2010 tOSU Recruiting Discussion

[jwinslow]

Is this year another case of where offering a select few and missing out on a lot of the top targets is going to back fire on the staff. It seems like it's happened quite a bit the last few years and we end up settling for a few plan B guys to fill the class. Some have produced very well since being @ OSU but I think @ a place like OSU, you continue to go after the top talent around the country.

so if they offered schofner in June, would he suddenly be a 'plan A' talent? Or is the only difference on our end our awareness of their interst in him if they offer him next week.

There are two types of recruits, guys that can play here and those that can't. Very rarely do they offer the latter.

You end up with more of the latter when you hand out schollues like water.

Why not open the doors to more top-ranked recruits and show what OSU has to offer?

when was the last time this worked? Osu brings in some supers with marginal interest every year, and they say nice things and fade into the background.

Seems to work for other coaches that hand out scholarships like water, jmo.

False. Illinois, richrod, and ole miss would kill for our classes

I don't question Tressel's recruiting much, but why not give out a few more schollies earlier in the process to the top talent around the country and if the class starts filling too quickly, back off on a few.

1) because those aren't really offers. The staff makes it clear when things get tight, but they don't pressure kids to commit. It might lead to less impulse verbals, but it also results in a ton less decommits and transfers. I don't think buckeye fans appreciate just how rampant the decommitment plague is, yet osu has been fairly healthy in that area.

2) when you hand out offers that you don't honor, others staffs will use that against you, especially if you go back to that region a lot. Osu cannot afford to burn bridges like that in Ohio.

3) Michigan and many other schools not only hand out non-commitable offers, they even recruit in a way to get verbals to decommit if someone better comes along. I want no part of that garbage.

 

[mendensa]

so if they offered schofner in June, would he suddenly be a 'plan A' talent? Or is the only difference on our end our awareness of their interst in him if they offer him next week.

Ok then, what makes a Plan B recruit? You hear that term tossed around a lot? Obviously they aren't the guys that the staff wants most or they would have offers back in June? Maybe if they offered Schofner back in June he would be wearing S & G right now.

There are two types of recruits, guys that can play here and those that can't. Very rarely do they offer the latter.

You end up with more of the latter when you hand out schollues like water.
when was the last time this worked? Osu brings in some supers with marginal interest every year, and they say nice things and fade into the background.

Golden rule is: you get them on Campus. That's where it starts. You can't get them all but the more top recruits you get on campus the better your chances.

False. Illinois, richrod, and ole miss would kill for our classes

You name a few it doesn't work for, what about the programs that seem to be doing just fine w/ that approach?

1) because those aren't really offers. The staff makes it clear when things get tight, but they don't pressure kids to commit. It might lead to less impulse verbals, but it also results in a ton less decommits and transfers. I don't think buckeye fans appreciate just how rampant the decommitment plague is, yet osu has been fairly healthy in that area.

Agreed

2) when you hand out offers that you don't honor, others staffs will use that against you, especially if you go back to that region a lot. Osu cannot afford to burn bridges like that in Ohio.

who said anything about not honoring them. If you offer and they commit that's good right??? You can offer kids, show them genuine interest, and if they don't reciprocate interest, you look elsewhere.

3) Michigan and many other schools not only hand out non-commitable offers, they even recruit in a way to get verbals to decommit if someone better comes along. I want no part of that garbage.

You don't have to crap on the recruits you already have in the stable. That isn't what I'm suggesting.

[/quote]

 

[LordJeffBuck]

Well, since you decided to post your diatribe in two different threads, I'll post my response in both threads:

Late bloomer? Not a very impressive list of offers. Is this year another case of where offering a select few and missing out on a lot of the top targets is going to back fire on the staff. It seems like it's happened quite a bit the last few years and we end up settling for a few plan B guys to fill the class.

Seriously, do spend your entire life in panic mode? Or is this just an Ohio State recruiting thing?

The kid (Greg McKee) said that he thinks that the Ohio State staff might come through with an offer - that's it, nothing more - no verbal offer, nothing in writing, no visit scheduled.

Every school "settles" for a few "plan B guys" ... sometimes a school will get really lucky with a "plan B guy" and he'll win a Heisman Trophy. Other times, you just have to settle for a three-time All American.

