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1999 Era Recruiting vs Today (Derailed Maason Smith thread)

The more I think about it, the more I think the Ray Lewis anecdote is the perfect example of what fans today do not understand. Ray was an undefeated state champion wrestler at 183. He wasn’t some secret. He was not qualified, poor, undersized, small program. Kids like that slip through the rating system every **** year. Maybe not future ray lewises, but who is? He’s the goat but his type of prospect comes along all the time. That’s the entire **** point of evals. Ray was fire the second he wakes on campus. Some coaches see kids abilities and potential and others don’t.
 
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dsddcane said:
Of course. Some saw it as an exchange while others saw it as temporary. Hindsight has a way of doing that to us all.
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Hard to have full regret with a title on the official books and whatever happened in 02, and yes, hindsight is both 20/20 and a *****. I’m sure many conversations have happened over the years between y’all who lived it and the what-ifs. Appreciate you answering that.
 
Ethnicsands said:
It’s unfair to those kids to even ask the question like that. Dee was a professional manager who should have known better. These were college kids. They won their title with coker anyhow. What sort of regrets are they supposed to have?
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Well, for one I am asking D, a grown man, that question 19 years later with hindsight, life experience, wisdom, and the knowledge of how it turned out. If Coker managed to win 5 titles, that meeting would have gone down in the program’s annals. I look back on decisions and conversations from college and wonder what-if. This is the same.

Second, it is kind of a meaningless question because it was going to be Barry Alvarez, so we could have had Golden a decade earlier.

Third, I liked Dee as a person. Took a class with him and got to know him well in the years before his passing. But he was a ****** evaluator of coaching talent and decision maker as AD. He should have listened to the players’ opinions but made the final decision on his own with his life experience and judgment behind it. If he thought someone else was more qualified for long term success, he was paid well to say this is the direction we are going and I hope you stick around.
 
dsddcane said:
Of course. Some saw it as an exchange while others saw it as temporary. Hindsight has a way of doing that to us all.
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For years I’ve ran this over and over through my mind that had Schiano not already accepted and left for the Rutgers job he would have been the guy they handed the keys to instead of coker who would have just continued to be the OC. And I always thought schiano would have been able to keep that train going that butch built into a well oiled machine. Especially with what he was able to accomplish at freaking Rutgers that first 6 years as head coach there. Do you agree with that DSD, that not only would schiano have been a **** of a lot better chose then in over his head clappy but that he would have been able to keep what Butch built going?
 
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wspcane said:
Well, for one I am asking D, a grown man, that question 19 years later with hindsight, life experience, wisdom, and the knowledge of how it turned out. If Coker managed to win 5 titles, that meeting would have gone down in the program’s annals. I look back on decisions and conversations from college and wonder what-if. This is the same.

Second, it is kind of a meaningless question because it was going to be Barry Alvarez, so we could have had Golden a decade earlier.

Third, I liked Dee as a person. Took a class with him and got to know him well in the years before his passing. But he was a ****** evaluator of coaching talent and decision maker as AD. He should have listened to the players’ opinions but made the final decision on his own with his life experience and judgment behind it. If he thought someone else was more qualified for long term success, he was paid well to say this is the direction we are going and I hope you stick around.
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I guess my point is you don't have to be a good evaluator of coaching to understand basic managerial decision-making. Coker wasn't qualified and the only reason he was considered was because of a player revolt. That alone should have been enough for Dee to make the call differently.

As for Alvarez, the only reason he was the alternative was because of the Troll. Insofar as she destroyed the program, I don't like writing what I'm about to write. But it's really unfair to Alvarez to compare him to Golden or Coker. Barry was a real coach and man, not a clappy goof. He wasn't right for UM and I'm not arguing otherwise. But I'm not convinced he was anywhere near the death sentence that Coker et seq. became.
 
Ethnicsands said:
I guess my point is you don't have to be a good evaluator of coaching to understand basic managerial decision-making. Coker wasn't qualified and the only reason he was considered was because of a player revolt. That alone should have been enough for Dee to make the call differently.

