Do recruiting rankings matter?

In light of some of the recent debates about recruiting I thought I'd do a little research.  The following is the final AP rankings of NU in each of Bo's 4 seasons.  Also next to it is our recruiting ranking the 4 years prior according to rivals.com  Essentially what this shows is how the recruiting class produced as juniors and seniors.

2008 final AP- (not ranked)  2004 Rivals ranking- 27
2009 final AP- 14  2005 Rivals ranking- 5
2010 final AP- 20  2006 Rivals ranking- 20
2011 final AP- 25 (estimated) 2007 rivals ranking- 13

Note...in 2008 NU was one of the highest vote getters outside the top 25 so their ranking would have been extremely close to 27.

So to sum it up 2 out of the 4 years in BO's tenure his teams have finished literally EXACTLY where those upperclassmen were ranked in their respective recruiting class.  The highest recruiting ranking was directly proportional to the highest end of season ranking where Suh and company caused Havoc.  Furthermore this 2005 recruiting class saw many of those kids either fail to qualify or transfer before ever seeing the field.  Taking that into account you could easily say that our 2005 recruiting ranking would have actually ranked around sayyyyyyyy....14!!  That makes 3 out of 4 of BO's years EXACTLY proportional to their recruiting rankings.  This year was the biggest letdown and I think it's safe to say that most of us agree that this year was an underachievement based upon the expectations of the talent in the program.

In conclusion...how can you possibly say that "recruiting rankings don't matter"???  Recruiting rankings DO MATTER!  In 2008 our final recruiting ranking by Rivals was 30.  It pains me to say it but that's probably about what you can expect for the Big Red next year.

Thoughts??

I see what you are doing, but i think you are oversimplifying things.  I agree that recruiting DOES matter but so does development of players.  I could easily do what you did to say recruiting doesn't matter with a different school.

For instance:

Texas' recruiting class in 2007 was ranked 5th... Texas finished 5-7 in 2010
Texas' recruiting class in 2008 was 14th... Texas will finish the season 22nd or so this year

Auburn won the national title last year, and in 2008 their recruiting class was ranked 24th. 

Miami was ranked 4th, 7th, 14th, 19th from 2004-2007 in recruiting they finished in the polls unranked (2008), 19th (2009), unranked (2010), unranked (2011).

In contrast Kansas State (#8 in the BCS at the moment) was ranked 38th in recruiting four years ago in 2007.


My point is it's more about developing the talent you recruit than the ranking your receive.  I think recruiting rankings are extremely important, but we shouldn't overlook the 3-star players we get because we covet 5-star players.  Remember Cody Green was 4-stars... Joe Ganz was 2-Stars.  I actually DO agree with you that recruiting matters a lot, otherwise I wouldn't be so involved in it, but I think the impact of rankings shouldn't overshadow the fact that no matter what these kids are skilled and can be developed given the right coaching and the right time (i.e. Denard and Amukamara and Helu Jr.)  I really want us to have top 5 recruiting classes every year but it just won't happen for Nebraska so we have to develop the talent we CAN get and rely on coaching more than Texas, Alabama, LSU or USC does.

(ps. sorry for the lengthy post)

Take a peek at the sec teams rank southern kids are staying home and the southern teams are enjoying and benefiting from it. Times have change unless you have a coach that can get 2-3 stars to play like 4-5 stars you need top talent in top position. It also helps to have and identity in what you want Offense n defense wise. I'm telling i used to not care about recruiting but not anymore you need top athletes esp with the sec over signing and having the best athletes in your own backyard. We're getting left behind because the coAches think they can coach up players ... SC showed that won't work for a full game. Only team that recruits and grabbing talent doesn't help is Texas all that talent and nothing to show for it. If we had top ten recruiting class we would have conference and some bcs trophies guarantee that

I agree with footballnut on this one. I'd also like to add that standards of a program are a big part of where a great athlete choses to play. It's a FACT that most, not all, great athletes are in a production pipeline from a very young age to to be the great athletes they are when they are committing to a school. Scholastics is usually not their strong suit because the preparation and commitment to a sport, in most cases more than one sport, takes a lot away from being even a decent scholar.

