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1999 Era Recruiting vs Today (Derailed Maason Smith thread)

dsddcane said:
You're saying (whether you realize it or not)two separate things though. I'm not talking about their talent levels. That's not what he was discussing. We were talking specifically about their rankings. That's what blue chip means. The high 4 and 5 star kids... And again whether you buy it or not THATS NEVER BEEN US. we would get some of course. But that was the minority and a big one at that rather than any majority. We'd have a **** ton of us that were under rated kids who we all got around each other and developed due to our peers and our coaches that actually knew football and what it would take to get us from being hungry to being dogs. Period. It's not even debatable. I was one of them.
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Were star rankings even a thing back then? What organizations did the rankings?
 
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The_tbj said:
Just curious who all these lowly recruited high school guys are? As a younger Canes fan I realize I may just not know.
But you telling me all of the guys like Edgerrin James, Reggie Wayne, Andre Johnson, Ed Reed, Willis Mcgahee, Clinton Portia, Sean Taylor, Michael Irvin, Winslow jr. we’re all underrated guys in high school?
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Most of that list wouldn’t have been considered one of the top 300 guys in high school
 
dsddcane said:
I'm curious. How old are you or better yet how long have you been following us? Cause our history isn't made up of stacking blue chip kids or shuffling between them. It's the exact opposite. We stacked our chips by taking kids who were coachable and lived and died with football. We coached those mid level kids up to be monsters on a regular basis... That's our history brother. What you're describing is the formula at the blue blood factory programs and for them it works. I'm not saying you're wrong. I just know to get classes FULL of elite recruits isn't exa you practical here from a consistency standpoint simply because of all the extra factors that go into elite talent. By truly developing what you do have the gap narrows. The end goal is obviously getting the best results possible out of each kid.
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And those same prospects who were once overlooked due to lack of exposure are now the most sought after kids in the nation. Kids are not falling through the cracks anymore nationally. Especially in south Florida and Florida overall. Of course you still have to develop that talent. The days of a talent like Santana moss being on track scolly are over. Every kid has a hudl. Majority of kids and HS get exposure through the camp circuit. The saying used to be the NFL will find you no matter what small college your at. Well CFB is the same way nowadays.

I think what your talking about predates the recruiting industry star system. While I’m still a believer in player evaluation, there’s no doubt that by stacking classes filled with the best talent (even going by major recruiting industries) has a direct correlation to sustainable success at a elite level.

now I know a lot of ppl will say “ well we have had top 10 classes” this is true. But rarely have we stacked well balanced classes 3 or 4 cycles in a row. CLEMSON is the best example since there run is relatively recent. U can literally point to that 2011 class were they signed 30 guys including Sammy, Martavis, stephon Anthony and steward ( I still remember that signing day they had that shocked ppl)..then 12 and 13..and then especially 14. Those 4 cycles were the start of Clemson run
 
Zbrod95 said:
Most of that list wouldn’t have been considered one of the top 300 guys in high school
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Idk man... all the ones after 2000 247 had em ranked super highly as recruits. Again I don’t even know who or where star rankings were decided pre 2000 but the dudes after 2000 are all super highly ranked according to 247
 
dsddcane said:
I'm curious. How old are you or better yet how long have you been following us? Cause our history isn't made up of stacking blue chip kids or shuffling between them. It's the exact opposite. We stacked our chips by taking kids who were coachable and lived and died with football. We coached those mid level kids up to be monsters on a regular basis... That's our history brother. What you're describing is the formula at the blue blood factory programs and for them it works. I'm not saying you're wrong. I just know to get classes FULL of elite recruits isn't exa you practical here from a consistency standpoint simply because of all the extra factors that go into elite talent. By truly developing what you do have the gap narrows. The end goal is obviously getting the best results possible out of each kid.
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Agree 100% with this DSD, of course we always had a few blue chips thrown in as the icing on top but to accomplish again what you explained above you need the top notch coaching. Which is what we used to have in our day and haven’t had in a longtime. That will forever be the key!
 