As for Alvarez, the only reason he was the alternative was because of the Troll. Insofar as she destroyed the program, I don't like writing what I'm about to write. But it's really unfair to Alvarez to compare him to Golden or Coker. Barry was a real coach and man, not a clappy goof. He wasn't right for UM and I'm not arguing otherwise. But I'm not convinced he was anywhere near the death sentence that Coker et seq. became.
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Agree 100% on Alvarez vs Coker. He at least knew how to run a program, even if it was in a different mold from what Miami needs. I don’t really remember, but I thought it was just the two of them mentioned for the job? D would know better.

Agree on the first point as well. My main question was whether there was ever regret about laying that ultimatum instead of letting it play out. With that talent in 01, I think we will that year regardless. Lots of what-ifs and forks in the road from the last period of Miami football history, but this was probably the biggest.
 
Ethnicsands said:
This is really mistaken, imo. Butch’s eye would be every bit as relevant today. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand math. There are about the same number of schools and initial counters. The question is how you allocate your spots. There isn’t much evidence that hype sites are way more accurate today, but even if they are, there’s plenty of evidence that the large denominator of lower rated kids will generate tons of talented nfl players ... the question is can you assess them.

Ray Lewis types come along every year - talented undersized athletes who are risky qualifiers and don’t have the dough to play camps a lot and do t go to big programs. Ray wrestled at 183 as a senior. He’s not a 5* in this era. His offer issue wasn’t talent or awarenesses — it was he wasn’t qualified.
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The star system is flawed in that manny 5 stars get dropped after they play more and 3 stars get boosted by offers and commitment.
At one point jerry jeudy was an3 star and Akeem Dent was the number one corner in America.

Yes the nfl filled with lower rated kids but they were likely not developed or not well coached for anyone to identify how talented they were.

Freaking Antonio Brown was in a geographical area filled with coaches and street agents looking for their next meal ticket and no one was able to see a pro bowl talent. We live in a place where people spot elite talent way early and this dude still ended up in central Michigan broke a bunch of records and was unstoppable. But yet even the nfl guys couldn’t see it and he almost went und

I guarantee you that Erickson and Kehoe didn’t get back to UM and say “We just offered a guy that is a guaranteed nfl talent and future hall of famer” when they offered Ray Lewis.

These lower rated kids that end up being nfl talent come from non P5 schools spread out all over the country for the reasons I’ve stated.
It would be extremely difficult to evaluate them.

Tua, Lawrence, Watson, and the 5 star qb’s aren’t gonna be hiding under any rock anytime soon and neither is jeudy brooks or mason smith.
Trying to field a team that’s gonna beat those teams by doing it butch’s way is way more difficult than it was 20 years ago. The dudes he was able to evaluate would also be evaluated by other people today way easier.

Fielding a defense full of potential Mason Smiths or Leonard Taylor’s and hoping they can be as talented is a monumental task today.
But Manny has stated several times he is not recruiting according to stars and Rousseau proves it and the offers prove it.

I don’t disagree with you about stars and the nfl but hard to argue against stars and national championships.
 
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wspcane said:
Agree 100% on Alvarez vs Coker. He at least knew how to run a program, even if it was in a different mold from what Miami needs. I don’t really remember, but I thought it was just the two of them mentioned for the job? D would know better.

Agree on the first point as well. My main question was whether there was ever regret about laying that ultimatum instead of letting it play out. With that talent in 01, I think we will that year regardless. Lots of what-ifs and forks in the road from the last period of Miami football history, but this was probably the biggest.
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I understand the question and kudos to D for responding. It just always grated me a bit that some folks (not saying you) wanna blame the kids for that decision and the ones that came after it, when it's 1000% clear that the failures at UM were a result of bad decisions (and lack of commitment) by the admin (President and AD and BOT).
 