I don't question Tressel's recruiting much

Seems to me like you question Tressel's recruiting quite a bit.

but why not give out a few more earlier in the process to the top talent around the country and if the class starts filling too quickly, back off on a few.

Because sometimes kids don't show what they have to offer until their senior seasons. You always have to leave room open for late developers.

They also only invite a small number of official visits per year relative to some of the other schools across the country. Why not open the doors to more top-ranked recruits and show what OSU has to offer?

Why waste time on kids who have zero interest in Ohio State? Why deal with the distractions that those kids inevitably present on official visits?

Better than trying to get in on guys late and scrambling to fill positions of need w/ lesser talent.

So, if a kid is a late bloomer, you're going to hold that against him? The NFL is full of players whom Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll, Mack Brown, Nick Saban, and yes even Jim Tressel "missed" on. Lots of players fall through the cracks for lots of different reasons, one of the main reasons being lack of perceived talent/ability when such players were sixteen years old. Some of those players end up the MAC, the Sun Belt, FCS, even Division III schools ... if you could turn back the clock, would you take Josh Cribbs now? But back when he signed with Kent State, he was just another "lesser talent" who didn't have any business playing with the big boys.

Seems to work for other coaches that hand out scholarships like water, jmo.

Like who? Seriously, give me some names....

 

[southcampus]

DickRod....DUUUUUUUH:stupid:

 

[jwinslow]

Ok then, what makes a Plan B recruit? You hear that term tossed around a lot? Obviously they aren't the guys that the staff wants most or they would have offers back in June? Maybe if they offered Schofner back in June he would be wearing S & G right now.

The point is if they offer him in December, us fans suddenly perceive that as being a less worthy player... when the reality is it was just when they decided to extend an offer.

Tressel & OSU are stingy enough with offers, and guaranteed enough in-state talent, that they don't just offer players in december to have warm bodies, with very few exceptions.

Golden rule is: you get them on Campus. That's where it starts. You can't get them all but the more top recruits you get on campus the better your chances.

That's a cop out. We've had a lot of them on campus, and I'm having trouble remembering much benefit from those types of recruits. OSU rarely has what that type of recruit is looking for... and it's simply not an attractive place to live when compared with the heavy hitters (USC, UF, Tex, LSU, etc).

who said anything about not honoring them. If you offer and they commit that's good right??? You can offer kids, show them genuine interest, and if they don't reciprocate interest, you look elsewhere.

'back off on a few' was your line, when in reality, you have to 'back off on a lot' of offers once your class starts filling up.

What happens if you want the kid to visit for The Game 09, but 3 of your 15 DB offers committed before then? Do you back off on him? Is it his fault the most enticing game didn't occur until late november? Now suddenly he's left out in the cold unless you have a ton of spots.

You name a few it doesn't work for, what about the programs that seem to be doing just fine w/ that approach?

I'm not interested in making your arguments for you. Those 3 schools are notorious for handing out a ton of offers, and RR's outrageous volume of offers didn't help one bit, and cheapened the value of a UM offer. Where is the excitement over being offered by the Maize & Blue if a billion mediocre slot dots get them every year? He offers about 1-3 dozen kids per year with no other meaningful offer (as in only mac or lower tier big east offers).

You don't have to crap on the recruits you already have in the stable. That isn't what I'm suggesting.

But when you toss out a large volume of offers, you usually end up with more quick verbals from the lower rated kids who are blown away that OSU (or UM) is actually offering them. Now you're stuck with a corner with average upside when you could have landed Shaw, Bryant & Anderson with those 3 CB spots. Now you have to take a spot away from them or someone else you had higher on your board.


Southern schools hand out a lot more offers and pursue a lot more players because they know that:

"A verbal just tells everyone who to negatively recruit"

Commitments mean absolutely nothing in SEC country. Guys get flipped all the time, back out for any number of reasons. Lots of other verbals do not qualify or put you over the scholarship limit until you squeeze out a player or two from your enrolled roster.


RR is a southern style recruiter, which is why you see him flip verbals, force out his own verbals for better recruits, and offer everyone under the living sun with varying levels of 'commitability'.

 

[NFBuck]

Ah yes, as surely as the flowers will bloom in the spring, scUM fans will say their team will "be better this year" in summer and the leaves will fall in autumn...Buckeye fans will panic about recruiting come winter. Never fails...ever.

