UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[Mike]

Yup.

[iam416]

I think it will be even moreso when it goes to 12. "Under-rostered" teams will need to win, at a minimum, 3 games and there will be considerably more "big boy" roster teams in the playoff. You're not going to get 2,3,13,32. It'll be -- 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 16, 18, 32, 40 -- or something like that.

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[lineygoblue]

I stand by what I said

Wiz: shaddup

[THE_WIZARD_]

You didn't say please.

[Da Geezer]

247 Sports does a "Roster Composite" where they rate the team's overall roster based on HS rankings. In the last 5 years, the lowest ranked team in that rating to win a CFP was LSU. At #5. And that was their highest rating, by far, of the past 5 years.
.

Speaking of which, LSU football had to forfeit 37 wins today for all the cheating that went on 2012 to 2019 or thereabouts. Les Miles was evidently the main culprit. Basketball also got penalized. They must think it is worth it to cheat like crazy and win a national championship. I'm not sure I blame them. Not a good look for Saban either.

[Hannibal]

We could probably get Top 5 classes if we weren’t Michiganing up NIL.

[iam416]

I think they're better than last year, but still not as competitive as they need to be. Ohio State got their ass kicked last year on a couple big-time recruits. They've improved their NIL efforts considerably. They're not going to win pure NIL battles, BUT they're also not going to lose out on kids who prefer Ohio State but also want NIL.

M is probably still in the area where they may lose a few kids who prefer M, but want to take care of their family. That's really just a pure guess on my part re M. I'm fairly confident re the OSU stuff.

[AlabamAlum]

Speaking of which, LSU football had to forfeit 37 wins today for all the cheating that went on 2012 to 2019 or thereabouts. Les Miles was evidently the main culprit. Basketball also got penalized. They must think it is worth it to cheat like crazy and win a national championship. I'm not sure I blame them. Not a good look for Saban either.

Not a good look for Saban? What the fuck are you talking about?

[iam416]

Well, look, we're in a recruiting thread where the position is recruiting rankings don't matter. So, "what [in] the [holy motherfucking] fuck are you talking about?" seems like a pretty fair response to a lot the shit in here.

Ah, harkens me back to the days of good ol' "Big J" -- boy was that short-lived. Thank god.

[Mike]

Speaking of the 247 composite ranking, it's pretty telling that Michigan is that low. When Harbaugh began he inherited a pretty solid roster that came in at 9th for 2015, his first season. The ranking then climbed to 8th in 2016 and 7th in 2017. Problem was those teams underperformed due to mediocre/poor QB play. Recruiting/talent began to wane and by 2019 Michigan was down to #11, then #17 in the Covid year.

Going 25-3 with back-to-back Big Ten Championships, two unholy asswhippings of Ohio State, and 2 playoff appearances with teams ranked 15 and 13 is rather shocking and a credit to the coaching staff. QB play, albeit not nearly elite, was certainly much better the past two seasons than the stretch of Speight, O'Korn, and Patterson. We're looking at 11-1 as a worst case scenario this season so hopefully this three year stretch can get the ball rolling with recruiting and get us back into the top 10 in talent. I think we're finally at a point where we can expect to outperform our talent level with superior coaching as I thought would be the case early on. I'd love to see what this staff could do with an elite roster of 10+ 5-star guys but I doubt we'll ever see it.

[lineygoblue]

Well, look, we're in a recruiting thread where the position is recruiting rankings don't matter.

They matter to those who want them to matter.

All I'm saying, and have said forever about recruiting rags, is that they are not the gold standard in evaluating talent. They've been wrong. They've certainly been wrong both ways for Michigan, in predicting 'greatness' for some, and pretty much overlooking some doggone good players.

But hey, Michigan sucks. Always have, always will. That's the real theme here in The Michigan Forum.

[Jeff Buchanan]

........love to see what this staff could do with an elite roster of 10+ 5-star guys but I doubt we'll ever see it.

It's foolhardy to argue talent's points on the importance of player rankings at the onset of a HS player's CFB career and the likelihood the higher the ranking the higher the probability of getting drafted by an NFL club. Linesman makes a try but that sort of thinking generally just doesn't wash.

I get where he's going though. In any Bell Curve or scatter graph depicting probability (assuming the endpoint is getting drafted by an NFL franchise) there are outliers. Take Jett Howard and Koby Bufkin - basketball, but, these two guys get drafted to the NBA. I have no idea what their rankings were but I do know neither of them were contributors in any major way to Howard's win total in 2022-'23. ?The opposite.

Football's certainly a bit different I would think. If your probability outcome is CFB team wins and overlay that with 247 class rankings by team, M's last two seasons would be outliers on a graphic like that. I think it's dumb to argue, "JH doesn't recruit by 247 player rankings." Maybe he does or doesn't but he'd love to have a roster full of top 100 HS players as Mike suggests would be nice - like I said, no arguing with talent's position on this. That logic wins football games and corelates closely with team wins and player accession to the NFL.

You could argue M's wins total is an outlier in the last two seasons. It doesn't follow a scatter graph or Bell Curve prediction in that endpoint outcome overlaid with 247 class rankings. I'm not sure where M ranks in placing players in the NFL the last two drafts. Gut tells me it's not high and that WOULD probably correlate. The point is that Linesman's position on this is not without a factual basis. How do you explain M's win total? It could be all luck, favorable scheduling, critical in-game play calls being made or penalties getting assessed producing wins. Any number of variables could be behind M's wins lately. But there is always a trend to the mean - a mathematical reality. I'd be surprised if if M continues to dominate the B10. Even if they do, It is likely they'll continue to suffer losses at the hands of CFB teams that aren't outliers in talent's model in any season finale' play-off format.

[lineygoblue]

All I've said, and ever said about recruiting services, is that they are not the gold standard when it comes to predicting how a kid is going to perform.

Sometimes, they get it right, and then some. (Alabama and Georgia have rosters full of these)

Sometimes they undervalue (hi Aiden Hutchinson)

Sometimes, they are totally wrong. (hello Derrick Green)

Sometimes, the kid pans out good, but not great, when he should have been great. (hello Rashan Gary)

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Lord help me if I've offended anyone's fragile sensibilities.

[iam416]

Everyone would concede they’re not always right. On average, though, they are predictive. A random 5* is way more likely to be good than a random 3*. That’s just a fucking fact. There was isn’t anything anyone can say other than they’re not “always” right. Well, no shit. This is sports.

But recruiting rankings have a high predictive value. There just isn’t any disputing that.