The SEC in my opinion, overlooks the scholastic abilities and wants the talent. How many JUCO players do they go after? Hardly any, if any at all. Cam Newton had a bidding war going on. It's died down now, but do you think there was some shady sh*t going on? I do. Look at the kid (Collier?) who committed to Bama last night and his mother wanted him to go to LSU. Hmmmmmm.....why would a young man go with one school over another that are equally good and defy his mother's wish? Maybe it's his way to break away and make his own decisions. Maybe there's something in it for him that Mama doesn't know about. I'm sure that all of those schools are great institutions of learning, but when it comes to athletes I think they prod them along to keep their head above water to make the big money college football brings in.

There has to be something more as well. Why are some schools good in football, some good in basketball and some in both? If they get all of the great players from their region in football, then why not basketball as well? There's more to it than recruits wanting to stay at home. If the SEC was so great in football, then why does the ACC and Big East dominate basketbell? Why is Kentucky great in basketball, but average at best in football? A great school is a great school, right? Is it that the South has the ability to develop football players year-round and that the North has most of the Metro areas that favors basketball over football due to the lack of playing fields? I don't know, but great athletes are more concerned about getting that 1-2% shot at making to the professional level than what they will earn as a degree. Some make it to the Show and most, well, they have to work like everyone else.

Lastly, getting good recruits is a must, especially at the skill positions (QB, RB, WR, DB). Team chemistry is a large part too. I think our coaches to a good job in developing the talent level that we have. Obviously, the talent level is not there to compete with a conference championship, let alone on a national level. I want the Huskers to be great every year, just like every Nebraska fan. Realistically though, this isn't the Big 8 where us and OU dominated for decades. We didn't dominate the Big 12 and we won't dominate the B1G. We will field good teams and every now and then a great team will develop. It's more than just top talent and I believe that chemistry, identity, attitude and development are just as much for on the field success as the talent level is.

In football just like basketball there are two type of coaches. Recruiters and coaches that can coach up. The recruiters are like the Mack brown that stock pile talent but dont put enough x/os to get the trophies with does players. The coaches that can coach up are like bill snyder who never gets top talent or players and consistently gets juco n 2-3 star players to ah way above what people projected them to do. There are some in between but it comes down to this : IF YOU CAN'T GET THE TOP TALENT ON YOUR TEAM YOU HAS BETTER BEEN ABLE TO COACH UP YOUR PLAYERS. The problem is kids are getting faster and stronger and if you don't have the match ups in your favor your gonna have to play a perfect game. The problem with us is bo is realizing you can't coach up every kid not to mention we're not getting the top players. It's not the 90s anymore kids don't care about tradition or who used to dominate they want the gimmicks and who hott right now. In the south football is just about year round and kids in it are constantly doing things to improve and get better. 7-7 drill have made offense players better and have seasoned defenders. To wrap it up you need top talent ...or your gonna need coaches that can get players ready every Saturday.

Nut...you do bring up some excellent examples of counterpoints however I believe those type examples are the exception to the rule..not the rule.

Auburn won the national title last year, and in 2008 their recruiting class was ranked 24th

08 is only 2-3 years prior to their title. In the examples I provided i went back 4 years.  In 2007 Auburns class was ranked #7 and #10 in 2006.  And oh yeah this guy named Cam Newton wasn't part of either of those classes as he would join the team later.  He was kind of a "big deal".  He also just so happened to be a 5 star.

Concerning your arguments about Miami and K-State those are great examples that recruiting rankings aren't "100%" fullproof.  These are what I would call outliers to the rule.  Boise St. is another example but Boise St. also has much better talent than the teams they play week in week out.  There are going to be coaches that consistently underachieve...Mack Brown, Callahan, Randy Shannon, Weis, etc. etc. and there are going to be coaches that consistently overachieve...Bill Snyder, Chris Peterson, etc. etc.  If you consistently pull in top recruiting classes you pretty much have to be one heck of a schlub for a coach not to achieve relative success.  Heck Mack Brown won a National Championship and pretty much everyone out there agrees that he's not a great coach.  Likewise with Les Miles...most people say he wins DESPITE his innability to coach!  That's what talent does for you!

