Blue-chip ratio
- Thread starter Redmich
- Start date
I don’t think there is any denying that it takes talent to win. Experience and coaching obviously play roles as well, but supreme talent can overcome some of the shortfalls in those other areas. I do think that there is some room for debate about the degree to which talent is accurately measured by the blue chip ratio and the star ratings system.
There were 75 players on the big 10 first, second and third all-conference team last fall (not including special teams players). 34 of those were 4 or 5 stars according to 247 for a blue chip ratio of 45%. I think you could make a strong case that a team comprised of those players could contend for a national championship, yet according to the blue chip ratio, they would not. My point in bring this up, is that if you can’t compete with the Alabamas and Ohio States in recruiting in their game, than make up a new game. There are quality players out there, they just need to be identified more accurately.
It is my belief that the recruiting services and probably even coaching staffs don’t evaluate an individual’s talent in total. Obviously, it is fairly easy to evaluate a player’s physical talent to a large extent, resulting in decent correlation between their star ratings and their success on the field. But that correlation is not close to 100% and therefore it is difficult to determine how much is coincidental. I just believe that individuals have a lot of additional talents that are not being accurately measured and accounted for that have a direct impact on that player’s performance on the field. I also believe that a lack of talent in these areas may account for players not seeing the field. Is Maurice Washington really a 4-star talent if he can’t stay on the field?
When a linebacker is evaluated, maybe they look at the height, weight, wingspan, speed, strength, etc. Why not quantitatively evaluate his spatial awareness, emotional and mental capacity, vision and pattern recognition, decision making talent, leadership and communication skills, etc? Now, when talking about high level recruits, they most likely are strong in those areas and that probably is why there is decent correlation between the star ratings and performance. But if you are Nebraska, and you can’t afford a lot of misses in recruiting, why wouldn’t you use every tool at your disposal to evaluate talent.
If it were me, I would use the Nebraska Athletic Performance Lab to evaluate, measure and quantify attributes of proven and successful players at each position (NFL players, college players, etc). I would then create a methodology to assess and measure those attributes of potential recruits to see if they have the total talent to be successful at their position. I think, trying to take the guesswork out of the equation, would be extremely beneficial to a program like Nebraska. Again, rather that try to compete in recruiting against Alabama and Ohio State using their methods, reinvent the game.
There were 75 players on the big 10 first, second and third all-conference team last fall (not including special teams players). 34 of those were 4 or 5 stars according to 247 for a blue chip ratio of 45%. I think you could make a strong case that a team comprised of those players could contend for a national championship, yet according to the blue chip ratio, they would not. My point in bring this up, is that if you can’t compete with the Alabamas and Ohio States in recruiting in their game, than make up a new game. There are quality players out there, they just need to be identified more accurately.
It is my belief that the recruiting services and probably even coaching staffs don’t evaluate an individual’s talent in total. Obviously, it is fairly easy to evaluate a player’s physical talent to a large extent, resulting in decent correlation between their star ratings and their success on the field. But that correlation is not close to 100% and therefore it is difficult to determine how much is coincidental. I just believe that individuals have a lot of additional talents that are not being accurately measured and accounted for that have a direct impact on that player’s performance on the field. I also believe that a lack of talent in these areas may account for players not seeing the field. Is Maurice Washington really a 4-star talent if he can’t stay on the field?
When a linebacker is evaluated, maybe they look at the height, weight, wingspan, speed, strength, etc. Why not quantitatively evaluate his spatial awareness, emotional and mental capacity, vision and pattern recognition, decision making talent, leadership and communication skills, etc? Now, when talking about high level recruits, they most likely are strong in those areas and that probably is why there is decent correlation between the star ratings and performance. But if you are Nebraska, and you can’t afford a lot of misses in recruiting, why wouldn’t you use every tool at your disposal to evaluate talent.
If it were me, I would use the Nebraska Athletic Performance Lab to evaluate, measure and quantify attributes of proven and successful players at each position (NFL players, college players, etc). I would then create a methodology to assess and measure those attributes of potential recruits to see if they have the total talent to be successful at their position. I think, trying to take the guesswork out of the equation, would be extremely beneficial to a program like Nebraska. Again, rather that try to compete in recruiting against Alabama and Ohio State using their methods, reinvent the game.
It being comparatively easier from very difficult to make a championship game does not imply it is easy. I never claimed such a thing.