Ethnicsands said:
I understand the question and kudos to D for responding. It just always grated me a bit that some folks (not saying you) wanna blame the kids for that decision and the ones that came after it, when it's 1000% clear that the failures at UM were a result of bad decisions (and lack of commitment) by the admin (President and AD and BOT).
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To be clear, I don’t blame them at all. Part of being in college is growing into your voice and offering your opinion freely. Dee was paid well to make tough and difficult decisions. He either was going to bend to the players or Shalala in that decision. At least he chose the people who play the game and had valid opinions. But neither of those were the tough or difficult path.
 
pacusmc said:
The star system is flawed in that manny 5 stars get dropped after they play more and 3 stars get boosted by offers and commitment.
At one point jerry jeudy was an3 star and Akeem Dent was the number one corner in America.

Yes the nfl filled with lower rated kids but they were likely not developed or not well coached for anyone to identify how talented they were.

Freaking Antonio Brown was in a geographical area filled with coaches and street agents looking for their next meal ticket and no one was able to see a pro bowl talent. We live in a place where people spot elite talent way early and this dude still ended up in central Michigan broke a bunch of records and was unstoppable. But yet even the nfl guys couldn’t see it and he almost went und

I guarantee you that Erickson and Kehoe didn’t get back to UM and say “We just offered a guy that is a guaranteed nfl talent and future hall of famer” when they offered Ray Lewis.

These lower rated kids that end up being nfl talent come from non P5 schools spread out all over the country for the reasons I’ve stated.
It would be extremely difficult to evaluate them.

Tua, Lawrence, Watson, and the 5 star qb’s aren’t gonna be hiding under any rock anytime soon and neither is jeudy brooks or mason smith.
Trying to field a team that’s gonna beat those teams by doing it butch’s way is way more difficult than it was 20 years ago. The dudes he was able to evaluate would also be evaluated by other people today way easier.

Fielding a defense full of potential Mason Smiths or Leonard Taylor’s and hoping they can be as talented is a monumental task today.
But Manny has stated several times he is not recruiting according to stars and Rousseau proves it and the offers prove it.

I don’t disagree with you about stars and the nfl but hard to argue against stars and national championships.
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Not sure what your real argument is but if I read you correctly, I wholly disagree. Plenty of QBs go under the radar. It's a tough position to evaluate.

You're not doing math right if you point to some 5* kids and say that proves 5* kids or evals generally. We don't sign more than 1-2 5* kids a year anyhow, so not even sure it's relevant.

Kehoe (and DE, IMO) sucked at evals so even mentioning him to me is weird.

You say the 'stay system is flawed' because kids go up and down in it, but that makes zero sense. Is there any other possible way to manage it? Short of God perfectly evaluating all kids when they're sophomores, how else could it work?

In any case, you seem to misunderstand the entire debate. It's not 'arguing against stars' to talk about evaluations. If you think it is, you completely misunderstand recruiting and all these discussions. Coaches should evaluate irrespective of stars. Don't care. Not relevant. If they evluate kids and pick kids with high stars and get them committed and signed, great. If they pick lower rated kids okay. Some will go up in rankings over time. What matters is did you evluate well. Reggie Youngblood was a 5*. Tyler McMeans was. Lance Leggett was. Ryan Moore was. It didn't mean jack isht because they were poor evals.

And saying stars mean national championships is just mistaken, IMO. Stars follow schools not the other way around. Alabama and Ohio State recruit well, evaluate well, sign the kids everyone wants. They're not signing them because stars. To the contrary, those kids have stars because Alabama (and other programs) are chasing them.
 
Liberty City El said:
Would be one of the biggest Coup d'état ever if we snatched him.

However, it's just too tall of a task without OV's happening, I know he visted us last year but that was a long time ago & he's recently visited both Bama & UGA on his own, I just don't think we'll be able to win out over the money he's being offered.

5-star kids from Louisiana almost exclusively sign with LSU or Bama, in fact, over the last 5 years the only 2 highest rated Louisiana kids that didn't sign with either LSU or Bama was 2019 Center Sedrick Van Pran from New Orleans who signed with UGA & 2018 QB Justin Rogers from Bossier City who signed with TCU (but wound up transferring to UNLV), but neither one of them were 5-stars, they were both high 4-stars with a 97 rating. Even Travis Etienne in the 2017 class was just a 91 rated 4-star & that was more of a miss eval by LSU than anything & they already had Clyde Edwards-Helaire committed.