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dsddcane said:
Ehh. I could debate that all day. Plenty of our kids who became monsters here are probably relatively average in most other spots. Just like plenty of kids we've had recently could be monsters in the right spots while they've been good to average here. But #1 absolutely does come down to evaluations... No shadow of a doubt on that. But we've been dead on with plenty of evaluations over the last few staphs yet have failed to get peak results out of them for numerous factors. Some coaching, some competition, some favoritism, some mental approach, grades, etc. Tomatoes to tomotoes hermano. We're basically saying the same thing. If all we do is go after blue chips were basically discarding our own ability to evaluate and saying all we can do is go off of a national and local scouts evaluations instead of our own. That'll be a real bad day when we finally admit that.
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Definitely agree there. Coker did that and started the collapse. You need to trust your own evals. But you need to be good at them. Trusting without basis is insanity. Hence our results the past 15 years.

The path back for this program is clear.
 
dsddcane said:
Im assuming y'all talking bout latawn anderson. Aka tmac 2.0 that boy would've been the truth. But he couldn't even come close to getting out his own way. Kid had four known robberies here over the course of a year and one of them was the assistant to shalalalaalllalalalalalalalalalalla. Needless to say that boy wasn't staying around here. Lol
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lmaooooooo
 
dsddcane said:
For anyone that wants to argue that fact it's real simple. Or atleast I'll make it simple Dan morgan,Vilma, ray, warren, ed, sean... Do I really gotta keep doing this? I can go on and on. We developed whatever we got and made us all the best possible version of ourselves. Simple. Some of the best ever PERIOD. Fvck just here. Period, EVER IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL,COLLEGE,NFL , weren't blue chips at all and they became ICONS right here under coaches most of y'all steady talk **** about...
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Again I agree 1000% but again we need the top head coach and top staffs to replicate that again. And that is something we haven’t had in almost 20 years since Butch left. That’s the missing ingredient DSD, always has been and always will be. The problem is now you can’t get those staffs on the cheaper side like you used to be able too. UM has to open up the checkbook and that’s where I have my doubts. Not that they don’t have plenty of money, that they’ve proven they’re to cheap to spend it. Smh
 
dsddcane said:
You're giving staphs, ours in particular excuses they aren't paid for. Yes social media has obviously made the recruiting land scape very different. However it hasn't changed at all a individuals ability to evaluate our own kids and coach the kids we do land up properly... You feel free to look at the numbers year in and year out and see how many all americans,all conference kids in p5,early round draft picks etc are all blue chippers... Sheer numbers alone show you that's simply not possible. I'm in the music field primarily but I'm still very well established in that world as well. I have far too many kids reach out to me daily or kids families with stories that would make you sick brother. Evaluations aren't going anywhere any time soon. Rankings are based primarily upon a kid and his families financial ability to get in front of camps,scouts and coaches. TONS OF FAMILIES FLAT OUT CANT DO THAT... So while it's not as common to find diamonds in the rough,that's not because they aren't present. It's because most coaches and lazy *** recruiting coordinators would rather sit in their office to establish targets based upon clips and camps rather than get out in the field & trust their own eye. It's largely due to the fact they prioritize their recruiting budgets elsewhere and have devalued the information received from high schools coaches and the network they've built up throughout the years. You don't believe me feel free to ask any high school coach who's been around that same length of time u speak on.
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Thank you. Music to my ears. Been saying this over and over forever it seems.
 
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TimeB0mb said:
This is the most correct 💯post on this site in recent memory. Miami found hungry, underrated players, developed them and then complimented that with some elite talent. We didn't have rosters full of 5 stars. Some of the underrated players turned into studs equivalent to a 5 star, but even the ones who didn't were solid contributors. The solid (non elite) played smart football, didn't make mistakes and inevitably one of the elite playmakers would have an opportunity to make a game changing play.

Good example this year is Flagg + Phillips . Flagg is a solid LB, cerebral, takes good angles but somewhat limited athletically . Not likely going to make game changing sacks or INTs but he's the type of player who throughout the game helps with hidden yardage. Instead of 2nd and 4, the offense is consistently in 2nd and 8 because he tackles well on first down . Because it's 2nd and 8, the opposition tries to pass and then an athletic freak like Philips sacks the QB or tips the pass so another player gets an INT. The solid player and elite player work in tandem. Miami doesn't need a #1 class and 22 5 stars to build a championship roster.
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People confuse the cart and the horse on this site.

