Interior DL, a closer look

[Jaxbuck]

A lot has been said about interior DL recruiting lately both as it applies to OSU and as a possible explanation for the B10?s demise/SEC emergence. I thought I?d take a snapshot of some actual numbers and see what came of it. I don't know what forum this should be in exactly so I just went with this one, feel free to move it.

Methodology: All data is from NFL.com. I did a search for 2008 individual stats by position and sorted by defensive line. I then further narrowed that to only players listed as DT or NT (excluded DE?s). This returned 142 players who I then sorted by name, NFL experience, college and high school state. In cases of a prep school I went by ?natural? high school listed. In the few cases of a player with no HS listed I went by state of birth.

So 142 NFL players listed as DT or NT in 2008 yielded the following:

By High School State
FL...19
TX...14
CA...13
TN...8
AL...7
GA...7
MI...7
OH...6
SC...6
LA...6
Outside US...6
MS...5
UT...3
MO...3
NJ...3
NY...3
anyone not listed had 2 or less

High School State by region
My geographic pooling may be a bit subjective but I don't think its outrageous. If a state in a region isn't listed it didn't have an NFL player.

Southern (AL,AR,FL,GA,LA,MS,SC,TN) = 60
Western US (anything west of the Mississippi River including Hawaii) = 40
Mid West (IL,IN,MI,MN,OH,PA,WI) = 21
Mid Atlantic Region(DC,DE,NC,NJ,NY,VA,Mass, MD) = 15
American Samoa = 4
Canada = 2

NFL by College
Tennessee...6
Miami...6
Miss State...5
UGA...5
Michigan State...5
Penn State...5
Texas...5
Texas A&M...5
Florida State...5
Oklahoma...4
USC...4
Bama...3
Auburn...3
LSU...3
Nebraska...3
Rutgers...3
Utah...3
Iowa...2
Michigan...2
Minnesota...2
Ohio State...2
Purdue...2
Wisconsin...2
Colorado...2
Mizzou...2
OkState...2
Cal...2
Oregon...2
BC...2
NCSU...2
Louisville...2
WVU...2
ND...2
Fresno State...2
I won't take the space to list all the schools with just 1

NFL by Conference
SEC...33
B12...25
Non BCS and ND...25
B10...23
ACC...18
Pac 10...11
Big east 7

So what does this tell us so far? At its most elemental level the data clearly shows the southern region produces more NFL caliber interior DL talent than any other region...about 1/3 more than the whole western US, about 3 times as much as the midwest and 4 times as much as the mid atlantic/east coast region. You could add the entire B10 region to every state west of the Mississippi ad just equal what comes out of the 8 Southern states. That is a staggering disparity.

At first blush this would seem to explain the SEC's spot at the top of the NFL by conference list but you'll easily notice the disparity isn't as large as the raw population numbers.

I'll add the second part tomorrow and break down who does what as far as keeping the home talent at home and raiding other territory.

As always feedback is welcome, if you catch any errors or omissions let me know. Its late, I'm sure there is at least one or two.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

GPA for that...

 

[generaladm]

Does OSU's number include Pitcock?

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

 

[Jaxbuck]

Does OSU's number include Pitcock?

No he and Tim Anderson weren't on NFL rosters in 2008.

 

[Jaxbuck]

Part II.

So here is a somewhat random look at each conference and school to try and see if any patterns exist.

SEC
The first one that jumps out at me is found by looking at our friends in the SEC. Of the 33 NFL players from SEC schools every single one was also originally from a high school that would fall under my classification of an SEC recruiting home state. Thats worth saying again:

SEC...33 NFL Players
SEC...33 from home recruiting states

At least from this snapshot of data you can say the SEC schools simply get fat off the land, they don't venture forth to recruit outside the home range at all. The obvious question becomes is this a weakness that can be exploited or simply a result of not having to go outside the home range?

ACC
Now look at the ACC because Miami and FSU make for an interesting situation.

