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Local or National? A look at Miami Recruiting (2010-2015)

DMoney
DMoney
4 min read
There's been some talk about expanding the recruiting board to a more national focus. Our board is already national at QB and TE, as it should be given the nature of those positions. But what about the rest of the board?

I went and looked at our classes from 2010 to 2015 to see how the South Florida recruits panned out vs. non-local recruits by position. Of course, the entire country has better players than just South Florida by sheer population. And Miami's classic teams all had a heavy OOS presence. But my theory was that Miami’s local recruits would be better over this period because (1) our record hurts us in recruiting big-time national kids; and (2) distance makes it tougher to evaluate national sleepers.

The results were predictable in spots and surprising in others. Note that I eliminated players who signed but did not enroll and did not include QB/TE (since we're already national there and have few local signees).

Over those six classes, we signed 68 kids from outside South Florida. 38% became starters at UM (10 or more starts) and 20% made the NFL. We signed 55 South Florida kids over the same time period. 51% became starters and 36% made the NFL. Here are the position breakdowns:

Running back

South Florida- 5 players, 60% starters, 40% NFL

Everywhere else- 5 players, 0% starters, 40% NFL

None of the national guys became starters, but Gus Edwards and Storm Johnson made it to the NFL. Duke Johnson, Mark Walton and Joe Yearby carried this group for South Florida.

Wide Receiver

South Florida- 8 players, 62.5% starters, 37.5% NFL

Everywhere else- 5 players, 60% starters, 40% NFL

The best players in this group (Hurns and Dorsett) were local, but Berrios was a great Cane from outside the state.

Offensive Line

South Florida- 10 players, 80% starters, 40% NFL

Everywhere else- 15 players, 40% starters, 6% NFL

This is where it gets interesting. The cliché is that South Florida OL are killing our unit. But the numbers say it’s the national guys. Even the numbers are deceptive, as some of the OOS starters (Hayden Mahoney, Jahair Jones) were pretty bad players.

Defensive Tackle

South Florida- 4 players, 25% starters, 25% NFL

Everywhere else- 13 players, 23% starters, 8% NFL

This group was ugly everywhere. The only good guy from South Florida was RJ McIntosh. The OOS guys were a parade of busts. The next generation of both South Florida DTs (Ford and Silvera) and OOS guys (the New York kids, Holley) need to perform. Willis wasn’t included as a transfer, but he was the best player of the bunch.

Defensive End

South Florida- 5 players, 20% starters, 20% NFL

Everywhere else- 7 players, 86% starters, 57% NFL

This was by far the best position for non-South Florida kids. Chickillo, AQM, Kamalu and Harris are all in the NFL. Chad is the only good player from South Florida. However, this list is skewed by having D’Onofrio’s recruits and not Manny’s. Notably, Joe Jackson, Jon Garvin and Greg Rousseau did not fall within the time period.

Linebacker

South Florida- 10 players, 30% starters, 30% NFL

Everywhere else- 12 players, 25% starters, 0% NFL

This one was a disaster. Even though we signed 12 guys outside of South Florida, not a single one of them was a good player. Only three of the South Florida guys (Perryman, Armbrister and Grace) were any good. Shaq and Pinckney (from Jacksonville) and McCloud and Brooks (from South Florida) will hopefully make this list look better.

Safety

South Florida- 5 players, 100% starters, 80% NFL

Everywhere else- 3 players, 66% starters, 33% NFL

Smallish sample but pretty clear results. The only quality non-local guy was Rayshawn Jenkins. The South Florida guys delivered, highlighted by the Killian duo and Deon Bush.

Cornerback

South Florida- 8 players, 25% starters, 25% NFL

Everywhere else- 8 players, 37.5% starters, 37.5% NFL

This position was a disgrace, especially considering that NFL players like Damon Arnette, Quincy Wilson and Reshad Fenton couldn’t get offers from Miami. The out-of-state guys were better, led by Corn Elder, Michael Jackson and Ladarius Gunter.

Overall, nothing too striking in either direction aside from the OL numbers. Maybe somebody with more time and less children can expand the sample to include more of the Shannon era. My opinion is that the South Florida numbers could be even better with some low-hanging fruit, and that will improve our team and allow us to recruit better OOS players.
 

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DMoney said:
There's been some talk about expanding the recruiting board to a more national focus. Our board is already national at QB and TE, as it should be given the nature of those positions. But what about the rest of the board?

I went and looked at our classes from 2010 to 2015 to see how the South Florida recruits panned out vs. non-local recruits by position. Of course, the entire country has better players than just South Florida by sheer population. And Miami's classic teams all had a heavy OOS presence. But my theory was that Miami’s local recruits would be better over this period because (1) our record hurts us in recruiting big-time national kids; and (2) distance makes it tougher to evaluate national sleepers.