I don’t care if someone isn’t a 5* ... or if they is one. We shouldn’t avoid them or seek them out. We should recruit the kids we evaluate well and have confidence in. The whole ranking thing is a distraction. It’s noise. Tune it out. Do we know how to pick the right kids.

Anyone who thinks Sean Taylor if he came along today wouldn’t be a 5* kid is just not paying attention. Information is different today. Camps are. That’s fine. But kids aren’t. You still have to assess who will put in the work, and do the extra when the game is on the line.
 
Ethnicsands said:
Definitely agree there. Coker did that and started the collapse. You need to trust your own evals. But you need to be good at them. Trusting without basis is insanity. Hence our results the past 15 years.

The path back for this program is clear.
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That was larry's biggest problem. He was the ultimate star chaser. Literally offered every position top 3. Long as they even pretended interest he never lined up any back up plan at all. Then when he didn't sign one of those kids he thought he had weith no back up plan he'd scramble for anything at all... Very similar to our situation now. Only difference is early commits from whatever with the hope of larger targets later.
 
I posted an article a while back from 247 about blue chip ratios on teams and how successful they were. All the top teams had the highest blue chip ratio. Blue chips 100percent matter and no one can tell me otherwise. Coaching also factors in of course, and you’re always going to have more success if you are able to develop your players. But blue chip ratio is very important
 
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You guys who think all the best kids are already identified, tell me how Lamar Jackson slipped through the cracks. Or our own Greg Rousseau who was a 2 star before we offered him?

Besides, not all 4 and 5 stars are equally as good once you look under the hood. Evals matter. Herbert was a 4 star. How’s he doing? Charlie Jones was a 5 star. How’d he do?

I actually think the Golden and Richt camps were a good first step to getting back to proper Evals and finding high quality under the radar kids. We found Flowers that way before anyone else got to him. Make the local kids the priority and charge them little to nothing to get D1 coaching along with coaching from the best local coaches who participate so they’ll come.

We just need to do more of this, and the coaches need more local guys like Geta and Macho to surface the real talents that aren’t nationally recognized yet.

Personally, I’m really happy with the 2021 evals. Chase Smith is an absolute monster. Big Baby wasn’t even in the top 300 when he committed. People drool over Brooks but Brinson is better. Rodriguez is going to be the new Feliciano. We’ve got some real talent across the board and it wasn’t because coaches focused on rankings.
 
dsddcane said:
That was larry's biggest problem. He was the ultimate star chaser. Literally offered every position top 3. Long as they even pretended interest he never lined up any back up plan at all. Then when he didn't sign one of those kids he thought he had weith no back up plan he'd scramble for anything at all... Very similar to our situation now. Only difference is early commits from whatever with the hope of larger targets later.
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Man it killed me watching coker recruit. I been following college recruiting since early ‘80s, first cbb then cfb. it was so obvious coker was a clown. the dave howell commitment in like ‘02 was enough for me to see he was clueless.

Coker chased rhyan anderson because ... hype. Sent 5 corches to an in home with joe joseph because hype. had zero idea what talent looked like. still upset about it because we could have kept this going if we’d had a better eval process.

honesty, erickson was similar, just a better coach but also inherited a JJ special team and was ruining it when he left.
 
20 years ago you had to find some kids vhs highlights filmed on some grainy *** camcorder or watch him live. News didn’t travel like it does now.
we just saw some 8th grader throwing on here in HD cause someone posted it.

I still do t understand why people want to compare recruiting today to 20 years ago.
Yes Miami mfer butch did a lot of things that we should do today. But how many of those players that butch hit would be blue chip kids today?
Maybe Ray Lewis wouldn’t be a 5 star. But he shire as **** would’ve had multiple d1 offers.

Talent is great and all. But yes we need dudes that know that cliches sometimes exist for a reasons
Teamwork dedication, perfecting your craft, team over me etc etc.
Problem is all these kids say it but will they do it.
The good recruiters aren’t really the ones who can convince a 5 star to come but can also figure out if that 5 star checks all the boxes besides the ability one.
 
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