 

[mendensa]

Seriously, do spend your entire life in panic mode? Or is this just an Ohio State recruiting thing?

The kid (Greg McKee) said that he thinks that the Ohio State staff might come through with an offer - that's it, nothing more - no verbal offer, nothing in writing, no visit scheduled.

Every school "settles" for a few "plan B guys" ... sometimes a school will get really lucky with a "plan B guy" and he'll win a Heisman Trophy. Other times, you just have to settle for a three-time All American.

I'm not in panic mode as you suggested, just wanted to know why it seems like we settle @ the end of recruiting seasons as opposed to raking in the top talent like the likes of UF, USC, Bama, LSU, ect...

I even said in my first reply that I felt some of the lesser ranked/hyped players OSU has brought in have been productive in recent years, but I still feel if you go after a few more O-lineman/DB's (just examples of positions of need that I feel we needed more numbers of in this class) from the beginning, it gives you a better chance of landing more of the top 10-types in their respective positions instead of scrambling to fill a 20-man class @ the end of the recruiting season.

I'm not saying go crazy and offer 60 kids like the SEC coaches do, you are missing my point. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but you can't offer 30 kids and think that 2/3 are going to come to OSU.

Do you really feel that some of these plan B guys that are being mentioned as rounding out this class if we do happen to miss on some of the higher ranked recruits are guys the coaches would have extended offers to if they didn't fear misses w/ some of the bigger names?

They may even turn out to be very good players @ OSU, but it doesn't take away the fact that they aren't the players the coaches targeted early and really wanted or that there were other recruits out there that would have given OSU a look if we showed interest earlier. To me that is settling.

 

[jwinslow]

I'm not in panic mode as you suggested, just wanted to know why it seems like we settle @ the end of recruiting seasons as opposed to raking in the top talent like the likes of UF, USC, Bama, LSU, ect...

And many of their pre-fall verbals aren't worth a thing heading into december other than having the most negative recruiting targeted your way.

I even said in my first reply that I felt some of the lesser ranked/hyped players OSU has brought in have been productive in recent years, but I still feel if you go after a few more O-lineman/DB's (just examples of positions of need that I feel we needed more numbers of in this class) from the beginning, it gives you a better chance of landing more of the top 10-types in their respective positions instead of scrambling to fill a 20-man class @ the end of the recruiting season.

I'd say they went after plenty of DBs and nearly snagged Shaw.

They may even turn out to be very good players @ OSU, but it doesn't take away the fact that they aren't the players the coaches targeted early and really wanted or that there were other recruits out there that would have given OSU a look if we showed interest earlier. To me that is settling.

EVERY school in the country does this. You're making this out to be more than it is. If Florida got the first three DBs it offered, they wouldn't have had to offer the next 3-5. Who cares if it is in september or december? That's nothing more than perception driven by the emotions of recruiting.

All that matters is if they can contribute here. Very rarely does the staff offer kids who don't look like candidates to contribute.

 

[jwinslow]

Recruiting is a competition, and you're going to fail. There's no way to prevent it.

You can't toss out enough offers to avoid failing, because then you get kids you don't want taking up spots from better prospects.

When you miss on a kid or trend in the wrong direction, you head in a new one. Maybe that prospect already moved on, maybe not, but it doesn't make them less worthy just because they didn't fit into your scholarship limitations until now.

 

[DaveyBoy]

man, I certainly question Tressel's offensive philosophy but his recruiting philosophy seems to be untouchable at this point. He has actually elevated our overall talent level since he got here....in my opinion.

Sometimes you win with kids you're recruiting and sometimes you lose. With all of the uncertainty and difficult choices that young men from age 18-22 face....especially with drugs, hot women, and more freedom than they have ever had and may ever have......many players will wash out, never pan out, or develop way past their initial ceiling.

no worries....as long as we keep getting some stud DL we will be set.

 

[mendensa]

The point is if they offer him in December, us fans suddenly perceive that as being a less worthy player... when the reality is it was just when they decided to extend an offer.