The results were predictable in spots and surprising in others. Note that I eliminated players who signed but did not enroll and did not include QB/TE (since we're already national there and have few local signees).

Over those six classes, we signed 68 kids from outside South Florida. 38% became starters at UM (10 or more starts) and 20% made the NFL. We signed 55 South Florida kids over the same time period. 51% became starters and 36% made the NFL. Here are the position breakdowns:

Running back

South Florida- 5 players, 60% starters, 40% NFL

Everywhere else- 5 players, 0% starters, 40% NFL

None of the national guys became starters, but Gus Edwards and Storm Johnson made it to the NFL. Duke Johnson, Mark Walton and Joe Yearby carried this group for South Florida.

Wide Receiver

South Florida- 8 players, 62.5% starters, 37.5% NFL

Everywhere else- 5 players, 60% starters, 40% NFL

The best players in this group (Hurns and Dorsett) were local, but Berrios was a great Cane from outside the state.

Offensive Line

South Florida- 10 players, 80% starters, 40% NFL

Everywhere else- 15 players, 40% starters, 6% NFL

This is where it gets interesting. The cliché is that South Florida OL are killing our unit. But the numbers say it’s the national guys. Even the numbers are deceptive, as some of the OOS starters (Hayden Mahoney, Jahair Jones) were pretty bad players.

Defensive Tackle

South Florida- 4 players, 25% starters, 25% NFL

Everywhere else- 13 players, 23% starters, 8% NFL

This group was ugly everywhere. The only good guy from South Florida was RJ McIntosh. The OOS guys were a parade of busts. The next generation of both South Florida DTs (Ford and Silvera) and OOS guys (the New York kids, Holley) need to perform. Willis wasn’t included as a transfer, but he was the best player of the bunch.

Defensive End

South Florida- 5 players, 20% starters, 20% NFL

Everywhere else- 7 players, 86% starters, 57% NFL

This was by far the best position for non-South Florida kids. Chickillo, AQM, Kamalu and Harris are all in the NFL. Chad is the only good player from South Florida. However, this list is skewed by having D’Onofrio’s recruits and not Manny’s. Notably, Joe Jackson, Jon Garvin and Greg Rousseau did not fall within the time period.

Linebacker

South Florida- 10 players, 30% starters, 30% NFL

Everywhere else- 12 players, 25% starters, 0% NFL

This one was a disaster. Even though we signed 12 guys outside of South Florida, not a single one of them was a good player. Only three of the South Florida guys (Perryman, Armbrister and Grace) were any good. Shaq and Pinckney (from Jacksonville) and McCloud and Brooks (from South Florida) will hopefully make this list look better.

Safety

South Florida- 5 players, 100% starters, 80% NFL

Everywhere else- 3 players, 66% starters, 33% NFL

Smallish sample but pretty clear results. The only quality non-local guy was Rayshawn Jenkins. The South Florida guys delivered, highlighted by the Killian duo and Deon Bush.

Cornerback

South Florida- 8 players, 25% starters, 25% NFL

Everywhere else- 8 players, 37.5% starters, 37.5% NFL

This position was a disgrace, especially considering that NFL players like Damon Arnette, Quincy Wilson and Reshad Fenton couldn’t get offers from Miami. The out-of-state guys were better, led by Corn Elder, Michael Jackson and Ladarius Gunter.

Overall, nothing too striking in either direction aside from the OL numbers. Maybe somebody with more time and less kids can expand the sample to include more of the Shannon era. My opinion is that the South Florida numbers could be even better with merely competent evaluation, and that will improve our team and allow us to recruit better OOS players.
Click to expand...

1. This is an interesting experiment and thanks for the time.
2. Actually, based on the forever mantra of how potentially outstanding WRs and DBs grow on trees in South Florida, there should be a much greater disparity at those positions. Your analysis says we do as well, or better, out of state when those are supposed to be among our clear strengths/advantages in state.
 
rustywalkedaway said:
2. Actually, based on the forever mantra of how potentially outstanding WRs and DBs grow on trees in South Florida, there should be a much greater disparity at those positions.
Click to expand...

My takeaway from the DB analysis is that Paul Williams was a disaster locally. But the WR numbers were interesting. Cager might get drafted and improve those numbers, too.
 
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And a lot of the NFL guys barely hung on / are hanging on. It's a disaster all around. The best I take from this is that 1. we need to improve our recruiting across the board, and 2. we haven't been able to recruit locally with any reliability. So even if we wanted to focus on South Florida and Florida, we have no choice but to hunt OOS just as hard.