Blackshirts...at first I thought I was going to totally disagree with you but the more and more I continued to read your post the more I think we aren't too far from the same mentality.  I like the point you bring up about the Big8.  This is essentially part of what I am trying to get across as far as Nebraska's future is concerned and what our expectations should be.  Since Osborne's success I think it's safe to say that most of us grew to expect that kind of success.  I know I did.  So now we look at 9-4 seasons with disdain and wonder why we can't return to the powerhouse we once were.  Suffice it to say I am simply beginning to accept the fact that the move to the Big12 changed EVERYTHING!  When we played in the Big8 our dominance was very similiar to what Boise St. is experiencing today.  We had OU, maybe one other challenger from the Big8, and maybe one tough non-conference opponent.  That all changed when the Big12 formed and our success went downhill partly as a result of stiffer competition and partly due to a dropoff in coaching.  The Big8 is how Nebraska was able to succeed with what most people describe as "not top notch talent". 

That brings us to today and what I'm trying to say.  We will NEVER return to being a year in year out National Championship contender unless our recruiting picks up in a big way. It really is the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result) Now...this is not to say that we won't ever pick up a few conference championships here and there and maybe challenge for a National Title once in a blue moon but the days of expecting a top 5 team every year are G.O.N.E!

GO BIG RED!! 

One more illustration to help solidify my point...

The following are the most recent 6 NC winners and what their recruiting rankings were the 3-4 years prior

2011 Bama or LSU  07 Rivals rank- LSU #4, Bama #10
2010 Auburn  06 Rivals rank- #10 (Cam Newton 5 star joined team later)
2009 Bama    05 Rivals rank- #18, 06 Rivals rank- #11
2008 Florida   04 Rivals rank- #7
2007 LSU       03 Rivals rank- #1 (17 four stars....SEVENTEEN!!!!)
2006 Florida   02 Rivals rank- #20, 03 Rivals rank- #2 (5 five stars....FIVE!!!)

I couldn't go any further than that because the first year I could see Rivals rankings was 2002.  But just for fun here are the next series of National Title winners.

2005 Texas
2004 USC
2003 USC and LSU
2002 Ohio St.
2001 Miami
2000 Oklahoma

Now...who on here wants to argue that these teams weren't all LOADED with talent??  We gotta face the music people...there is NO WAY we can compete with these guys for titles when they have twice the talent we have.  I don't care how good our coaching is, you can only squeeze so much out of them.

Schlinn,

I whole heatedly agree that you have to have talented players. I also believe that talent isn't everything either. BlkFlagMafia said it best in another post. Players need to be coached up as well. Speed, quickness, awareness, play making abilities are all God given talents that a player needs to have to achieve greatness at the specialty positions. Those can't be taught. You can train to be faster, but it's going to eventually peak somewhere. Niles Paul had great God given talent, but he lacked in the fundamentals. Amakamura and Dennard had great God given talent and were coached up in their position to be great CB's. The same with Suh.

I think that if we get good players that have good God given talents, then they can be coached up. The rankings for recruits are based on given talents, as well as their abilities to play a position. There's no reason why a 2 star player with great God given talent can't be coached up to be a great player. I believe that they can. We have to find an identity for this team on what we want to do on a consistent basis. If we're going to be an option team, then let's get a good option QB. Martinez isn't it. He just isn't. He doesn't have the tangibles to make the reads to run the ball, whether on an option play or while passing when the pocket collapses. He's got great talent, but I don't think he's the right fit for QB.

The defense needs speed.....PERIOD! We cannot defend a scrambling QB at all. David had ten thousand tackles in two years because of his speed. He had great fundamentals too, but his speed was the difference over everyone else. If we can get some undersized LB's with speed and coach them well in the fundamentals, we can go far on the defense. The same goes for the DB's. Cassidy and Thorell were slugs out there. I can't count the numerous times they missed an opportunity to make a play because they lacked the speed to get to where they needed to be. Their awareness was sluggish too. If I were recruiting, I would put speed on the top of my list for the defense. Fundamentals and schemes can be coached, but speed has to be recruited.

Lastly, I'm not saying that a bunch of speedy 2 Star players a championship team will make. What I am saying is that we need to recruit to the kind of team we want to be. Winners....yes, but how? Players need to be athletic, skilled, and unified. Chemistry is big in my book. You can have a bunch of great players, but if they don't believe in each other and think alike, then it will not work. You can take underachievers and as long as they are committed to each other and play as a team, they will do well. However; if you take above average players with the same mind set, they can be great. Bring attitude. Have an identity. Have chemistry. Coach up the talent. Put players in the positions to most likely succeed. That's what wins football games. But.....you do have to have talent somewhere on the field.

