National Recruiting Perspective: First of May

[Old Man Mike]

We are naturally fixated on a very narrow window of what's going on with 2013 recruiting. It may or may not be worth looking at a part of the national picture.

Putative Leaders at this moment:
A). Most verbals:
Michigan 17
Florida 15
Texas A&M 15
Georgia 15
Texas 13
OSU 13
ND 12
Alabama 11
Virginia Tech 10
LSU, Florida State, Missouri 9

B). Most 4/5*s
Michigan 15
Florida 14
Texas 11
OSU 11
ND 10
Alabama 10
Texas A&M 9
FSU 8
PSU, GA, Auburn 6

Slow-starters: 1). Oklahoma has four commits. Stoops seems to always go slower than most.
2). USC has four commits. Orge-Kiff, the Candyman, can sit back and pick.
3). Oregon has one commit. Don't know what "The Other Kelly's" strategy is.

Conferences: 1). Members of last year's Big East have, with the sole exception of Louisville, NO four star verbals at this stage.
2). Six members of the ACC have no four star verbals as this time.
3). Eight members of the PAC-12 have either zero or one four star verbal at this time.
4). In the B1G: MN, NW, IN, and Purdue have at most one verbal. NWs is the only 4*. IL, NE, and WI each have 5 verbals, but two or one 4*. IA, MSU, and PSU are trying. They have seven or eight verbals, but only PSUs are consistently rated high quality. Michigan and OSU are literally in a different league. [There is a huge discrepancy between the fractions of the SEC too, by the way].

Reflections: Staff Kelly and ND are doing just fine. These guys are superb recruiters and Notre Dame clearly still has "magic" associated with it. If we can stay the course with the way Coach is building the roster, and find the competent QB, we will inevitably rise into the elite level again, as all the reasonably seeable signposts are there.

Fans are in strange states of mind about 2013 recruiting sometimes [showing weird pickiness and bi-polar emotionality] mainly, in my opinion due to two things: 1). lack of perspective; and 2). the fact that Michigan is having another powerful fantasy experience on the recruiting trail. That we naturally see that we will never get an overwhelming personnel advantage on either USC or Michigan eats away at people who, apparently, want victory without a true fight. Well, USC, and Michigan for as long as we play, are not going to go quietly into the night. We might as well look forward to catching them and then winning those wars on the field in the future. And some fans don't like the "natural advantage" that our other recruiting rival, OSU, seems to have regardless of how much they smear their own reputation. In this country, football rolls over everything, certainly including morality and any higher value --- except at Notre Dame and a couple of other schools. Another thing that will make ultimate victory sweeter, though harder to come by.

 

[BestBIrish47]

Reps Buddy..

 

[Buster Bluth]

It's amazing how all of those names are traditional powerhouses.

 

[eNDzone]

Good work OMM. I can also see at least 2 if not all 3 of our 3 stars moving up to 4s before the season ends.

 

[stlnd01]

Yep. Nice post Mike.
We're doing just fine. We need to land a few big fish yet, but well on the way to our third top-ten class in three years. That's something considering how long it's been since our actual football team has been in the top ten.
And, yeah, Michigan and USC are always going to be good. Good for them. And good for us. Would you really rather our archrivals suck?

 

[NDdomer2]

Yep. Nice post Mike.
We're doing just fine. We need to land a few big fish yet, but well on the way to our third top-ten class in three years. That's something considering how long it's been since our actual football team has been in the top ten.
And, yeah, Michigan and USC are always going to be good. Good for them. And good for us. Would you really rather our archrivals suck?

Depends when you are asking. Did we just lose to them? If so, THEN YES!!!!!

 

[ChiRish]

Good post. The one thing I take for sure out of Michigan's recruiting, plus ND's, is that the rivalry is going to be good again. We should be able to grab our fair share of games out of that, but I think that anytime we have fiercely competitive rivalry games, that can only be good for ND in lots of different areas.

 

[FLDomer]

Good post. The one thing I take for sure out of Michigan's recruiting, plus ND's, is that the rivalry is going to be good again. We should be able to grab our fair share of games out of that, but I think that anytime we have fiercely competitive rivalry games, that can only be good for ND in lots of different areas.

Great so Michigan is gonna drop out of the series again??

 

[Monk]

Excellent post. I guess sometimes you have to sit back and look at the whole picture.

 

[Old Man Mike]

This is a follow-up on the original information of the thread. It will be a little rambling, mainly due, I think, to some peculiar "data" existing on 247s site regarding Notre Dame recruiting. But onwards....

This is all from 247. They list teams with numbers of "targets". How they determine who is a target of what teams, and how intensely they're being targeted I don't know; but if it had any legitimacy the base information would have to come from the schools. For the following dip-into-the-numbers, I looked at sixteen schools [AL, Aub, FL, GA, LSU, FSU, Mia, USC, OR, TX, A&M, MI, OSU, PSU, OK, ND]. "The usual suspects".

TARGETS: Aub-152; MI-145; FSU-145; GA-134; OK-132; A&M-129; Mia-126; OR-126; OSU-123; LSU-120; AL-113; PSU-112; FL-110; USC-109; and now..... TX-38 !!! .... and ND-204 !!!