50% might be a conservative number
at 50% it is possible but not probable
half of the NCs since 2010 have been by teams with a ratio > 70%
75% of the NCs since 2010 have been by teams with a ratio of > 60%
3 of the last 5 winners have ratios of 80% or better
.
|2010 Auburn 50%
|2011|Alabama|71%|
|2012|Alabama|71%|
|2013|FSU|53%|
|2014|Ohio State|68%|
|2015|Alabama|77%|
|2016|Clemson|52%|
|2017|Alabama|80%|
|2018|Clemson|61%|
|2019|LSU|64%|
|2020|Alabama|83%|
|2021|Georgia|80%|
at 50% it is possible but not probable
half of the NCs since 2010 have been by teams with a ratio > 70%
75% of the NCs since 2010 have been by teams with a ratio of > 60%
3 of the last 5 winners have ratios of 80% or better
.
|2010 Auburn 50%
|2011|Alabama|71%|
|2012|Alabama|71%|
|2013|FSU|53%|
|2014|Ohio State|68%|
|2015|Alabama|77%|
|2016|Clemson|52%|
|2017|Alabama|80%|
|2018|Clemson|61%|
|2019|LSU|64%|
|2020|Alabama|83%|
|2021|Georgia|80%|
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So you are saying we can’t really compete with these programs on the recruiting trail
for the 4*s, 5*s or even the highly sought after 3*s but if we do a super duper job of analysis of the low 3 stars - 2 stars and walkons we should be good to go?
An objective measurement system would likely boil down to recreating the NFL draft chart/combine assessments and the ideal traits associated.
which is more or less what Bama and OSU already follow. And while recreating the NFL system has its merits (every team and scouting staff have their own special sauce for evaluation) it’s not tremendously more successful in “hit rate” than when TO said basically half of every recruiting class is assume a loss.
And TO made that estimate not using the NFL system himself.
Or you can just use your eyeballs and watch a lot of tape.
I don't know about you, but it's easy to see who the actual good recruits are from the film out there, but you have to watch with a critical eye.
To me, all the stats and measurables are really only useful for micro ranking already good players, like the NFL.
Comparing what a college recruiter has to work with vs comparing what an NFL coach has to work with as far as evaluations go is night and day.
A college coach sees a kid that is still growing and maturing, probably hasn't even reached full growth yet. Has played games against very few kids that will ever sniff a college field and is being coached at his position by the assistant baseball coach. Compare that to an NFL scout looking at a full grown college player, with 3-5 years experience against other grown ass people, a full time football coach, even at the FCS or lower level, some semblance of a nutrition program, and probably a full time strength coach.
At a minimum, projecting college to NFL should be a little easier and more accurate. There are just so many variables with 15-18 year old kids.
A college coach sees a kid that is still growing and maturing, probably hasn't even reached full growth yet. Has played games against very few kids that will ever sniff a college field and is being coached at his position by the assistant baseball coach. Compare that to an NFL scout looking at a full grown college player, with 3-5 years experience against other grown ass people, a full time football coach, even at the FCS or lower level, some semblance of a nutrition program, and probably a full time strength coach.
At a minimum, projecting college to NFL should be a little easier and more accurate. There are just so many variables with 15-18 year old kids.
I for one would be curious how many teams have ratio greater than 50%.
One factor that is driving the ratio higher and. that is not being discussed , is the number of teams that get into the Playoff’s to begin with.
With only a 4 team playoff , way too many teams will sit on the sidelines and never have chance to even contend for the stupid trophy.
With only 4 contending , the season record will and has favored a select and limited number of Teams .
One factor that is driving the ratio higher and. that is not being discussed , is the number of teams that get into the Playoff’s to begin with.
With only a 4 team playoff , way too many teams will sit on the sidelines and never have chance to even contend for the stupid trophy.
With only 4 contending , the season record will and has favored a select and limited number of Teams .
Every team with a cumulative ratio of > 50 over the last 4 years is listed in the original post - this year there are 15 - most years it is 10-15 I believe
6 SEC (3 of the top 5)
3 Big
2 B12 (both moving to the SEC)
2 ACC
1PAC
ND
if you count Texas and OU the SEC would own 6 of the top 7 places and 7 of the top 10
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That's a large part of what we did under TO, so yeah. Or were all of those Nebraska boys back then that won conference and national honors 5 stars? JJ Watt was rated a 2 star tells you all you need to know about how much I respect recruiting rankings.So you are saying we can’t really compete with these programs on the recruiting trail
for the 4*s, 5*s or even the highly sought after 3*s but if we do a super duper job of analysis of the low 3 stars - 2 stars and walkons we should be good to go?
No one gets it right all the time, even TO. The vast majority of 2-stars are trash players, not JJ Watt's in waiting.