I remember the article when they talked to frank beamer before the 2008 game against. He talked about the 96 game and how deep Nebraska was compared to the hokies. He talked about the wave of talent as he said 1-3 strings were as good as his hokies first string. He describe how his team was overwhelm and couldnt keep up. That what having top talent and great coaching feels like. Top teams have a bed n foundation of 3star athletes and have 4-5 star athletes in key spots and stack them up with depth to keep competition high. How many of our players would start on LSU or bama... Not many David fonzo 3rbs n Turner but at different position. I don't have to ask who would start from there LSU dline rotation is 8 deep. Looking for the diamonds in the rough won't get it done dipping into the juco well only puts a bandage on a gun wound. If you want to get to the top you have to get the top players as Schlly said osu Miami ou USC texas does teams were deep and talented. Our staff has two choices keep doing what their doing or adapt and get better talent. You don't bring a knife to a gun fight....you can't beat these top guns with what we have

I agree that recruiting is of utmost importance and I think it comes to coaching AND recruiting, not one or the other.  You want to look at one or the other just take a look at Texas... they have all the recruiting they want but Mack Brown is more of a CEO than a coach and they count on already developed players instead of developing players.  Whereas a team like Kansas State relies on getting raw talented players and developing them but they never get the cream of the crop.

Teams that do both are LSU, Alabama and Oklahoma.  BlckFlag it's interesting that 3 of the 5 teams you mentioned that Schil mentioned are facing major issues when it comes to illigal recruiting practices.  I'd rather be clean than get talent the way those programs did.

Also, Bama, LSU and South Carolina have gotten as good as they are due to rampant oversigning.  South Carolina is one of the only schools in the nation to sign 28+ recruits (NCAA limit is supposed to 25) each of the last five years.  Bama and LSU have built their depth the same way, they over recruit and then cut the players that couldn't crack the 2-deep.  This is one of the things that goes conveniently overlooked when ESPN and CBS pundits talk about how "good" the SEC has become.  The B1G, Big 12, and Pac-12 all have rules in place to ensure against over-signing while the SEC only recently implemented the same rules.  Don't be surprised when the gap between the SEC and the rest of the conferences significantly diminishes over the next couple years.

Finally, Bo and Co. have done a lot better recruiting in the past three years and I think you are going to see the product start to get better over the next two years.  People say a coach should be judged on his 4th year, I say it shouldn't be until his 5th or 6th.  The first recruiting class is basically awash when you look at it.  Bo was assembling his coaching staff and recruiting and we ended up with a pretty poor class for that 2008 class.  Baker Steinkuhler and Will Compton were the only high profile recruits from that class and Bo's classes have gotten better each year, and to be honest, quality wise (not quantity) this class might be the best. I think across the board NU will have more talent on its roster next year than it has had since 2008 (on both sides of the ball).  Just take a look at Nebraska's last 3 recruiting classes and how they have gotten better each year... 2008 was a bad recruiting year (for obvious reasons) and I think you will see us improve over the next two seasons because of the better recruiting.

Also, if you want another example of a team that consistently recruits well but underpreforms....Notre Dame.  I'm bringing this up because they ARE exceptions but it's important to recognize that they do exist and we CAN compete without getting a #1 class every year (because we honestly just can't).  I think we need to get consistently in the Top 20 of AVERAGE STAR rankings, not recruiting rankings.  We could sign 30 3-stars and be ranked in the top twenty, I think average stars tells more of the story.

As we look at past NC's in recent years and where they ranked in recruiting, I fail to see where the #1, #2 or #3 classes ended up at. We can look back and say "Oh, they won the NC because 4 years earlier they were ranked #4 in recruiting". That's not really an accurate description of why teams are doing great. Yeah, some schools are consistently high in the recruit ranking and do well during the course of the season. However; many of these schools weren't #1, #2 or even #3 for that matter. Also, it isn't just seniors playing all year long either to say that that recruiting class made the team for that year.