A couple other observations: I think it keeps the local kids more humble if we're getting interest from decent non-local and OOS guys. Become more of a buyers market. I also think the order of recruiting should be:
1. So FL
2. Rest of FL
3. GA
4. Houston/New Orleans
5. NJ

Anything after that should be opportunistic recruiting.
 
grover said:
And a lot of the NFL guys barely hung on / are hanging on. It's a disaster all around. The best I take from this is that 1. we need to improve our recruiting across the board, and 2. we haven't been able to recruit locally with any reliability. So even if we wanted to focus on South Florida and Florida, we have no choice but to hunt OOS just as hard.

A couple other observations: I think it keeps the local kids more humble if we're getting interest from decent non-local and OOS guys. Become more of a buyers market. I also think the order of recruiting should be:
1. So FL
2. Rest of FL
3. GA
4. Houston/New Orleans
5. NJ

Anything after that should be opportunistic recruiting.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's going to matter to a kid who has offers from Bama, LSU, Clemson, etc.
 
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The OOS recruiting argument isn't about one region being better than the other, it's about supplementing our lack of local recruiting with getting equally good players from OOS.

No one disagrees that South Fla produces some of the best players in the nation, there's no argument or debate on that... Here's the problem, They don't come here & haven't for over a decade now.

A heavy South Florida recruiting strategy has always been our attack plan & how has it worked out? It's Groundhog Day every recruiting season every year, "we gotta lockdown South Fla!", then what happens? The top talent from South Fla goes to UGA, Bama, Oh St, LSU, Auburn, UF, FSU & everywhere else but Miami.

So what do we do? Keep doing the same thing over & over again expecting a different result, or try a new strategy & see if we can yield some good results?

The fact is, the upper echelon South FLA talent does not give a shìt about our program & is not interested in coming here & that's been the case for a while, they're not going to seriously consider us until we string together multiple winning seasons & become playoff contenders, that's not happening anytime soon, so instead of chasing after disinterested players maybe we should try to get some kids nationally that may be more interested?

The recruiting strategy should be, find the kids who will sign with Miami & want to play for us, not chase after kids who will play games with us all year long, decommit at the drop of a hat & treat us like a $2 dollar prostitute.

I agree, that we should always be able to sign the best players locally, the reality is, we can't & we haven't, so we either settle for 3rd & 4th options locally, or try to make an effort nationally & find some good quality players that still have respect for our brand.

The OOS recruiting push is not one of choice, it's one of necessity.
 
Coach Macho said:
I don't think that's going to matter to a kid who has offers from Bama, LSU, Clemson, etc.
Click to expand...

Point taken. But a lot of those kids end up not landing that offer in the end. Even among the Top 5, there's only room for roughly 10 safeties in their collective classes, for example. And many of those 10 safety spots are going to kids outside of So Florida, as well. So when these highly rates but not quite national elite kids start looking around for Plan B, and Miami has 5 other guys they're pursuing hard for that final spot on the Canes' roster, the dynamic changes.

p.s., LCE, strongly agree with your post. If I could, I'd hit "agree" two or three times.
 
So, what you're saying is the guys Al Golden recruited from south Florida outplayed, for the most part, the guys he recruited from elsewhere? I guess so. Seemed to really work out well for him here.
 
Liberty City El said:
No one disagrees that South Fla produces some of the best players in the nation, there's no argument or debate on that... Here's the problem, They don't come here & haven't for over a decade now.
Click to expand...

The problem is the good national guys are even less likely to come here. And we've consistently done a bad job with OOS sleepers.

The only real solution is to play better with what we have.
 
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Liberty City El said:
The OOS recruiting argument isn't about one region being better than the other, it's about supplementing our lack of local recruiting with getting equally good players from OOS.

No one disagrees that South Fla produces some of the best players in the nation, there's no argument or debate on that... Here's the problem, They don't come here & haven't for over a decade now.

A heavy South Florida recruiting strategy has always been our attack plan & how has it worked out? It's Groundhog Day every recruiting season every year, "we gotta lockdown South Fla!", then what happens? The top talent from South Fla goes to UGA, Bama, Oh St, LSU, Auburn, UF, FSU & everywhere else but Miami.

So what do we do? Keep doing the same thing over & over again expecting a different result, or try a new strategy & see if we can yield some good results?

The fact is, the upper echelon South FLA talent does not give a shìt about our program & is not interested in coming here & that's been the case for a while, they're not going to seriously consider us until we string together multiple winning seasons & become playoff contenders, that's not happening anytime soon, so instead of chasing after disinterested players maybe we should try to get some kids nationally that may be more interested?

The recruiting strategy should be, find the kids who will sign with Miami & want to play for us, not chase after kids who will play games with us all year long, decommit at the drop of a hat & treat us like a $2 dollar prostitute.

