MSU Red Cedar Message Board

20 per year isn't much, but extrapolate over four to five years and it starts to. Obsessing over stars is different from simply disagreeing with a person who says "stars don't matter." I don't think our actual views are probably far off.

Edit: I apologize- stars don't matter wasn't the phrase. "Makes you wonder about the recruiting rankings doesn't it?" Which I would also not conclude from that figure.

The irony of course being that the very premise of the thread is a nine-player sample.

There's a difference. One coach having a history of putting players in the NFL inherently involves a smaller sample size than ranking every D1 prospect in the country. And once again this is not a random distribution. The fact that Coach D has put so many 2-stars in the NFL demonstrates that he can evaluate talent better than the recruiting services.

I think we're saying the same thing here. There are a set # of players that are going to be NFL players/college studs no matter where they end up, another set who ca be NFL players/college stars with the right coaching, a set with the talent, but not the drive and finally a group that doesn't have the raw talent to make an impact in college. Those categories are INDEPENDENT of whatever star rankings the services assign. The services try to predict which category those kids fall in to, but rating a kid a 3-star or a 5-star doesn't change who the kid is.

I look at it like this: each individual kid is either going to be a contributor or he isn't, 4-star/2-star, whatever he's rated. You don't know how that kid will pan out till he's on campus for awhile. Recruiting rankings are a decent measure of what "could" be, but they aren't what "will" be. There are, no doubt, going to be many 3-stars drafted in the NFL. Let's say you have a class full of 3-stars and every single one is one of those 3-stars who can/will make it to the NFL. That's a home-run class, no matter what the rankings say.

In reality, those classes don't happen; the 3-star through 5-star successes and busts are spread throughout CFB. Sometimes you end up with a class of mostly successes (2010 seems to be heading that way). Sometimes you end up with a class of mostly busts (see: UM 2008, ND since 1995ish).

So stars are a nice starting point, but they aren't close to the be-all/end-all. As I said before, MSU is bringing in more 4-stars than 2-stars, and generally has the team as talented as they've been in the last 15 years or so. No complaints here.

Each year a student manager is assigned to follow Mark Dantonio around with a wheel barrel carrying his onions.

To me Dan Enos deserves al OT of the credit about finding guys on offense.

Coach D is more of a defensive guy. What was crazy to me was how slow the defensive players were coming in the first couple of years he was a head coach (considering his ability and history as a defensive coach).

The last few years the talent level really stepped up. He couldn't get gets like Isaiah Lewis in the first couple of years. To me it isn't about recruiting only quality 2 star guys or 3 star guys. You have to be able to recruit all the stars and get quality guys period. I posted it in another thread that Narduzzi said that every guy they offer he considers 4 or 5 star guys. They are good at evaluating talent and getting the best guys they can.

I think it will be interesting to see how they continue to develop players on offense. With Enos gone they need to continue to find and develop players. That is my biggest concern.

Rocky we all agree with you that Martin and Cousins were 3 star guys but the point is they locked onto them early and saw and was the first bcs school to offer them. Doesn't matter to me the star ranking.

Martin & Cousins were both late commits. Nobody "locked onto them early". Martin's case is well documented regarding not camping and late getting tape out.

Cousins committed 1/19/07
Martin committed 11/19/07

Actually, neither was "locked on" early. Both were evaluated late in the process.

Rocky, the real point in all this is that Dantonio rarely brings in a kid who is actually a 2 star talent. They may be rated a 2 star, but if Dantonio and his gang like the recruit, I don't believe he really IS a 2 star.

You guys really took a shit on this thread with your recruiting rankings slap fight.

I tried.

Did you know that Mark Dantonio married a Pope?

I agree 100% with that, especially in the last 4 classes or so ('09-'12). There were some duds in the first 2 classes to be sure, but that's to be expected with a new staff at a program almost a decade removed from even a NYD bowl.

My point is more that there aren't many 2-star "rated" talents coming in. There were 14 in the first 2 classes alone, but 10 in the last 4 combined. There's been a definite improvement in the recruiting from 2009 forward, and those guys make up the great majority of the roster. Of the 21 members of the 2008 class only 7 are left on the roster: Adams, Hoover, Ruhland, Gardiner, McDonald, Deyo and Drew Stevens. Of the remaining 14 members, 3 more were standouts that went to the NFL in Martin, Worthy and Trenton Robinson.

That leaves 11/21 guys from the 2008 class who did not finish their playing careers at MSU. Special consideration has to be given to Zach Heuter, who retired from football due to injuries, but that's still 10/21 flame-outs. Pretty impressive that MSU has been able to win 11 games in the past 2 years, when you'd expect the 2008 class to be contributing a real chunk of players to the team. Really it's been Adams, McDonald, Robinson, Martin and Worthy from that class. Hoover gets an incomplete so far, since he was injured all of last year.

I did read your post (obviously you haven't been because now you're basically just venomously agreeing with me), which included nothing about his coaching (check out that bold; I'm saving all caps for next time), but did conclude by saying it demonstrates that he is better at evaluating talent than recruiting services. The reality is he recruits on characteristics that he wants to work with and does well with them. Recruiting services rank on broad criteria. Dantonio's success has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of recruiting rankings.