Recruiting, coaching, individual development of the player, chemistry, scheduling, conduct and a few other elements make a team in how successful they will be. Right now we want to bash that we're not getting top recruits. I agree that we are not getting what some magazines and so called recruiting extraordinnaires are labeling as top recruits. It's all part of the frenzy of college football. Teams are only ranked because the human element decides by OPINION on who is ranked where and so on. I think we can almost all agree that there is a serious flaw with this mentality and practice when it comes to the polls and ranking of teams. That same flawed approached is used for recruits. How do you measure heart and guts? You can't. You can measure their physical abilities. How fast they are. How strong they are. How well they their position. The succuesses they had in high school. We see busts left and right, every single year, at every position, somewhere on some college team.

We've recruited high ranked players we thought would make a difference in our program, only to be totally disappointed in what the end result turned out to be. So, is it bad recruiting or bad recruits? Coaches see films on the players they want to recruit and they decide what would be the best fit for the team. You have to recruit to your team's needs. Having 6 QB's on the roster is nice, but where's your depth at other positions? We did well last year in recruiting running backs, but did we need all of those guys right away? Could we have focused on recruiting a more critical position and gave more effort on landing a top recruit on a "need" instead of a "want"?

Alabama and LSU are going to kick-off in a couple of hours. Ask yourself this: If the teams are so good and their recruiting is so stellar, then why are their offenses no where near the level of their defenses? Don't tell me that the defense is as good as the offense, player for player. Much of their scoring this year was a product of their defense, not because they had great offenses. It's because they recruit to their needs and they have an identity on what type of team they want to field. They want to run the ball and smother you on defense. It's as simple as that. Hmmmm, kind of sounds closer to where we used to be.

We are still in a transition from the Big 12 to the B1G. Our defense was created to compete with the pass happy Big 12. Now we're seeing a different brand of football and adjustments need to be made. That's going to take a couple of years. Offensively, there's work that needs to be done. Are we creating an offense around an individual (QB) which will change everytime we get a new one or are we going with a system that the QB needs to adapt to? That's the confusing part for me. We need an identity on offense on what we're doing and get the players to do it. Right now, everything has been made to make Martinez succeed and it's just not working. He doesn't have the vision or the quickness (not talking speed here) to be an Option QB nor does he have the arm to be a threat as a passer. We play gimmick football. At the beginning of games, we burn teams every now and then because they try to feel us out. In the second half, it's a wrap.

I think our most complete game this year was against Michigan State. We dominated them because we played our brand of football (no gimmicks), the execution of plays were stellar, no mistakes and we win. We have the players to play against anyone and if we have the discipline to play as we're taught, then there's no reason not to beat anyone else. In '09 and '10, we lost close games to good teams, but we lost because we beat oourselves with mistakes. The other team wasn't necessarily better or had better atheletes. Could we beat this year's Alabama or LSU even if we played a perfect game? I think it's possible. We would probably need to catch a break here or there and have them make a mistake or two, but it is possible. We do need better talent, so don't misconstrude on what I'm saying. I think we just need to get a solid identity on what we want to do. It's better to get recruits that way too. 

Very well put Blackshirts... i can't add anymore, I agree with everything you said 100%

Man good stuff from everyone.  This is a great debate and you all bring great points to the table.  Lot of stuff to hit on here and I could literally write an essay on it.  I'll try to hit on my major points and keep it "relatively" short.

There's no reason why a 2 star player with great God given talent can't be coached up to be a great player

Yes you might catch lightening in a bottle every once in a while with a severly underrated prospect but it's few and far between.  Rivals will occasionally do reports on this and the % of 2 star All-Americans is overwhelmingly lower than that of 3, 4, and 5 star recruits.

The defense needs speed.....PERIOD

100% agreed.  And if i'm not mistaken this is one of if not THE most important measurable that recruiting services use to rank a recruit, along with size and strength obviously.

Nut...you keep bringing up Texas and while they are known as "nobody does less with more" the fact remains that they still have experienced huge success in the past decade including a national championship!  I'm pretty sure there are about 110 teams out of 117 that would trade with Texas over the past 10 years including Nebraska.

The B1G, Big 12, and Pac-12 all have rules in place to ensure against over-signing while the SEC only recently implemented the same rules.  Don't be surprised when the gap between the SEC and the rest of the conferences significantly diminishes over the next couple years.