I'm not sure what world you are living in. The guys that have been mentioned in the last few weeks regarding recent interest picking up from OSU has been a direct result of big name misses and I'm guessing a not-so-confident feeling about some of the other offers out there right now from the coaching staff. (Heard, Reed, Schofner, McKee)


But when you toss out a large volume of offers, you usually end up with more quick verbals from the lower rated kids who are blown away that OSU (or UM) is actually offering them. Now you're stuck with a corner with average upside when you could have landed Shaw, Bryant & Anderson with those 3 CB spots. Now you have to take a spot away from them or someone else you had higher on your board.

Don't toss them out to just anyone. There are plenty of 4 and 5 star athletes out there that would give OSU a look if shown mutual interest. Again, you help reiterate my point, offer those 3 CB's and the next 5-6 on your board. If you get any combination of 3 or 4 of those you have a great DB class. You make the others aware of the number situation @ the position. You let them know that if there is room in the class to take an extra DB there will be a spot for them. You guys always say there are certain recruits you always make room for regardless.

The staff only offered like 7 or 8 OL this year and half of those were not happening w/ in the first few months of the recruiting period. Why not go after 9-10 on your list right then. Now we may only get 2-3 in the class. You can't honestly tell me that McKee and Schofner are 9 and 10 and next on their wishlist? There were more OL they could have been on. If you land any combination of 3-4 of the top 10-20 OL, it doesn't sting so bad when you miss out on a James or Henderson if we do.

I guess the moral to all my rambling is that I feel the coaches put all their eggs into one basket. And when a couple of those eggs break, the 2-star eggs just don't clean up as well.

 

[jwinslow]

There are plenty of 4 and 5 star athletes out there that would give OSU a look if shown mutual interest.

Name some of them, if they are that plentiful. It's one thing to talk about Player X from around here who could contribute but was snubbed by OSU. But this notion that OSU can just toss an offer and get into a random prospect's favorites is a bit homeristic.

Again, you help reiterate my point, offer those 3 CB's and the next 5-6 on your board.

And what happens if the 7th, 8th & 9th all commit, and you only had 3 spots to bring in Joyner and Shaw? Now you have to cripple your other recruiting numbers to compensate for this destruction of your recruiting budget.

The staff only offered like 7 or 8 OL this year and half of those were not happening w/ in the first few months of the recruiting period. Why not go after 9-10 on your list right then. Now we may only get 2-3 in the class.

Who says they wanted more than 3? They got the crown jewel in Ohio, Norwell, and are still looking very good for everyone's top OT, Henderson. James hardly gave OSU the luxury of moving on with his continued interest in them.

If you land any combination of 3-4 of the top 10-20 OL, it doesn't sting so bad when you miss out on a James or Henderson if we do.

You don't just offer your way into 4 top-20 OL. There are way too many suitors and variables to make that as simple as you're suggesting.

I guess the moral to all my rambling is that I feel the coaches put all their eggs into one basket. And when a couple of those eggs break, the 2-star eggs just don't clean up as well.

I'd change that to 'we don't feel as good when our basket comes back with less flashy eggs'. This is an emotional argument.

I'm not saying OSU's recruiting strategy is perfect, but I think it's virtually impossible for them to avoid this kind of criticism, no matter what scheme they employ. They are going to miss and going to have to offer guys lower on their list. When it's not done according to our schedule, it is labeled as 'settling', when in reality there's little difference between determining that Schofner finally did enough to earn that offer in July or after his senior season of strong play.

 

[jwinslow]

LSU's 09 & 10 recruiting classes:

- 0 top-20 OTs
- 1 OL in 10, 4 in 09
- 5 verbals by july, 0 verbals after


As for the 'grass is greener' mentality regarding LSU:

Change in Fortune | TigerRag on LSU Sports - NOLA.com

January 19, 2009, 3:51PM

Early on it appeared LSU was going to finish with the nation's top recruiting class and possibly one of the best ever.
The class contained several verbal commitments from top-line prospects including Russell Shepard, Chris Davenport, and Michael Ford with hopes of adding finishing touches with in-state products such as Rueben Randle and Barkevious Mingo.

In between stages however, the Tigers suffered some de-commitments as Rantavious Wooten elected to go to Georgia and Willie Ferrell lost his connection with the university.
Then last week five-Star defensive back Janzen Jackson's status with LSU was declared a "soft verbal" with rumors of his father's coaching career at Tennessee being unclear.


The All-Star weekend did not help matters either as LSU hopefuls Andre Debose chose Florida and William Campbell elected to stick with Michigan.

