February 8, 2015
Rivals.com
Wouldn't it be grand if there was an Academy Award for Best Recruiting Class? Wouldn't it be awesome to see Nick Saban and Steve Sarkisian on the red carpet in Armani tuxedos, or Ed Orgeron gnawing on the centerpiece because the appetizers were late arriving at the LSU table? Wouldn't it be fun to celebrate Auburn's "Best Recruit" victory at Gus Malzahn's after-party at the Beverly Hills Waffle House?
Even if it weren't a fantastic time, perhaps it would remind everyone of something they seem to forget: Like the Academy Awards, the recruiting rankings are just opinions. Nothing more. With movies, people seem to get that. Sometimes those opinions hold up over time, and sometimes they don't.
Does anyone think 'The English Patient' is more a part of our cultural heritage today than 'Fargo' (or 'Jerry Maguire,' for that matter)? I can't tell you the last time (if ever) that someone quoted a line from 'The English Patient' to me, but when Gameday was in 'Fargo' last year and someone brought the wood-chipper, I got the reference.
Recruiting rankings are opinions, not facts.
Look at it another way. The Alabama Class of 2008 (Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, Marcel Dareus, Dont'a Hightower and so on) is 'The Godfather' of recruiting classes, a standard against which others will be judged for decades. Yet in that year, one highly-
respected recruiting analyst, one who anchored the recruiting coverage for the biggest sports network last Wednesday, proclaimed Clemson as the 2008 recruiting champion. Clemson.
In hindsight, it's like "and the Oscar for Best Picture goes to 'Clash Of The Titans.' " I like that movie, and I like Clemson, and I would like to hear Dabo say "Release the Kraken!" when asked about halftime adjustments. But history has spoken on those classes, and that opinion was off the mark.
That isn't a knock on recruiting analysts. They work hard and provide an important service. Many are keen observers with great insight.
I respect them tremendously. But they aren't scientists, and they aren't clairvoyants. Most don't pretend to be. But a funny thing has happened in the recent evolution of the recruiting business. There is a reason for that: if a service declared Alabama as recruiting champions for four consecutive years based on "a feeling," they'd be dismissed as "Bama lovers." So the services had to come up with "quantitative." Hence, the numbers.
In a big picture way, recruiting rankings do paint a picture of which teams have good talent: Alabama, Florida State and Ohio State are all perennial recruiting powers. But when people start thinking that there is any meaningful difference in an "average star rating" of "3.82" and "3.84," they head down a slippery slope.
Suddenly, you have people like political analysts like Nate Silver plugging numbers into a chart and coming up with "overachievers" and "underachievers," and you end up with people saying that Alabama - which has won two BCS titles and played in what were essentially two thrilling semifinals over the past four years - has underachieved with what is one of the great four year-runs ever.
So if your team wins the award for best recruiting class, be happy. If they don't, but you are pleased with their class, that's great, too. Remember, a lot depends on genre. Some people like slasher horror movies and think Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the best movie ever. So if you are a fan of Arkansas and its Texas Chainsaw Massacre offense - no soliloquies, lots of carnage - and the Hogs met their needs, you should rejoice. Recruiting matters, and opinions matter, but time - and victories -- will tell the real story.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1734800
Rivals.com
Wouldn't it be grand if there was an Academy Award for Best Recruiting Class? Wouldn't it be awesome to see Nick Saban and Steve Sarkisian on the red carpet in Armani tuxedos, or Ed Orgeron gnawing on the centerpiece because the appetizers were late arriving at the LSU table? Wouldn't it be fun to celebrate Auburn's "Best Recruit" victory at Gus Malzahn's after-party at the Beverly Hills Waffle House?
Even if it weren't a fantastic time, perhaps it would remind everyone of something they seem to forget: Like the Academy Awards, the recruiting rankings are just opinions. Nothing more. With movies, people seem to get that. Sometimes those opinions hold up over time, and sometimes they don't.
Does anyone think 'The English Patient' is more a part of our cultural heritage today than 'Fargo' (or 'Jerry Maguire,' for that matter)? I can't tell you the last time (if ever) that someone quoted a line from 'The English Patient' to me, but when Gameday was in 'Fargo' last year and someone brought the wood-chipper, I got the reference.
Recruiting rankings are opinions, not facts.
Look at it another way. The Alabama Class of 2008 (Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, Marcel Dareus, Dont'a Hightower and so on) is 'The Godfather' of recruiting classes, a standard against which others will be judged for decades. Yet in that year, one highly-
respected recruiting analyst, one who anchored the recruiting coverage for the biggest sports network last Wednesday, proclaimed Clemson as the 2008 recruiting champion. Clemson.
In hindsight, it's like "and the Oscar for Best Picture goes to 'Clash Of The Titans.' " I like that movie, and I like Clemson, and I would like to hear Dabo say "Release the Kraken!" when asked about halftime adjustments. But history has spoken on those classes, and that opinion was off the mark.
That isn't a knock on recruiting analysts. They work hard and provide an important service. Many are keen observers with great insight.
I respect them tremendously. But they aren't scientists, and they aren't clairvoyants. Most don't pretend to be. But a funny thing has happened in the recent evolution of the recruiting business. There is a reason for that: if a service declared Alabama as recruiting champions for four consecutive years based on "a feeling," they'd be dismissed as "Bama lovers." So the services had to come up with "quantitative." Hence, the numbers.
In a big picture way, recruiting rankings do paint a picture of which teams have good talent: Alabama, Florida State and Ohio State are all perennial recruiting powers. But when people start thinking that there is any meaningful difference in an "average star rating" of "3.82" and "3.84," they head down a slippery slope.
Suddenly, you have people like political analysts like Nate Silver plugging numbers into a chart and coming up with "overachievers" and "underachievers," and you end up with people saying that Alabama - which has won two BCS titles and played in what were essentially two thrilling semifinals over the past four years - has underachieved with what is one of the great four year-runs ever.
So if your team wins the award for best recruiting class, be happy. If they don't, but you are pleased with their class, that's great, too. Remember, a lot depends on genre. Some people like slasher horror movies and think Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the best movie ever. So if you are a fan of Arkansas and its Texas Chainsaw Massacre offense - no soliloquies, lots of carnage - and the Hogs met their needs, you should rejoice. Recruiting matters, and opinions matter, but time - and victories -- will tell the real story.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1734800