Great point and I hope you are right about the gap closing.  DA*N the SEC!!

And I think your next point I was going to hit on is in your next post.  It has to do with the "quality" vs. "quantity".  I completely agree here.  I think some of our past classes that ranked pretty high were a bit overrated because a lot of the high ranking came from the quantity of signees and not necessarily quality.  I too agree that this years class has the potential to be very quality but the staff has A LOT of work to do to close some deals down the stretch.  If they don't it will be unfortunately be a failure both in quality and quantity.

As we look at past NC's in recent years and where they ranked in recruiting, I fail to see where the #1, #2 or #3 classes ended up at. We can look back and say "Oh, they won the NC because 4 years earlier they were ranked #4 in recruiting". That's not really an accurate description of why teams are doing great. Yeah, some schools are consistently high in the recruit ranking and do well during the course of the season. However; many of these schools weren't #1, #2 or even #3 for that matter. Also, it isn't just seniors playing all year long either to say that that recruiting class made the team for that year.

I refer to both of my illustrations here.  I took it a step further and averaged the 4 recruting rankings in my first post along with the 4 season ending rankings.  What I came up with was an average recruiting ranking of 16.25 and and average season finish of 21 (pretty close).  I don't have the time to sit here and do that with every team but I'd bet some serious coin that you will see a very high majority of top 25 teams (particularly the top 10 teams) finish in a similiar fashion as how this came out for Nebraska.  Now if we do the things you guys are referring to as far as coaching is concerned I don't see any reason why we can't flip this from being 5 worse to being 5 better putting our average finish around #11-12 in a given 4 year period. 

I think our most complete game this year was against Michigan State. We dominated them because we played our brand of football (no gimmicks), the execution of plays were stellar, no mistakes and we win. We have the players to play against anyone and if we have the discipline to play as we're taught, then there's no reason not to beat anyone else. In '09 and '10, we lost close games to good teams, but we lost because we beat oourselves with mistakes. The other team wasn't necessarily better or had better atheletes. Could we beat this year's Alabama or LSU even if we played a perfect game? I think it's possible. We would probably need to catch a break here or there and have them make a mistake or two, but it is possible. We do need better talent, so don't misconstrude on what I'm saying. I think we just need to get a solid identity on what we want to do. It's better to get recruits that way too

A  lot of good stuff that I agree with in here.  BUT...here is where I think you aren't necessarily connecting the dots.  There is not a team out there that plays with 100% efficiency every game of the season.  Every single team out there makes mistakes during the course of the game.  The thing about having gobs of talent however is you are able to mask those mistakes and they aren't so glaring and game changing.  A DB can make a wrong read and the guy with 4.5 speed gets burned for a touchdown where as the guy with 4.4 speed can recover.  That goes back to what you said about needing "speed".  Same thing can be said for size and strength ala Alshon Jeffery's Hail Mary catch.  You think any of our WR's could have made that play?  The more guys like that you stuff your lineup with the better your chances are of offsetting whatever mistakes you happen to make in lack of player development, coaching, X's & O's, etc. etc.  I agree that we currently have the talent to beat anyone however in order to do so we have to be operating at about a 95% efficiency where as a more talented team (say LSU or Alabama) could operate at about a 65-75% efficiency level to beat us.  The margin for error is magnified bigtime if you don't have top tier talent. 

I will sum it up by saying this.  I think with regards to recruiting vs. coaching it is a two step process.  Step 1 is obviously to get the talent into the program to begin with.  If we can't do that in a bigtime (top 10-15 way) on a consistent basis we might as well drop any and all expectations for a National Championship because it ain't gonna happen.  And I'm not saying a #20-25 ranked class on occasion will absolutely kill us but on a consistent basis if we want to have any hopes of winning a National Title (not conference) then we must finish top 10-15 in recruiting more times than not.

Then Step 2 is to do everything you and nut have been saying and doing a great job of saying it might i add.  The thing is though all the other teams that do finish high in the recruiting rankings are doing the SAME EXACT THINGS!!  Say we do start operating at an extremely efficient level it's still a LOOOONG season and it becomes much easier for a less talented team to slip up than it does a loaded team simply because of that margin for error I was talking about.