As if that were not enough, Navasota High School product Dexter Pratt informed Rivals.com on Sunday evening he decided to officially de-commit from the Tigers and side with Oklahoma State instead.

Pratt's decision came after his meltdown in Baton Rouge just a week earlier. Pratt arrived on campus at LSU last weekend expecting to enroll for the Spring semester before being told his status with the NCAA clearinghouse was under investigation due to an issue with an on-line class Pratt had taken.

LSU got reuben randle on signing day, as well as #6 SLB Mingo & #7 DE Montgomery but had to "SETTLE" for #96 S Johns, #19 WLB Tahj Jones, #65 DE Logan. They had to get in on Montgomery very late, much to the chagrin of UM recruitniks.



LSU finished with 2 more 5*, 1 more top-100, but a lot more 3* than OSU. I don't see much difference in results.

 

[mendensa]

thanks for your comments and opinion. I still feel that you should go after a few of the prettier eggs early on in the process and get the best you can @ the position. If it fills, then it fills. And like I said, you keep an extra spot available if you really want a guy.

I don't think you are going to have many complaints and people "panicking" about our DB's in this class regardless b/c of the talent it appears we have in the stables, but OL is a different story. Depth in our OL could be an issue in 2 years if not next year w/ an injury or 2. Only signing 2 big guys up front would be a big disappointment after all the names we were seemlingly on early in the year.

Speaking of Schofner, I know you guys don't like the "anything new" questions but, in your opinion is he still strong to MSU or w/ this renewed interest w/ OSU, is there any fire or just smoke w/o the fire?

 

[LordJeffBuck]

I'm not in panic mode as you suggested, just wanted to know why it seems like we settle @ the end of recruiting seasons as opposed to raking in the top talent like the likes of UF, USC, Bama, LSU, ect...

I even said in my first reply that I felt some of the lesser ranked/hyped players OSU has brought in have been productive in recent years, but I still feel if you go after a few more O-lineman/DB's (just examples of positions of need that I feel we needed more numbers of in this class) from the beginning, it gives you a better chance of landing more of the top 10-types in their respective positions instead of scrambling to fill a 20-man class @ the end of the recruiting season.

I'm not saying go crazy and offer 60 kids like the SEC coaches do, you are missing my point. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but you can't offer 30 kids and think that 2/3 are going to come to OSU.

Do you really feel that some of these plan B guys that are being mentioned as rounding out this class if we do happen to miss on some of the higher ranked recruits are guys the coaches would have extended offers to if they didn't fear misses w/ some of the bigger names?

They may even turn out to be very good players @ OSU, but it doesn't take away the fact that they aren't the players the coaches targeted early and really wanted or that there were other recruits out there that would have given OSU a look if we showed interest earlier. To me that is settling.

Seriously, you just don't get it ... and after reading a number of your posts, I have to assume that your ignorance is purely willful. Therefore, my response is not really directed at you, but at others who genuinely want to learn about how recruiting works.

Mendensa's theory is this: Offer more "top-10" guys early, and you'll end up signing more "top-10" guys. There's just one problem - who are the "top-10" guys? As I stated above, the kids who get "top-10" ratings at the beginning of the recruiting cycle have "earned" their rankings based on: (1) what they did on the field as high school sophomores (i.e., 15- and 16-year old kids), and/or (2) how they performed in combines prior to their junior seasons (i.e., running and jumping around in gym shorts). Both standards of measurement are completely worthless for anything other than for recruiting services to create premature and highly speculative "top-10" lists. In terms of predicting how well a player will perform as an 18-year old college freshman ... much less as a 23-year old college senior ... such lists aren't worth the disk space that they are stored on. But go right ahead, it's your money, keep paying big dollars so that some "recruiting guru" who probably never played football beyond the Pop Warner level (and probably sucked even then) can tell you that some 15-year old kid will be the next Percy Harvin because he ran a ridiculously inaccurately timed 4.21 forty in his gym shorts on a track with a tailwind.