Diamonds in the rough are fairly rare in the modern game compared to TO's time. Virtually every player of college caliber (and a whole bunch of players who never will be) have family and friends putting clips of them on Twitter or other social media.
The guy "no one's ever heard of" is more myth than reality now. That said, there are still plenty of guys who don't possess NFL measurables that might bloom into pretty good CFB players that some of the bigger teams overlook because they aren't specimens.
Never said anything about that. Talent is important, I certainly don't deny that. I just think that ratings by a bunch of internet dorks are a crappy way of judging it. Alas that's how you get players like JJ Watt that have ratings way off the mark.
Well, we aren't going to be sniffing any playoffs if we don't get more 4/5 star kids on our roster regardless of your opinion on "internet dorks." I'm sure that TO would have adopted to the modern age, because he was a winner and not a loser.
From 30,000k feet I think there is some logic that comes from this conversation. 1. Keeping TO over that span and building an offense through an institution of walk-on, good recruits, and tenured coaching paid dividends when we got the Jimmy and Joe’s in the 90’s. 2. With the plethora of information now available by all the recruiting tools, evaluation is much better. 3. Frost made necessary changes and hopefully learns from his mistakes. 4. We need to keep in-state talent sprinkled in with Jimmy and Joe’s.
Any changes that we see with Frost would be due to direction from his A.D. Frost loves the X's and O's and calling plays. The fun stuff. It will be interesting to see if he interferes with the offense or let's Whipple do his thing.
This article suggests Frost has been instructed to be hands off - when in offensive meetings he sits in the back and just listens - he’s probably learning as much as the players
I never seen a young head coach be demoted to a “CEO” role in order to intentionally dilute his actual coaching for the betterment of the program
Well, whatever Frost has been doing hasn't been working. Like failure. As in losing. Not winning games. He's lucky he still has a job.
The athletic dept has decided it is worth 5 million (at least for now) for marketing purposes.
he travels around wearing his 97 championship ring telling tales of the glory years to solicit donations and shows up in $400 Yeezys and smiles at moms to lure recruits
meanwhile he and much of the fanbase get to pretend he is actually coaching the team while in reality it is the assistants - hired by Trev who are doing the actual work
It's all about the buyout. If Frost can improve to 8 wins, then keep him. But he needs to start winning. And wins is a gimme. He should be winning 9 games at minimum, 10 if he's got the program back on track. Can't understand how anyone on this can defend 3-4 wins for one year, let alone four.
My issue is that Frost isn’t coaching - in fact he is intentionally being positioned to be kept away from coaching
the 8 wins would be in spite of not because of Frost - I’m not sure it is a sustainable model where we continue paying someone millions to not coach
Wow, must have touched a nerve. Some of you seem awfully attached to the recruiting rankings to so vigorously reject the notion that evaluations could possibly be improved by using a more holistic approach.So you are saying we can’t really compete with these programs on the recruiting trail
for the 4*s, 5*s or even the highly sought after 3*s but if we do a super duper job of analysis of the low 3 stars - 2 stars and walkons we should be good to go?
And no, I wasn’t talking about only looking at 2 stars and ignoring 4 and 5 stars. I was simply stating an idea that maybe it would be good to reimagine the evaluation process to expand your pool of 4 star targets and possibly eliminate some potential targets if you can identify their flaws. I used an example of the Big 10 all conference team to illustrate that there are targets that are undervalued by the recruiting services and it might be good to find a way to evaluate these players more appropriately. For instance, if “field vision” is a metric identified as being necessary to be a top level performer, than maybe a spatial intelligence exam can be developed to test that talent as a football player, or maybe a virtual-environment can be developed to asses a potential player’s abilities to see the field and make decisions accordingly. But hey, if you say that the current recruiting rankings system and evaluations are as good as it gets and nothing more can be or should be done, then I defer to your expertise.
It was simply a thought that I had when talking to a friend whose son is a recruit. It reminded me of sitting at a second-look day presentation when my daughter was accepted to medical school. The presenter talked about how as a top 30 school with over 10,000 applicants for 184 spots, they needed to look beyond just the traditional MCAT/GPA standards to a more holistic review. They have a primary application process with essays, personal statements, detailed descriptions of research and clinical experiences, other extra-curricular experiences, medical volunteer experiences and shadowing work, and of course references. They have a secondary application process requiring short essay answers to specific questions. They have a 3-part in-person interview process (one-on-one interviews, group interviews and blind interviews) and then have group activities where the candidates are assessed on their teamwork skills. She had to take a personality assessment and a CASPer exam (a situational judgement test (SJT) that evaluates professionalism and non-cognitive skills such as collaboration, motivation, ethics, and empathy). It was all an attempt to best identify those who have the dedication, talent and proper motivation to succeed in medical school. It just seemed to me that maybe there were some ideas there that could be used to better identify football recruits who have the proper dedication, talent and motivation to succeed. But again, maybe the system in place is as good as it gets and no changes would be helpful.