We knew that Texas had a "shadetree" style of lying back and just picking who they choose to out of their state, but holy moley! And maybe NDs 204 shouldn't stun me, but it still does a bit. If it's anywhere close to accurate, it means our guys are working their tails off.

But something funky lurks here as well. 247 must be getting info this large from the programs, and when they break it down, they have a "Top Target" category and an "Interested" category --- which means PROGRAM'S interest not the athletes. Anything in either of these two categories would constitute legitimate interest by the football staff. Different staffs seem to have different opinions about how to list these situations.

Aub, FSU, GA, OK, A&M, OSU, AL, and FL list numbers in the 40s and 50s as "top targets" or high interest [our boy Urban is highest with 58 top targets.] PSU, Mia, OR, USC, TX, LSU, and MI list high teens to twenties as Top Targets+. ND lists only eleven!!

When adding Top Target+ designated athletes to other athletes in which the staff has definite interest, schools like AL and Aub are in the high 90s; Urban is at 76; Brady at 67; Only Texas and PSU are lower than NDs 43.

Verbal commits are also listed within those targeted categories and are counted here. But whereas the numbers for other schools seem about right, NDs commits number only THREE!! What the heck is THAT all about??

Well, there is a "last category" of "interest" labeled "Scout Look", which seems to give the impression of being a very casual interest by the team. Notre Dame listed an overwhelming number of athletes under this designator[159]. This included FIVE of our commits. Something is whack here. It's as if Kelly wasn't very forthcoming about telling the rankings site just who we were recruiting and how hard. The amount of confusion wroth by this goes so far as to lose four of our commits off any of the list categories. Maybe this is just one more instance of Kelly the chess master.

I'll continue with another part of this after I recover from a rather down day from being brutally stiffed by an alleged cab company which took my reservation and then refused to show up at all, angrily cursing at my complaint over the phone. It might have had amusing aspects about it, if it had not cost me a visit to my Mom at the care center, and given her a lonely day. I'm angrier about this than I sound.....

 

[stlnd01]

247 does good work. But I'd think maintaining an accurate database of "interest" - and especially various levels of interest - between player and school would be insanely hard. This stuff is so fluid, and no one is under any obligation to be forthcoming.
So I guess I'd take it with a chunk of salt.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Agree with the above, especially as regards any individual information bit, but there are patterns in this which look like they must relate to something real. I'm going to give these numbers another prod now.

A). Let's say you're Florida. You have somewhere in the vicinity of twelve verbals and feeling pretty good. But you also have EIGHTEEN athletes who rate their interest in you as hot [the term is WARMER but high heat is what it means.] You may be able at this moment to forget all the rest of your 110 targets and wait for the fruit to drop. Your recruiting, except for nice "how you doin'?" moments, is over.

B). If I add together the commits and the "hots" for various teams, Florida is high, but followed in the twenties by A&M and GA. Barring blowing it, those two should be thinking of sitting back too. Alabama's 19 is up there too. When you add "warms" in the numbers go out of sight for nearly everybody --- in fact I'd be worried about NDs oddly skewed numbers [thinking that we had to score on nearly every genuine opportunity] if the rest of our data didn't look so comparatively weird. Kelly just HAS to have played this game differently than the other head coaches.

C). let's look a little at players. Say you wanted a QB. If you don't already have one, you're close to out of luck [as far as top 247 are concerned]. Over two thirds of the QBs have verballed. Same for TEs. Worse for ILBs [75%]. "Athletes" are being grabbed up too.

D). On the other hand, the "flyboys" [RB, WR, S, CB, OLB] are largely waiting. There are actually SEVEN elite Safeties in the top 50 players who have not verballed. The monsters in the Defensive trenches are mostly waiting too. So, whereas about two thirds of QBs, ATHs, ILBs, and TEs have declared, only about one-third of the rest of the positions have --- leaving aside the O-Linemen who always walk their own path, and this year are split down the middle on declarations.

E). All four of the top RBs are gone, but only five of the next twenty-one. "There's still time, brother". Eight of the wides are gone, but eighteen remain. Six safeties and eight corners are gone, but 12 and 12 remain. Five OLBs, but ten left in play. And lots of D-Line.

G). Kelly has gotten his "rarities": the QB, TE, an "ATH", and his O-Line. He's still shooting for the [generally] well-stocked "items on the shelves". Maybe he DOES have a plan here. There are only three big boys left at ILB though --- we need to strike.

H). When you look at the 247 Top Fifty, 27 have verballed. Of the remaining 23, Florida has offered 19 and is sole leader or tied for nine of them. Alabama: 18, lead or co-lead 7. OSU: 15, lead or co-lead two. Notre Dame: 17 offers, lead or co-lead three. Well, Kelly's in the game.

Well, I'll let it go there, guys. Something is weird here with 247s reporting of ND data [and to a lesser degree Michigan's] but there's enough patterned sense in this that I thought it worth presenting to you. At a minimum it appears that Kelly looks at more recruits than anyone in the nation, and does not back down from the giants. It also appears that he NEEDS to do that, as the giants eat with a frenzy at the trough, and Kelly needs to find several rough gems every season before they spot them.

One last non-ND thing: Stoops is looking at 132 athletes, but has only 4 verbals. But the odd thing is, he clearly leads for only ONE other athlete. Ol'Bob may have to work a bit harder than usual this year --- BUT ALERT!: he is king of the last second flip. Beware!.