I agree, that we should always be able to sign the best players locally, the reality is, we can't & we haven't, so we either settle for 3rd & 4th options locally, or try to make an effort nationally & find some good quality players that still have respect for our brand.

The OOS recruiting push is not one of choice, it's one of necessity.
Click to expand...

How many times can I like this????
 
DTP said:
So, what you're saying is the guys Al Golden recruited from south Florida outplayed, for the most part, the guys he recruited from elsewhere? I guess so. Seemed to really work out well for him here.
Click to expand...

It's not about one region v. another. The rest of the country (with 322 million people) has exponentially more good players than South Florida (with 6.1 million).

The problem is that it's hard to get good national kids when your product sucks. That is my takeaway from those numbers. We get frustrated because big-time local kids spurn us. But we're DOA with big-time national kids, and our track record with the sleepers has been bad.

The only solution is to put out a better product. We have a chance to recruit Texas if King balls out. Otherwise, we are getting Polendeys.
 
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DMoney said:
The problem is the good national guys are even less likely to come here. And we've consistently done a bad job with OOS sleepers.

The only real solution is to play better with what we have.
Click to expand...
That may be true, but we fail pretty hard with South Fla sleepers as well. Other programs have a done a better job unearthing our Diamond's in the rough better than we have.

The real issue is Coaching, Evals & development. We underachieve in all 3 phases of that process & are left with a roster full of untapped potential.

We should never have to leave the state for DB's or WR's, but yet we've had to, because we just fail so hard in local recruiting we have to make late desperation plunges for national recruits who couldn't go to their top choices.

I think we could snag a lot more national recruits if we put more effort into it. With the exception of regions like Louisiana & Alabama, the top national recruits are leaving home across the board, that means they're open to being recruited if we simply put forth the effort to get them.

The top programs routinely recruit the top players from TX, FL, CA, MD/DC/VA, NV, AZ, ILL/MO etc, even UGA recruits heavy nationally despite having a high amount of talent in Georgia. The best programs recruit nationally & are able to keep the best players home, we don't keep our best players home & we don't really invest a lot of capital into recruiting nationally either.

I think the solution is to recruit locally with high character kids who will actually sign with us & not use us as a placeholder, combine them with a few risers from Central/Northern FLA, recruit TX, AZ heavy for QB's & any other prime position of need, find quality players from NV (Gorman, Desert Pines, Liberty, Henderson), East STL (ESTL, DeSmet, Trinity Catholic, Lutheran North etc), & the best we can get from the Northeast in NY/NJ,etc..

If all things were perfect we wouldn't need to focus much on OOS recruiting, but given the current state of the program our best bet is to transform our recruiting style rather than continue to be made a mockery by recruiting kids who don't wanna play here & will only clown us every chance they get.

When we win, then we'll recruit South Fla much better than we have, but until we do, most of the best South Fla players are not coming here. That's the dilemma.
 
We ain't getting ANYBODY elite, regardless of where they live, until we stop losing to mediocre a$$ teams and start stringing together respectable seasons.
These kids have zero faith in our program right now.

YOU HAVE TO BE GOOD AT SOMETHING to attract elite athletes!
You gotta be good at something to get the ball rolling.
YOU GOTTA SELL SOMETHING!

*Winning ball games! (nope)
*Development (nope)
*Recruiting/developing relationships?


WTF are we good at?
What's the reason to choose us over anybody in the top-25?
What do we have to sell? A resurrection? Hard to even sell that when you're losing to FIU.

At least if you're Mike Norvell or Dan Mullen you can say that you've won at other programs, but our staff can't even say that. Diaz is a first-time HC with the keys to a broken Ferrari that was stripped and gutted and rebuilt with Kia parts.

It's still got the Ferrari badges but it runs like ****.
 
Last edited:
DMoney said:
It's not about one region v. another. The rest of the country (with 322 million people) has exponentially more good players than South Florida (with 6.1 million).

The problem is that it's hard to get good national kids when your product sucks. That is my takeaway from those numbers. We get frustrated because big-time local kids spurn us. But we're DOA with big-time national kids, and our track record with the sleepers has been bad.

The only solution is to put out a better product. We have a chance to recruit Texas if King balls out. Otherwise, we are getting Polendeys.
Click to expand...

That is what many have been screaming. It starts at the top, the school does not care, they havent wanted to invest in program for years crying broke. Hiring cheap coaches off fired/replaced staffs with no experience. When you dont want to invest and your best recruiting pitch is to try to shame the local players to stay home and play in front of mommy you get this result. They need to step it up BIG time.

Of course people will say THIS year will be different but we are goin on dam near 2 decades of evidence showing the plan doesnt work. Right now the school would rather seem like they are trying to win than actually go out and win. The product has sucked.
 
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