You don’t think every single school is already constantly reevaluating their recruiting analysis - including the Alabama’s and Georgia’s to incorporate many of the concepts you mention?
do you think Alabama just waits for the star rankings to come out to decide who they are going to recruit?
we have been the worst team in the big ten west over the last 4 years despite having better recruiting rankings - we have a long way to go to even catch the crap teams in our own division
No, I don't think they wait for star rankings to come out, which is why I take the blue-chip ratio with a grain of salt. I also think that Nebraska has an Athletic Performance Lab, so I seems like they would be in a good position to change their evaluations. Part of the reason Nebraska has been so bad lately is due to recruits who were busts that they presumably had ranked high on their board (poor evaluations).
That's what I'm saying. They have a potential resource that is not being used to the extent that it could be if they had the right vision. Look, I'm not that passionate about this stuff to debate it. If you say that what we are doing is working well enough, so be it.
C'mon @CheeseRunza you posted more words in 2 posts than most people did in the whole thread but then you say your not that passionate about it. Clearly you are.
There are at least two point in this discussion that seem to be merged together when discussed.
1- The Blue Chip Index is a way to predict which teams have a legit shot to win a national title based on having enough Blue Chip players on their rosters. That is much different than......
2 - How Nebraska recruits and the tools used to bring in the quality athletes that are needed to compete for a national title.
In a state that has only one football team or even just one dominate football team, the high school coaches will set their offenses to run what that school is doing offensively and defensively. High schools from small towns in big states, will run schemes that will allow some success without having to rely on having the most talent. The point being, an offense like Osborne ran from the early 80's until his retirement was one that could be described as simple but not easy. The concepts were such that most pee wee football teams and high school teams could take the basics and run it. If they had a QB that made good decisions and a running back, they could be successful at those levels. So when Nebraska was recruiting in state players, they had a pretty good idea on the ability of those players. Now days, that isn't the case, as the offenses evolved in college football, it trickled down. There are high school teams still teams that run the option, there are teams that line up in the I Formation and just pound the ball, there are spread teams that run 70% of the time, there are spread teams that throw 70% of the time. So coaches are left to figure out if the WR from the team that runs the option, can actually get off the line against a college DB. He looks great in high school because he blocks 8 plays in a row, then on the 9th he fakes a block and the DB is flat footed and gets burned. On the contrary, you have receivers that are never asked to block, but they can get off the LOS against anyone, but they run lazy routes or you question if they will be able to block on a screen pass or whatever.
In my opinion, this index accurately shows that you have to have 50% or more of your recruits be 4 or 5 star players to have a legit shot at competing for a national title. Right now Nebraska shouldn't be worried about national titles, but that doesn't mean you stop recruiting 4 and 5 star players. Clemson would not a factor in this discussion before 2012. Terry Bowden was producing middle of the road results in a middle of the road league. Then they hired the right coach and now 63% of their recruits are Blue Chip players and they are competing for conference and national titles nearly every year.
Last point - When schools get 15-18 blue chip players compared to 5-9 blue chip players, even with a hit ratio of 50%, they are still going to have 8 or 9 guys produce on that level. So a team that only gets 5-9 will need all of their blue chip guys to hit in order to stay even. We know that isn't going to happen. That is why when Nebraska has a 4 star guy flop, for lack of a better word, it warrants a 4 or 5 page thread on here, when Ohio St loses a 5 star to Nebraska, it wasn't a blip on the radar because another had already replaced him.
There are at least two point in this discussion that seem to be merged together when discussed.
1- The Blue Chip Index is a way to predict which teams have a legit shot to win a national title based on having enough Blue Chip players on their rosters. That is much different than......
2 - How Nebraska recruits and the tools used to bring in the quality athletes that are needed to compete for a national title.
