Do you think this invalidates recruiting?

[msu84grad]

Let's do all the talking we want about how Ole Miss picks up all those big-time rated recruits -- but it was a freshman quarterback on MSU's team that led most of the way to win... and all of those Bear "superstar" recruits couldn't score an offensive touchdown tonight.

Remember that the next time some Bear talks about how they pull in the "top" recruits:

Bear: "We have the fifth top recruiting class in the nation..."
Dawgs: "...and our lower rated recruits BEAT YOUR STARS!!!"

 

[patdog]

No. It invalidates recruiting rankings. For all the hype their recruiting gets, guys like Jobes Wilson Williams & Calhoun are every bit as good.

 

[jakldawg]

all those star<17>ing recruitniks can go to hell.


what I meant to say: it's my personal opinion that too much attention is paid to it by segments of the fan base (who in turn are the loudest in many internet circles).

 

[esplanade91]

Both starting QB's tonight were Sun Belt or CUSA recruits, except that Williams had a chance at the last second to flip from USM to MSU. Take the Scout "offers" with a grain of salt. Williams technically could have played for Nebraska or KSU, but I had 2 separate friends out of JUCO who were "heavily" recruited to KSU and they ripped their scholarships at the last second only to try to get them to walk-on with a SWEET student loan deal!

If Williams went to a Sun Belt and/or JUCO like Wallace he would likely have an Ole Miss offer too. Don't get cocky. We're a lot likely to take a chance on the Bo Wallace's of the world, and that can pay off or backfire in a hurry.

If you're referring to Jones vs Knemeichaoijdach, you can google a long list of ESPN rankings where the #2 was drafted before #1, and that goes for multiple sports. I don't think anyone on either board was arguing which had a higher ceiling, it just matters which wants it more. I'm pretty sure CJ would tell whoever to 17 it if they tried to run him on 3 and 2.

 

[TheStateUofMS]

I think it shows our coaches are great evaluators and developers of talent. After your top 300 or so ranked prospects, it's up to evaluating talent and our coaches do that. Anyone can look at the top ranked players in HS and know he's a stud. The rest is up to finding guys on the staffs own. If Mullen could get maybe 3-5 top 150 ranked players in the country every year, we could probably take the next step and compete for the West.

Chris Jones is the best true fr in country. Im biased but whatever he's a freak and 247 was spot on ranking him #2 overall in the country. Nkiemdiche is a beast too prolly #2.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

Looking at that game, the Bears have extremely talented athletes. However, when you have 4 and 5-* athletes going to a Sun Belt or FBS-level school instead of traditional powers, it has to be for special reasons- family, attachment to a school, recruiting gimmicks, etc. What Ole Miss did was pull a Top 20-level recruiting class with players with no prior attachment to the school.

What happens is that these 5-* players have a sense of entitlement- they KNOW they could've gone anywhere, and they're going to let the coaches know. State's had those kind of players before (Dontae Walker comes to mind), but Ole Miss is loaded with these players who know they're not gonna get pushed for starting positions by the backups or that they'll get benched for mental errors. In other words, the Bears have better athletes, but Mississippi State is morally and spiritually superior.

 

[Dawg4ever49]

I think your right on that Mutt last night when Kimdeechee put his hands on the defensive coach that was reprimanding him, "twice" he should have hit the bench for awhile. Seems to me the recruits run the show in Oxfart and that does not bode well for long term success. Thank goodness for that.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

Not only that, but the OM boosters feel like they have skin in the game. If Kimdeechee was forced to sit after pulling that stunt, some big-money booster who's "a friend of the family" would called Bucky Beaver on his headset complaining to high-heaven about "Wha isn't mah boy in theah?" Only a larger-than-life force-of-nature kind of coach would tell the booster, "Shut up!" (Bear, Saban, Woody Hayes, etc)...and Bucky Beaver isn't one of them (as a matter of fact, he's entirely at the mercy of these boosters).

Why is it that David Cutcliffe and Ed Orgeron were failures at Ole Miss, but now are wildly successful at Duke and USC?

 

[ByersFarm]

Recruiting rankings absolutely do matter. Just look at BAMA. Arkansas fans used to spout the same drivel about how bobby developed talent and stars didn't matter. Look at how those lowly recruiting classes worked out for them. Now, in the bears case, two or three players do not a team make. Once again my ole buddy Hugh hasn't learned much since I knew him. You can't take one 5* and play him at every position.

 

[HammerOfTheDogs]

Recruiting rankings matter from 1-10. Anything from 11-40 is a crapshoot. Yes, I do want Mullenz to step up his game. Chris Jones was the difference-maker this year: by dominating the line of scrimmage, Geoff Collins was able to put 7 back into coverage and mess up Bo Wallace's passing lanes. Wallace couldn't throw deep, because he didn't have the time.

 

[WayboDawg]

Some of Bear Bryant's best championship teams were built with players that were average Joe's. He admitted that himself. Heck even Brett Favre was a last minute sign on for USM back in the day. The best teams have players that fit the system, and play hard together. That 5 star recruiting crap doesn't mean much in my book.

 

[Seinfeld]

As much as I tend to agree with your sentiment, the only thing that Williams was going to lead us to was a loss and I'm honestly not sure what I'm missing that the rest of you seem to see in him. God bless the kid for stepping up and doing everything he possibly could have last night, but our offense was nothing but stagnant with him playing, and the difference was night and day when Dak came in. If he ends up being anything better than a 3rd stringer for us during his career here, I'll be pleasantly surprised

 

[KurtRambis4]

Exactly

You cannot tell me there is such a vast difference between the 15th and 30th ranked classes.