But the fact is, the overwhelming majority of elite 5-star talent from Louisiana goes to either LSU or Bama, even UGA signing him would be a shock.

He speaks glowingly about Miami which is a good thing, shows that our coaches have done a good job selling him on the scheme & the program, maybe we pull off a miracle, would love for him to pick us on ENSD (if he even decides then) but I just don't see it happening. $EC bound.
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It’s one thing to recruit big time Florida recruits or national recruits when you are winning big. But i’m not sure on this one. Although, i said that about Taylor and Williams. I just can’t imagine this happening without the NCAA flying down just after the commitment.

Who knows though now a days. We are winning. I just sit back and read posts from guys like you and hope for the best
 
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wspcane said:
Well, for one I am asking D, a grown man, that question 19 years later with hindsight, life experience, wisdom, and the knowledge of how it turned out. If Coker managed to win 5 titles, that meeting would have gone down in the program’s annals. I look back on decisions and conversations from college and wonder what-if. This is the same.

Second, it is kind of a meaningless question because it was going to be Barry Alvarez, so we could have had Golden a decade earlier.

Third, I liked Dee as a person. Took a class with him and got to know him well in the years before his passing. But he was a ****** evaluator of coaching talent and decision maker as AD. He should have listened to the players’ opinions but made the final decision on his own with his life experience and judgment behind it. If he thought someone else was more qualified for long term success, he was paid well to say this is the direction we are going and I hope you stick around.
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Yes and no. It's important to remember as ad he should've had more power. But when Donna came in she did everything her way. She was the reason we were doing everything like wisconsin. She was the reason IT WAS GONNA BE ALVAREZ. Not one other option out there.
 
Me looking around for Maason info?

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NicKane said:
For years I’ve ran this over and over through my mind that had Schiano not already accepted and left for the Rutgers job he would have been the guy they handed the keys to instead of coker who would have just continued to be the OC. And I always thought schiano would have been able to keep that train going that butch built into a well oiled machine. Especially with what he was able to accomplish at freaking Rutgers that first 6 years as head coach there. Do you agree with that DSD, that not only would schiano have been a **** of a lot better chose then in over his head clappy but that he would have been able to keep what Butch built going?
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Everyone hated schiano. Like really hated him. So while he would've been a better option he also wouldn't have been an option. He was butch's guy and what these individuals on here don't like to acknowledge is butch was basically ran out of town. Doubt he would've been able to get schiano that job as board would've seen it as a favor to butch.
 
Ethnicsands said:
I guess my point is you don't have to be a good evaluator of coaching to understand basic managerial decision-making. Coker wasn't qualified and the only reason he was considered was because of a player revolt. That alone should have been enough for Dee to make the call differently.

As for Alvarez, the only reason he was the alternative was because of the Troll. Insofar as she destroyed the program, I don't like writing what I'm about to write. But it's really unfair to Alvarez to compare him to Golden or Coker. Barry was a real coach and man, not a clappy goof. He wasn't right for UM and I'm not arguing otherwise. But I'm not convinced he was anywhere near the death sentence that Coker et seq. became.
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Agree whole heartedly with your last paragraph ethnic. Barry was a championship coach who single handily brought wisky out of the depths of CFB. People see wisky as the year in, year out competitive program they are now but they were a bottom dweller before Barry. He revived that program to a big ten and rose bowl champion abd coached a heisman winner. And did it all without the top recruits as he was also one **** of an evaluator too! And I’ll add he’s the only big ten coach to have a winning record against the ole sweater vest tressel. So I’m not saying he was right for us, but like you said atleast he was a real coach who actually new what the **** he was doing. And I think with him on the sidelines we win that 02 title game in regulation without even letting it go to overtime where the refs can ***** us.
 
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