In a state that has only one football team or even just one dominate football team, the high school coaches will set their offenses to run what that school is doing offensively and defensively. High schools from small towns in big states, will run schemes that will allow some success without having to rely on having the most talent. The point being, an offense like Osborne ran from the early 80's until his retirement was one that could be described as simple but not easy. The concepts were such that most pee wee football teams and high school teams could take the basics and run it. If they had a QB that made good decisions and a running back, they could be successful at those levels. So when Nebraska was recruiting in state players, they had a pretty good idea on the ability of those players. Now days, that isn't the case, as the offenses evolved in college football, it trickled down. There are high school teams still teams that run the option, there are teams that line up in the I Formation and just pound the ball, there are spread teams that run 70% of the time, there are spread teams that throw 70% of the time. So coaches are left to figure out if the WR from the team that runs the option, can actually get off the line against a college DB. He looks great in high school because he blocks 8 plays in a row, then on the 9th he fakes a block and the DB is flat footed and gets burned. On the contrary, you have receivers that are never asked to block, but they can get off the LOS against anyone, but they run lazy routes or you question if they will be able to block on a screen pass or whatever.
In my opinion, this index accurately shows that you have to have 50% or more of your recruits be 4 or 5 star players to have a legit shot at competing for a national title. Right now Nebraska shouldn't be worried about national titles, but that doesn't mean you stop recruiting 4 and 5 star players. Clemson would not a factor in this discussion before 2012. Terry Bowden was producing middle of the road results in a middle of the road league. Then they hired the right coach and now 63% of their recruits are Blue Chip players and they are competing for conference and national titles nearly every year.
Last point - When schools get 15-18 blue chip players compared to 5-9 blue chip players, even with a hit ratio of 50%, they are still going to have 8 or 9 guys produce on that level. So a team that only gets 5-9 will need all of their blue chip guys to hit in order to stay even. We know that isn't going to happen. That is why when Nebraska has a 4 star guy flop, for lack of a better word, it warrants a 4 or 5 page thread on here, when Ohio St loses a 5 star to Nebraska, it wasn't a blip on the radar because another had already replaced him.
Exactly.. this is why I have said Frost has increasingly become unimportant.
I suspect the longer this goes on, the more Scott will be encouraged to move on.
I would be surprised if Scott is still here next year regardless of the team's success.
TO developed his own system. He relied quite heavily on Nebraska kids to become all-conference type players, which if you look at the ratings of kids in the state, couldn't have been all 4 or 5 stars. The truth is Frost has severely under-performed even according to recruiting rankings. While TO regularly outperformed would be recruiting rankings. We aren't going to be sniffing the playoffs until we can do that.
I've never seen it work either. Frost isn't even capable of being a CEO type of coach. The reason he was valuable coming out of UCF was his offensive system, which now noone wants a part of.
The fallacy in this argument is that Osborne didn't recruit in the internet era. I agree Frost has underperformed, but comparing anything to 1970-1997 recruiting considering the changes in money, internet, rule changes, television, national camps, etc. it blatantly unfair.
There's zero difference. You can underperform or overperform no matter the Era.
That is too simplistic and a bit revisionist. Osborne's success using that recruiting formula was similar to what Wisconsin and Iowa have now, until the early 90's. At that point there was more emphasis placed on getting better players from around the country.
Of course you can underperform or overperform.
The question is after 4 years of recruiting + coaching is your ceiling a championship and your basement 9-4
or is it 5-7 and 3-9?
ps - I hope the self appointed board monitors don’t judge this a potential troll post .. they’ve warned me once
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So you're saying that a young coach like Frost is typically unable to learn from their mistakes and learn from someone as accomplished as Whipple?
No doubt he can - but if he is going to be learning the job from Whipple or another accomplished coordinator it should be as a position coach not as the head coach of a blue blood program who just had close to its worse 4 year stretch in program history.
Frost can learn from his mistakes, but because he is so stubborn, he isn’t going to “learn” those lessons maybe as quickly as someone else.
Look how he marched forward for 4 years with all kinds of negative results, and he still wasn’t going to turn the ship.. Trev Alberts had to force him to.
That is what I am talking about. It takes years. How many years did Tom get his ass whipped by the Florida teams until he made effective changes. (It was a lot)
The timeline for most people is a multiple of years.. Scott I predict would take even longer, so it’s almost as if it’s not even worth considering him learning from his mistakes.
Nobody has time for that anyway.
I have a problem comparing how Tom learned from mistakes compared to Frost.
Tom couldn't beat the Miami and Florida State teams along with OU but he killed pretty much everyone else. Yet, he did make changes offensively, defensively and with improved personnel, many if the same assistant coaches.
Frost has posted 3 win seasons with wins over powerhouses such as Buffalo, Bethune, and Fordham. Throw in one big season of 4 wins. Consistently had the worst special teams in the country and didn't develop talent at many key positions.
Tell me those two pictures are the same. They are not even close.
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