 

[johnson86-1]

As much as I tend to agree with your sentiment, the only thing that Williams was going to lead us to was a loss and I'm honestly not sure what I'm missing that the rest of you seem to see in him. God bless the kid for stepping up and doing everything he possibly could have last night, but our offense was nothing but stagnant with him playing, and the difference was night and day when Dak came in. If he ends up being anything better than a 3rd stringer for us during his career here, I'll be pleasantly surprised

He's a true freshman (and not an early enrollee) that didn't make a bad mistake until his last throw. His receivers dropped some well thrown balls to kill drives and Mullen didn't help him trying to establish the power running game with Perkins. He had good pocket presence (again, as a true freshman). He didn't look as fast as dak and I don't think he's going to take daks job, but I thought he did well enough as a true freshman that if we had an injury, he would definitely be serviceable as a starting qb in his junior or sr year. .

 

[Philly Dawg]

Williams has a good future but we needed Dak to win. These freshmen will have more to say about future years than this year's teams. Recruiting is key but rankings are pretty inaccurate, except at the very top. Unless you get Eli Manning, it's the middle not the top of your class that makes the difference. Guys like Calhoun and McKinney for MSU amd Bryant and D. Nkimdiche for Ole Miss prove that.

 

[TheStateUofMS]

Looking at that game, the Bears have extremely talented athletes. However, when you have 4 and 5-* athletes going to a Sun Belt or FBS-level school instead of traditional powers, it has to be for special reasons- family, attachment to a school, recruiting gimmicks, etc. What Ole Miss did was pull a Top 20-level recruiting class with players with no prior attachment to the school.

What happens is that these 5-* players have a sense of entitlement- they KNOW they could've gone anywhere, and they're going to let the coaches know. State's had those kind of players before (Dontae Walker comes to mind), but Ole Miss is loaded with these players who know they're not gonna get pushed for starting positions by the backups or that they'll get benched for mental errors. In other words, the Bears have better athletes, but Mississippi State is morally and spiritually superior.

Read my thread I just started about egg bowl and recruiting championships. They are talented but so are we. WR was only position group that scared me against us. Our DBs are pretty good, but young. They stepped up last night and these last 4 gms. They are NOT a more talented team than us.

Ole Miss' top 5 athletes- R.Dkiemdiche, Treadwell, Montcrief, Marry, and Tunsil. 3 FR and 2 of the 5 will be gone next year.

Miss St's top 5 athletes-C.Jones, Dak, Calhoun, McKinney, G.Jackson. 1 FR, 3 SO, and 4 outta 5 will be back for us next year.

I'll take our team. We just whipped their asses too. Future is very bright indeed. It is for TSUN too tho. I'll give da Bears and Freezus credit.

 

[Incognegro]

I don't see how anyone can downplay Petrino and his talent evaluation. He was able to take over Arkansas which has some of the least amount of talent in the SEC and make Arkansas a power. Regardless of what you want to believe, he was developing less sought after talent that fit into his system. For a lot of these coaches, play style actually matters more than talent and Petrino was very good at finding the players that fit his style.

I don't think you'll find anyone that will disagree too hard in saying recruiting ranking doesn't matter, but they're highly flawed and does not paint the whole picture.

 

[prairiedawg]

I got intrigued by this question and pulled last 5 yrs Scout rankings

I pulled 5 yrs due to redshirting. I did three comparisons, the first giving equal weight to each year. The second column gives less weight to 2013 of 0.9 (freshmen, some redshirted), even less to 2009 of 0.5, and increasing weight for 2012, 2011, and 2010 of 1.2/1.3/1.4. The third column weights the years even more (0.8, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 0.25). Things don't change significantly by weighting years. If this meant anything, which it doesn't appear to, Texas should be playing USC for the national championship and Alabama should be playing Florida to the SEC title.

Rank	Equal Yr Weight	If Weight Yrs	Heavy Wt Jr/Sr Yrs
1	USC	USC	Texas
2	Texas	Texas	USC
3	Ohio State	Ohio State	Alabama
4	Alabama	Alabama	Ohio State
5	Florida	Florida	Florida
6	Florida State	Florida State	Florida State
7	Georgia	Georgia	Oklahoma
8	Notre Dame	Oklahoma	Auburn
9	LSU	Notre Dame	Georgia
10	Oklahoma	LSU	Notre Dame
11	Michigan	Auburn	LSU
12	Auburn	Michigan	Oregon
13	Oregon	Oregon	Michigan
14	Stanford	Stanford	Stanford
15	UCLA	UCLA	Clemson
16	Clemson	Clemson	UCLA
17	Texas A&M	Texas A&M	Tennessee
18	Tennessee	Tennessee	Nebraska
19	Nebraska	Nebraska	Texas A&M
20	Miami (Fl)	Mississippi	South Carolina
21	Mississippi	South Carolina	Mississippi
22	South Carolina	North Carolina	Oklahoma State
23	North Carolina	Miami (Fl)	North Carolina
24	Oklahoma State	Oklahoma State	Washington
25	Washington	Washington	Missouri
26	Mississippi State	Missouri	Miami (Fl)
27	Missouri	Mississippi State	Arkansas
28	Arkansas	Arkansas	Texas Tech
29	Texas Tech	Texas Tech	Mississippi State
30	Vanderbilt	Vanderbilt	Vanderbilt

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