Needless to say, real football minds (not me, but rather college coaches who earn more money in one season than many of you will earn in your entire lives) don't rely on the hyperbole of recruiting gurus when they make their own "top-10" lists. The coaches rely on many things, including but not necessarily limited to: (1) watching complete game films; (2) watching games in person; (3) recommendations from high school coaches; (4) evaluations made in person at summer camps; and (5) talking to the players themselves. The coaches spend many more hours doing their thing than a recruiting guru does doing his thing (whatever that is). The goal of the Ohio State coaches is to find kids who have the physical talent, the mental toughness, the emotional stability, and the academic rigor necessary to become Buckeyes ... and from that elite group, they target those kids who actually might want to become Buckeyes. It's not an easy task, and they miss kids on both sides of the fence - some get offered who don't have they ability, some get passed up who do have the ability. Some kids are stars from day one (Teddy Ginn), some take a long time to mature and develop (Troy Smith), some show flashes of potential but never quite mature and develop (Ray Small), and some are already maxed out when they arrive on campus (Jamario O'Neal) ... which means that it is always a crap shoot, even when you are dealing with kids who are elite athletes from a high school program that has a great working relationship with the Ohio State staff.

Needless to say, the coaches don't waste their valuable and limited time and resources on kids who have no interest in Ohio State, regardless of whether they fit the profile described above. Doing so would only make their already difficult job that much more difficult. Therefore, Tressel is not going to send out a bunch of offers to "top-10" recruits who have no affinity for Ohio State and no relationship with the Buckeye staff on the off chance that one of them will miraculously see the light. That approach is rather like putting a personal ad in your local free paper ... you never know what you'll get, but odds are it won't be any good.

As far as "Plan B" recruits ... obviously, not all recruits who receive offers are at an equal level as far as perceived potential (and perceived potential is what we are dealing with here, as nobody can accurately predict exactly how any particular recruit will develop at the college level). So, the coaches find kids who fit their profile for success at Ohio State, then they weed out the kids who aren't interested in becoming Buckeyes, and then they re-target the prospects who are the "best" (or rather, who are the most likely to succeed based on their perceived potential). This select group might contain forty kids ... of those forty, the staff might reasonably expect to get verbals from ten or fifteen ... based on years of experience, they know their likely "hit rate" going in, so it's really no big surprise to them when they "miss" on a certain number of kids. So, what to do next? Re-evaluate the prospects who have not received offers. Find some kids who made the first cut, but not the second, and see if they have developed further during their senior seasons. Maybe find a kid who was under the radar and never made the first cut, but who had a break-out year. Are such kids "Plan B"? Yes, because the staff obviously targeted other players first. Does this mean that Plan B kids can't play at Ohio State? No, absolutely not. This staff is simply not going to offer kids who can't play at Ohio State's level - which is the most elite level in college football - just to fill roster spots ... they would rather bank the scholarships instead. Regardless of what some people might "think", the staff does not "settle" for players.

Look, if you don't like the way that Ohio State recruits, then simply don't follow Ohio State recruiting. There's no really good reason to do so anyway. If you want to know whether these kids can play, then wait three years and see who has succeeded, who has failed, and who is still waiting for an opportunity to succeed or fail.

On the other hand, if you like the drama, the histrionics, the sturm und drang of the recruiting saga ... if you want Signing Day press conferences and recruiting diaries and three-hat monte ... if you want the greatest "close" in the history of modern recruiting, then I present to you the Miami Hurricanes Class of 2004 ... more "top-10" busts in one class than Joe Paterno has had in fifty years. You can also follow USC, to see if they can sign every member of the Rivals top-20 list ... or LSU, to see if they can fit 40 players into their next recruiting class. I have to admit, it's a heck of a lot more exciting than following Ohio State's recruiting, which is the equivalent of Tresselball.

I don't think you are going to have many complaints and people "panicking" about our DB's in this class regardless b/c of the talent it appears we have in the stables, but OL is a different story. Depth in our OL could be an issue in 2 years if not next year w/ an injury or 2. Only signing 2 big guys up front would be a big disappointment after all the names we were seemlingly on early in the year.

Speaking of Schofner, I know you guys don't like the "anything new" questions but, in your opinion is he still strong to MSU or w/ this renewed interest w/ OSU, is there any fire or just smoke w/o the fire?

So after all of that panicking, you want to "settle" for a "Plan B" guy like Schofner when there are "bigger names" whom the coaches "really wanted"? Unreal. It is pretty clear that all of your "arguments" are completely disingenuous, and that you really just want Tressel to offer the kids whom you like and approve of.