 Football, Recruiting
Will no one think of the offensive linemen?
We presume Kirby Smart is having to deal with some negativity on the recruiting trail as it relates to the infamous pooling arrangement in HB 617, but at least he can honestly say it’s something he was saddled with by Sen. Bill “It’s not fair for just the skill players to take all the money, otherwise why is somebody going to block for you?” Cowsert.
Ohio State’s Ryan Day, on the other hand, has elected for the own goal approach. He’s all in.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day thinks that while college football’s highest-profile players will have immense earning opportunities through name, image and likeness deals, there should be consideration to sharing money among other players.
Day, speaking Friday at Lucas Oil Stadium, was asked about Alabama coach Nick Saban’s recent comment that Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young could command seven figures in NIL agreements. Ohio State’s starting quarterback occupies a similar position in the sport, and the growing Columbus market provides “the perfect alignment,” Day said, for earning potential.
“Those things happen and will come naturally, but I do think we need to consider down the road, somewhere along the line, maybe it’s a year from now, figuring out how we spread some of that money out,” Day said. “Certainly the quarterback at Ohio State is going to have unbelievable opportunities, the wide receiver, the running back, there’s going to be certain positions.
“However, how do we find ways to make sure we disseminate that throughout the team? Because there’s a lot of guys out there who are also playing football, guys who are blocking for the quarterback, guys who are covering the wide receivers.”
Day thinks one approach would be for schools to create agreements with a group of local businesses that would produce a pool of revenue that could be divided among the players. The NCAA would have to allow schools to be more active in creating such deals, or in having their logos and markings used.
“Say they put $3 million into an account, and then you could work with Ohio State, and they split that money to everybody, so that the quarterback isn’t the only one,” Day said. “Now if the quarterback wants to do a deal on his own, great, but if not, it all gets spread evenly to everybody. If it’s a group deal, you can use the Ohio State logo and the trademarking. The NCAA would have to OK that because now we can’t do that. But it seems more sustainable to me.
“It seems like that would help the left tackle or the left guard get $10,000.”
Now, to be fair to Day, he’s offering this as an alternative. If the quarterback doesn’t want to share, he doesn’t have to. But I can’t help but wonder if that winds up being an approach that causes more dissention than it prevents. How’s it going to go over with his linemen when the star quarterback says, “sorry, but no thanks, you’re on your own”? And if you’re a kid who doesn’t want to be put on the spot like that in the first place, why not find a more accommodating place to play than Ohio State?
Filed under It's Just Bidness, Recruiting
The “Dan Mullen conundrum”
Man, I don’t know what Dan Mullen did to the folks over at The Athletic — does he owe somebody money, or something? — but between the piece I linked to yesterday and Ari Wasserman’s takedown of Florida’s recruiting ($$), lately the Portal Master™’s been taking it on the proverbial chin over there.
You could say that the key for Mullen is to hire a hot-shot recruiter as a lead assistant. He did that, bringing in Tim Brewster as his tight ends coach before the 2020 season. But to be a dog in the recruiting realm, you have to love it. Meyer breathed recruiting. He loved it. He was passionate about it. He looked forward to it. And from afar, it doesn’t seem as though Mullen has that temperament. The head coach has to embody what he wants from his staff.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Filed under Gators, Gators..., Recruiting
Man with a plan
Thought these two maps were interesting:
It’s not that Smart is just throwing offers up from coast to coast and waiting to see what sticks. He’s putting more emphasis into California and Texas, because that’s where the talent is outside of his immediate vicinity.
Speaking of immediate vicinity, it also appears he’s got the luxury of being more choosy on his home turf, at least as far as this year goes. The question is how far can you go with that without alienating high school coaches in the state. (Not that I’m exactly worried that Kirby hasn’t already done the calibrations on that.)
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
Meet me in the middle
We all know the current narrative about Kirby Smart. Underachieving coach… if not this year, then when?… how long until Georgia fans put Smart on the hot seat? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The essence of the narrative is that a coach who recruits like Smart does (and, hey, it’s Georgia — really, shouldn’t any head coach recruit like that there?) ought to have more to show for his efforts than a mere three divisional titles, a conference title and a CFP semi-final win in the last four seasons. Obviously this is a man who gets less production than he should from the talent he gathers.
So there’s little doubt that if you compiled a list of the biggest underachievers in P5 from 2017 on, comparing, say, Massey ratings with the 247Sports Composite rankings ($$) that Georgia would be among the worst offenders, right?
There they are! Wait a minute… must have missed it… hold on. That can’t be right.
Not only is the narrative dumb, it’s not even reality based.
If you want to see where Georgia actually falls in this metric, here you go.
There’s one last group worth addressing: the Power 5 programs that are exactly as successful as they should be. The list of programs whose four-year Massey ratings are right in line with their four-year recruiting rankings is an interesting one.
If you look at the full spectrum of Power 5 programs, Alabama finished in the same spot in both rankings, obviously, as did Texas A&M and Missouri. Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame, Clemson and Oklahoma are among the programs that have performed a tiny bit better than they should’ve been over these last four seasons, at least based on the perception of their recruiting.
And then Georgia, LSU, Oregon, Auburn, Florida, Texas and Michigan have been a little worse, but not by much. Two of those programs paid massive sums this offseason to fire their successful head coaches in the hopes that somebody else can do better. That says plenty about the pressure at the top, doesn’t it?
By these measures, Auburn and Texas aren’t two of the worst underachievers in college football. But at schools like those, if you’re not winning at the highest level, you’re going to feel like one.
Or, in Kirby Smart’s case, made to feel like one.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting, Stats Geek!
Accentuate the positive
A reminder of how Kirby Smart got himself into hot water with pundits everywhere.
I mean, if he would just quit the incessant bragging modest noting answering stupid questions about Georgia’s recruiting, maybe they’d all get off his back with this “you should’a already won a natty” stuff.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
ABC
Smartass pundit take: just compare Richt’s first five years to Smart’s — they’re no different!
Georgia fan’s take (h/t):
And that doesn’t even take into account the way the 2013 class disappeared.
For funsies, here are a couple more charts.
First a Georgia-Florida comparison:
Roughly is doing some heavy lifting there. It’s pretty impressive to see how Boom drove Florida’s recruiting after Corch into a ditch. He built the gap.
Second, if this graph isn’t damning…
Never forget.
Filed under Freeze!, Gators, Gators..., Georgia Football, Recruiting
And now, a friendly word from our sponsor
Georgia’s assistant athletic director for football compliance has a few things he’d like you to know about NIL.
While I don’t think there are a lot of surprises on the list of dos and don’ts, there is one of the latter that might be a little tricky to implement in the real world.
There’s a fine line between promoting the support for a college athlete’s NIL activities as part of recruiting and what can’t be done there. How close will Smart push things and how much room will compliance give him to do so should be an interesting tug.
Filed under Georgia Football, It's Just Bidness, Recruiting
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