My last thought...promise   If recruiting stays the way it is...i.e- 15ish-30ish year in year out we WILL NOT ever win another National Championship.  Neither will any other team for that matter with that recruiting.  This is something that I am not saying out of opinion it's something I am saying due to the recent Historical evidence provided.  It just doesn't happen! 

I've been sort of following this thread.

Getting high talented recruits does help. There is less need to improve players in the weight room and conditioning. These players are just gifted athletes and the coaches just need to get them in the right positions to succeed.

Some of the SEC dominance is due to oversigning. If a player isn't playing well, they just drop their scholarship and pick up some more recruits. Bo never does that. How many scholarship seniors graduated this year that weren't contributing on the field? I remember reading the list of graduates a while back and there were at least 5 or 6 guys that were on scholarship but weren't seeing any playing time. Now, in your opinion which is right? Personally I like Bo's mentality, you recruited this guy, you can't just throw them in the wind like the SEC schools do. It's BS to me that schools can just take away a scholarship like that. It should be honored as long as the player wants to go to school there. That right there would level the playing field. I think the SEC has cut back the oversigning that is allowed, so that's going to level the playing field a little bit in the coming years.

I agree with some points above, that NU is at a point that if it plays mistake free football it can compete with anyone. That's what frustrates me the most about this team. Look at the two huge losses, Wiscy and Michigan (and even USC). What happened? 2 things: 
1)NU shot itself in the foot multiple times. Too many interceptions against Wiscy, fumbles on kickoff returns vs Michigan, penalties and redzone inefficiency agains USC (settling for FGs, fumble, penalties).
2) The defense wasn't fast enough. You can throw Northwestern in here as well (USC was really just the 4Q, so maybe that was fatigue). Our defense was slow in all games and were getting burned by mobile QBs. Some of that is on Bo and a horrible game plan, but some of it is definitely on the players for not executing that game plan better.

This is what gets me, I just can't point to one thing to blame. I can't completely blame Bo because he can only do so much in getting the players to play consistently. It's also hard to blame the players because some of the blame falls on the coaches for not making better adjustments to what is going on out there. I don't think Bo ever has a horrible game plan, but he really needs to think outside that box when it's not working. The mobile QBs is the main area I'm talking here. I'm sure a contain approach from the D-line with good coverage from the secondary would stop a mobile QB, but that's only if your D-line is good enough to eventually tackle the QB, which we weren't. At that point he needs to realize that and switch it up. Attack, attack, attack and try and get to that mobile QB before he has a chance to beat you with his legs.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. My point is, NU is right on the edge of being a top team. They just need to put the pieces together like the Mich state game. If we played like that against Wiscy, NW and USC, I think we could have won those games. (Not sure about Michigan because those kickoff return fumbles probably would have happened anyway).

Some of the SEC dominance is due to oversigning. If a player isn't playing well, they just drop their scholarship and pick up some more recruits. Bo never does that. How many scholarship seniors graduated this year that weren't contributing on the field? I remember reading the list of graduates a while back and there were at least 5 or 6 guys that were on scholarship but weren't seeing any playing time. Now, in your opinion which is right? Personally I like Bo's mentality, you recruited this guy, you can't just throw them in the wind like the SEC schools do. It's BS to me that schools can just take away a scholarship like that. It should be honored as long as the player wants to go to school there. That right there would level the playing field. I think the SEC has cut back the oversigning that is allowed, so that's going to level the playing field a little bit in the coming years.

I said this sort of on my first post in this thread. It comes down to standards. The media is supposed to be for the most part unbiased towards what they report. Today there is a flood of how DOMINANT Alabama's defense was against LSU. There's no denying that, but where's the mention in that LSU's offense was WAY over-rated? I said it all year long that although they have a great defense, their point scoring was produced by good defense and special teams play. Since the the media (especially ESPN) is in love with the SEC, they would not dare waterdown Alabama's performance last night and are now talking "Greatest Defense Ever". REALLY??????????? What great offense did they defend against? Penn State? Florida? Vanderbilt? Had LSU won that game, they would have been all that and a bag of chips. The question would have been: Should Alabama even have been there? Since Alabama won, now it's presumed that the best team was chosen to play. That's the biggest crock of S*^T that I've heard since they announced the match-up. It's the first time in 75 years......75 YEARS, that a non-conference winner has won the NC and the media allowed it to happen through their biased view of the SEC.

