MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Wow...8% of five star players become all American's by their senior year. That's impressive...

Lets put it this way and see if it look different:

92% of 5 star guys don't become All American
97% of 4 star guys don't become All American
99.3% of 3 star guys don't become All American
99.992% of 2 star guys don't become All American.

Basically we are arguing over less than 8% of the recruits.

Remember also, only 1.1% of guys entering College Football at the FBS level will make it to the NFL wen they are finished. So basically the NFL believes 98.9% of the guys signed yesterday are not NFL talent, 5 stars or no stars.

None of this speaks to actual team success.

Sure you have better odds of having a 5 star player be an all star or NFL talent, but the odds at this point are so miniscule that it's really not worth arguing over. It's not a 50/50 proposition by any stretch. Recruiting is a huge crap shoot.

We're basically getting 2 freshmen classes this fall. 37 players who haven't set foot on the field during an FBS game. 20 of those guys have been on campus, and adjusted to college life. 20 of those guys have been in the weight room and studying film and play-books with their peers and their coaches.

That's an important thing to remember when looking toward the future of this program.

Like I've said, this class isn't about finding the kids that we need in order to win right away. That 3 star kid in college with a year of conditioning and coaching would kick that 4 star HS player's ass.

I agree, that's why it's hard to get excited on signing day like some do, and like the media play it.

Signing day to me...is kind of like the MLB draft.

Yes, but was RS'd this year after being injured vs. ND. Actually, Sims regained his RS from being suspended for all of '10. The only members of '09 who are "true" SRs this year are just Caper and Norman; Baker would be in there, but is doing the NFL thing.

I wish that was true; McGowan scored over 100 on the SPARQ test; the only OL in the country to do so.

Don't take what I'm going to say personally, but I'm SICK and TIRED of hearing the phrase 'the staff is really developing their players' or something to this effect. Maybe our 2 and 3 stars were in reality 4 and 5 stars to begin with, but some pencil dicked recuiting expert didn't see it. Anyone here think Le'veon Bell was really just a 2*? Did the staff really coach him up that much or is it just Bell's natural talent is being recognized for what it really is? Talent can't be coached - it can be molded to some extent, but you either have it or you don't.

Recuiting sites sell subscriptions. Whether they realize it or not, they will have certain preconceived ideas when it comes to some kid that has offers from certain programs - and these certain programs have more fans that buy from their sites.

There was some link I saw here several months ago that listed the most overrated programs that compared their recuiting rankings to their actual records - the 3 most overrated teams were Texas, um, and nd, in that order.

Last point - I don't care what Rivals, 247 or Scout rates our classes - the past 2 years we're the 2nd best team in the conference. First place, whether we like it or not, goes to Wisky, a team that hasn't finished in the Top 40 in the rivals rankings in years. Must be the cheeseheads up there don't buy too many subscriptions.

That would be all well and good, but you've got kids that are not only lowly ranked by "pencil dicked recruiting experts", but you've got kids that just aren't getting scholarship offers from people being paid to be able to coach and evaluate talent. Lots of people saw Greg Jones, but who offered him? Minnesota? Illinois? You get a lot of kids that go to camps and just get passed over, yet the staff sees the kid and brings them in. It's not an indictment of recruiting services. Other coaches aren't seeing it either. Our staff is great at identifying and developing players. That's a fact.

They also, in the past, had the safety net of "over-signing."

They could miss on a guy and replace him with someone else much easier.

That doesn't really prove anything for many reasons. Primarily, the pool of two stars and three star players is massive compared to four and five star players, meaning the likelihood of three star and two star players will inherently be lower because there are only so many all-conference spots. For example, if I create a catagory for MSU three stars and lower, the percentage of those players making all-conference would be much closer to the number of all Big Ten four stars making an all-conference team.

As RP is noting, the percentage of four stars that actually make all-american--or as you suggest all-conference--doesn't demonstarte a significant correlation, and thus is statistically irrelevant.

Ok. Enough of the "PM ACCspartan" crap.

I think Dantonio looks at recruits differently than most coaches do too. I know Tressel had, at one time, eluded to this.

I think Dantonio is very good at looking at a recruit, knowing his body type and how it can and will change in a college football program, and how the skills the recruit is showing will translate with that body change.

I really think Dantonio and his staff looks at physical traits (Ht, weight, frame, etc...) and mental capacity more than shown football skills. And views these football skills as more of a bonus. I know "commodities" is kind of a bad word in terms of recruiting and people in general, but I think Dantonio looks for physical/mental "commodities" over pure football talent.

I think he hordes these commodities. I think he believe that if a recruit has a lot of them, the football talent can be brought out and molded by his program easier then molding a guy who may already have previously established football skills.

Like training a horse....easier to break one down to rebuild if it hasn't been trained before.

I'm not saying it works for everyone they bring in and recruit, and I'm not saying the recruit guys based only on their mental/physical capacities, but it seems to me that the guys with high physical commodities/ mental capacities are the guys that succeed under Dantonio regardless of their recruiting status.