ACC...18 NFL Players
Miami and FSU...11 NFL Players
Rest of ACC...7 NFL palyers

The funny thing is if you consider the east Coast/Mid Atlantic states the home territory for ACC schools it looks like Miami and FSU don't do much recruiting of the home states. Obviously they take the majority of their talent from Florida but its not as lopsided as the SEC schools.

Miami...6 players
1 from Delaware
1 from Texas
4 from Florida

Florida State...5 players
2 from Florida
1 from Georgia
1 from CA
1 from MD

Rest of the ACC...7 players
Boston college...2 players 1 from Mass, 1 from Ohio
Maryland...1 from Michigan
NCSU...2 players 1 from NC, 1 from VA
UNC...1 player from South Carolina
Wake...1 from Florida

So the rest of the ACC does pretty much what you'd expect them to have to do. They go get it where ever they can because their home turf (not including Florida) produces about 1/4 of what the traditional SEC states produce.


Pac 10
Here is the surprising one to me, I didn't think the Pac 10 would be this low.

Pac 10...11 players
USC...4 players
Cal...2
Oregon...2

Considering they have California, which is the 3rd highest producing state in this study essentially all to themselves, I would have guessed they'd be much higher.

Side note of Top 3 producing states by High School
Of the 13 California High School players now in the NFL 7 played ball at a California University. 4 went to USC, 2 to Cal and 1 to UCLA. That's a 46% loss rate.

Likewise, of the 19 Florida High School players 9 left the state for college. That's a 53% loss rate.

Now Texas, which produced 14 NFL players from High School had 9 of them stay in Texas for college. Thats only a 36% loss rate. Of the 5 who left Texas 3 went to Oklahoma, 1 to Iowa and 1 to Miami.

Non-BCS and Notre Dame
Utah...3
Fresno State...2
Notre Dame...2
Everyone else...18

-Before anyone starts busting ND's balls, Ohio State only has 2 as well.
-The #1 state was CA with 4 players that went 1 each to BYU, Fresno State, SDSU and Notre Dame.
-Utah got their 3 from Utah, Samoa and Hawaii
-American Samoa accounted for 4 NFL players while Canada accounted for 2.

This tells me we need to get someone's ass in the weeds and start mining Samoa.

Big Ten
3rd most players in the NFL of the BCS conferences with 23. Behind both the SEC (by a lot) and B12 (barely).
PSU...5
MSU...5
OSU...2
Iowa, UM, Minn, Purdue, Wisky...2 each
Northwestern...1
IU and Illinois...0

The quick down and dirty is this; the states of Michigan and Ohio produced 13 NFL players. That is on par with California and Texas. Only 3 went to MSU, 1 went to OSU and 1 went to Michigan. Thats a 46% loss rate if you combine all 3 schools.

Put another way, Ohio State saw 6 players from Ohio, 7 from Michigan, 2 from PA and 1 from Indiana go to the NFL and only accounted for 1 of them. OSU went to Florida for its only other NFL interior DLineman.

PSU on the other hand has only 2 NFL players from its home state but accounted for 5 total. 2 from Michigan, 1 from New Jersey, 1 from new York and 1 from PA.

I'd open it to discussion at this point if this were live. Obviously the data set isn't big enough to draw any real conclusions from. What I'd like to do is get years upon years of the same stuff and see what it told us. In lieu of that, like I said originally, this is just a quick snapshot of a moment in time to start the ball rolling.

 

[sepia5]

The thing that kills me about OSU's DT recruiting is that they often seem to give a half-hearted effort to land top-notch DT recruits, sometimes simply ignoring even those comparatively rare space-eating prospects that are right here in the Midwest. Floyd and Will Campbell are the first two that come to mind in recent times. In '07 they did go after Barksdale and Brent (the Barksdale fiasco probably contributed to some other guys not getting a more serious look). I dunno. I know this type of player is a rarity, but, especially the past few recruiting seasons, we've demonstrated an ability to pull top-notch recruits from all over the country, and I'd like to see the staff do more to go all out to land one top 100 prospect that has a motor and weighs 285-320 every year. I know those guys are rare, but in the games that we've gotten schilacked over the course of the past couple seasons, while there were a bevy of contributing factors, I think the interior DL play and the lack of DTs with capabilities akin to those possessed by Floyd and Campbell was as big a factor as any other, if not the most damning contributor. All too often we've seen the opposing team's offensive linemen and fullbacks getting to the next level to disrupt our LBs and keep them from making the plays we're so used to seeing them make. I'd like some guys that can keep two offensive linemen occupied at the point of attack, and that can even push those linemen into the backfield. So, that guys like Campbell and Floyd--guys right here in our own region--are not being given the king's treatment just really boggles my mind, regardless of how much of a long shot their signing may be considered.