That just goes to show how biased things have become towards the SEC. Forget standards. Who really cares about that? Many media members are admitting that although LSU beat Alabama the first time, that they thought Alabama was still the better team. This was all set up for these two teams to meet again. Let's do a rematch and give Alabama another chance to prove their worth. That mentality is what is stinking up the NCAA. Where was Oklahoma State's chance? Yeah, they lost to Iowa State but the media doesn't mention that maybe, just maybe, that their game was a little off due to the plane crash that killed the two basketball coaches from their school. What was Alabama's reason for losing at home? Their kicker sucks? He sucked last night too. Gah-bage. Just plain gah-bage.

This is all media driven and that's why they turn their heads to mention anything about the standards throughout college football. When the bubble finally burst at Penn State they were like: Really? How could such a horrible thing happen? This happened in the 90's. Why wasn't the media all over it then? Once it becomes past their control, they are obligated to report. Hipocrits.....the whole lot of them. The same is going on with the standards and eligibility of players throughout the SEC and the shady tactics used to gain an edge. The Cam Newton ordreal last year is a perfect example. Let him play.....let him play. Everyone knows that when things finally come to light years later, nobody gets stripped of anything. A Heisman Trophy? Nope. Reggie Bush sent his back on his own in a sorry approach of a good gesture. Look at USC now. Nothing has changed. They'll be Pre-Season favorites. Boy, did those sanctions set them back. The AP said no way in stripping any title. Why? Because they were hyping those guys up big time and would look foolish to eat crow years later on their stupidity.

The media is the most ruthless, unethical group out there and as long as they make the SEC top dog, then they feel safe in their reporting. The big story now is can the SEC get 7 in a row? It's hard enough to try to recruit the talent that wants to be part of a better standard and even harder to overcome the media hype that influences otherwise.

Schlinn,

I agree with what you say on recruiting top talent. You have to have it somewhere on your team. However; it doesn't have to be a whole team of studs. We need that one really good player. Here's what I mean:

1) Take RGIII from Baylor........average at best.
2) Ohio State lost Terrell Pryor.........average at best. Yeah they lost other players too, but Pryor is the one that had the main impact.
3) Take Andrew Luck from Stanford.......below average.
4) Take Barkley from SC.........maybe above average. Too many players on that payroll to be average.


I think it's safe to say with the examples of players that I listed from this year's teams, if they got hurt or suspended, their teams would have had marginal success at best. These are single atheletes that make up the majority of what their offenses can do. On defense, one missing stud player will not have such a major impact. Impact......yes, on a major scale........no. Auburn would have been nothing without Cam Newton last year. These are all QB's. Obviously, this position is the most important for the success of the offense and ultimately the team. Yeah, you have to have skilled players at RB, WR, the O-Line. My point is if those positions were above average and you get a stud QB, then you can win football games. Defensive success relies more on the unit as a whole. One player, especially the QB, can have a huge impact on the offense.

We need to recruit speed on defense and we need that one stud QB that can be the field general that provides spark, sound leadership, can make plays when generally a play can't be made and has the attitude of a winner. I don't want to say that Martinez is the reason we lost games this year. I will say he is the reason why we didn't win some games this year. We may not have the greatest receiving core, but they're good enough. Better than Stanford's in my opinion and Andrew Luck looks like the Heisman Trophy winner (almost was). I think our RB's and O-Line are solid enough to move the ball. Maybe it's me, but when O-Linemen are false starting and looking and talking back to the QB, then there's a problem. I don't know if it is his cadence or his ability to convey the snap count in the huddle. I don't know. I'm not there, but I did see this more than once. O-Linemen????? Really????? That tells me there's not a whole lot of leadeship or confidence.

Maybe I'll just keep it at that. I don't want to get bashed for pointing out that our QB is really not that good. I just think some of it is quite obvious and yet it's frustrating at the same time because it seems that he is all we have......possibly for the next two years. I just believe that if we could improve at that position, that we would be a better team for it. It's the most important position on the football field and I think that someone could be successful with the rest of the offensive players that we have. Maybe I'm just wishing for too much.