 

[Jaxbuck]

The thing that kills me about OSU's DT recruiting is that they often seem to give a half-hearted effort to land top-notch DT recruits, sometimes simply ignoring even those comparatively rare space-eating prospects that are right here in the Midwest. Floyd and Will Campbell are the first two that come to mind in recent times. In '07 they did go after Barksdale and Brent (the Barksdale fiasco probably contributed to some other guys not getting a more serious look). I dunno. I know this type of player is a rarity, but, especially the past few recruiting seasons, we've demonstrated an ability to pull top-notch recruits from all over the country, and I'd like to see the staff do more to go all out to land one top 100 prospect that has a motor and weighs 285-320 every year. I know those guys are rare, but in the games that we've gotten schilacked over the course of the past couple seasons, while there were a bevy of contributing factors, I think the interior DL play and the lack of DTs with capabilities akin to those possessed by Floyd and Campbell was as big a factor as any other, if not the most damning contributor. All too often we've seen the opposing team's offensive linemen and fullbacks getting to the next level to disrupt our LBs and keep them from making the plays we're so used to seeing them make. I'd like some guys that can keep two offensive linemen occupied at the point of attack, and that can even push those linemen into the backfield. So, that guys like Campbell and Floyd--guys right here in our own region--are not being given the king's treatment just really boggles my mind, regardless of how much of a long shot their signing may be considered.

Which leads to the more subjective part of why I posted the raw numbers.

Why aren't they going after these guys? Grades, attitude issues? Maybe the OSU staff places a different value on these guys than some of us do? Could it just be an oversight?

This is the type of stuff some insiders that really know how recruiting works could shed some invaluable light on the subject.

Based on the limited data I currently have and my lens of looking for the inefficiencies in a given market, I see plenty of DT talent in traditional B10 recruiting areas and the mother load in a state (FL) that we have a track record of being able to pull from. This says "low opportunity cost" to me.

Why then given ample resources and low opportunity cost do we have such, seemingly, poor production?

 

[RB07OSU]

The big monsters that can move in our region are fairly rare and many can't even seem to make the grades (or are borderline)...Rowell, Hankins?, Barksdale was always borderline, etc. They grow on trees down south and somewhat out west, we just need to make some inroads down there and try to get a couple steals. I've always critiqued our DT recruiting while nearly everyone told me that they weren't concerned. Now with two years of getting dominated in the interior trenches and seeing teams with solid DL's win championships, concern has become fruition. However, the potential of Goebel, Simon and Mobley is there imo. DT is a position you need to keep stocked for a good rotation though and I'm not seeing any concern over not landing a single DT this year. 6'6 or 6'7 guys with slim frames moving down from DE like people are suggesting with Baldwin just doesn't cut it. Worthington probably should have stayed at DE but we moved him down out of necessity and I think it hurts our interior run defense. I know a lot of DT's are going to be in the 250-280 range in high school, but it's all about the frame. Baldwin has a DE frame and we need a true DT in this class. Good work JaxBuck.

 

[NJ-Buckeye]

Why then given ample resources and low opportunity cost do we have such, seemingly, poor production?

I'll take a stab at it... differences in school entrance requirements...

 

[Jaxbuck]

I'll take a stab at it... differences in school entrance requirements...

That seems to be the obvious choice but are the standards at OSU that much, if any, higher than those at PSU?

Schools like Cal, Purdue and Boston College have just as many NFL DT's as OSU. It can't just be admissions.