:: Notre Dame Football ::
Notre Dame Football has top-10 recruiting class for 2009, measured man-by-man
Feb. 13, 2009
Factoring in quantity along with quality, recruiting sites Scout.com and Rivals.com are ranking Notre Dame just barely in the top-25. But based upon the actual rated quality of recruits, on average man-by-man, Notre Dame is actually in the top 10 with respect to Scout.com's ratings.
Actual rankings for Scout.com stars per man, averaged to the hundredth of a star:
#1 (3.94) Southern Cal
#2 (3.89) Georgia
#3 (3.81) Florida
#4 (3.80) Ohio State
#5 (3.67) Alabama
#5 (3.67) LSU
#5 (3.67) Texas
#8 (3.61) Okla.
#9 (3.56) Notre Dame
310 (3.53) Tennessee
Of course, when working with numeric measurements, in order to avoid exaggerating the precision of results, the custom is to stay with the same unit as the original measure. In this case that means whole stars. (Neither recruiting service gave out partial stars, and certainly not tenths or hundredths of stars).
Based upon the average of whole stars, Notre Dame is part of a broad 10-way tie for #1 (in Scout.com's top 25, only ten teams averaged 4 stars per recruit, rounded to the nearest whole number; they follow, listed alphabetically):
#1 (4 stars) Alabama
#1 (4 stars) Florida
#1 (4 stars) Georgia
#1 (4 stars) LSU
#1 (4 stars) Notre Dame
#1 (4 stars) Ohio State
#1 (4 stars) Oklahoma
#1 (4 stars) Southern Cal
#1 (4 stars) Tennessee
#1 (4 stars) Texas
Even if one merely rounds to the nearest .1, or the nearest .01, Notre Dame is still in the top 10, at 8th or 9th.
But what if one adjusts for Scout.com not yet having caught up with modern football with respect to rating long-snappers as specialists? If one gives Notre Dame's perfect long-snap recruit the solid rating he deserves (for never having had a bad snap in 370 attempts), raising him from a two-star recruit as a generic linement to, e.g., a four-star recruit as a long-snapper specialist, Notre Dame actually is top-5 once again, even when adding in those extra digits. When following the custom of sticking with the actual original unit of measure, of course, Notre Dame is in that 10-way tie for #1 regardless.
(In Rivals.com, Notre Dame is around 12th with the erroneous extra digits left in from the calculation remainder, but probably higher after adjusting for the rating given the long-snapper.)
How then, beyond the issue of the long-snapper, did Notre Dame get rated by the two main recruiting news sites as about 25th? That was because they gave extra credit to teams that padded their recruiting offers with larger numbers of lower-rated recruits.
As a result, about a dozen or more schools were ranked higher because of the number of people who will man their scout teams, ride the bench, or get ditched at a later point if the institution is of a kind that has a policy of abandoning people rather than honoring their scholarship for all four years.
That characterization might sound harsh, but one institution rated higher than Notre Dame signed 30 recruits, many of them with 2-star or 3-star ratings. That institution has brought in 108 recruits in the past four years, 132 in the past five years. They are only allowed to have 85 scholarship athletes on their roster. One can gather that the institution in question might have brought in an excessive number of recruits, overloading their capacity beyond all reason, in anticipation of a high attrition rate.
(While that school was not included among the TIDES report this year, because they did not go to a bowl game, in a Rivals.com listing of graduation rates in 2007, that institution's football player graduation rate was a mere 53%.)
Notre Dame Football's Top 10 Recruiting
Based upon average ratings in Rivals, Notre Dame is actually 9th if the ratings are averaged to the hundredths of a star (3.56 stars). If the ratings are averaged to a tenth of a point, Notre Dame is tied for 8th (3.6 stars). Now, for bona fide calculations, the average measure should be in the same unit as the measure for the original data, in this case one full star. By that unit, Notre Dame is tied for #1, one of about 10 teams with an average of 4 stars.
But how did Notre Dame come to average 3.56, or 3.6 in the first place?
Well, they had 2 recruits with 5 stars, 8 recruits with 4 stars, 7 with 3 stars, and one with two stars. But how did the 2-star recruit get in there?
Put another way, Notre Dame signed 9 elite players (4- and 5-stars) and 8 top players (3-stars), plus a long-snapping specialist who has never had a bad snap (An article in Blue and Gold Illustrated reports that Charlie Weis considers the player to have had 370 career snaps without a bad snap.) The long-snapper was rated as a 2-star recruit, apparently as an offensive-line generalist, but as a long-snapper is more accurately considered a four- or five-star recruit.
Rated higher than Notre Dame by the recruiting news site's "point" system based upon quantity more than quality, Arkansas signed 30 players, of whom 25 are 2-star recruits or 3-star recruits. 11 of the 30 Arkansas recruits are 2-star recruits (14 are 3-star recruits). Arkansas was given a small amount of points for each of those 2-star recruits, so that the volume points was used as a pretext to rate Arkansas higher, even though (1) the actual quality of recruits was lower for Arkansas and, for that matter, (2) the volume of top recruits was also for Arkansas -- only 5 elite recruits (4- or 5-star ratings) for the Razorbacks compared with 12 for the Fighting Irish.
But back to the long-snapper issue. Sports Illustrated recently had an online article noting how ND is one of the programs pioneering specialist recruiting for long-snappers, but it doesn't sound as if the recruiting sites have caught up with today's more sophisticated brand of football.
If one goes ahead and credits the long-snapper as a 4-star recruit, which he is, then Notre Dame is tied for 5th.
So the most realistic assessment is that Notre had a top-5 recruiting class, but even allowing the artificially supressed lower rating for the perfect, never-missed-a-snap long-snapper, ND still had a top-10 recruiting class, based on ratings already down in the books.
To reiterate, actual rankings for Scout.com stars, averaged to the hundredth of a star:
#1 (3.94) Southern Cal
#2 (3.89) Georgia
#3 (3.81) Florida
#4 (3.80) Ohio State
#5 (3.67) Alabama
#5 (3.67) LSU
#5 (3.67) Texas
#8 (3.61) Okla.
#9 (3.56) Notre Dame
#10 (3.53) Tennessee
If one gives a specialist rating to the long-snapper, who never had a bad snap, such as a 4-star rating, then Notre Dame has 3.67, tied for #5.
(If ones makes the long-snapper a 5-star recruit, Notre Dame has a 3.72 average, and sole possession of 5th place, so that either way, it's a top-5 class. If make the long-snapper a 3-star, the average is 3.61, tied for 8th instead of 9th.)
However, for normal calculations of measurements, one generally should use the same unit of measure as the original data.
For example, if one is calculating the mass of something, and weighed everything by the gram, one should present averages by the gram, not by the thousandth of a gram. Regardless of whether the remainder from a particular calculation left a string of digits, if the original measure was a full gram, it would be misleading to pretend to be accurate to the thousandth of a gram when that is simply not true; in the case cited, the original measure itself was a full gram, not something more precise.
In this case, the original data measure was a full star; Scout.com did not try to pretend that it was measuring people by the hundredth of a star or even the tenth of star; as a result, the only meaningful calculation would be to round to the nearest star; which produces this result:
As mentioned above, a 10-way tie for #1 (listed alphabetically)
#1 (4 stars) Alabama
#1 (4 stars) Florida
#1 (4 stars) Georgia
#1 (4 stars) LSU
#1 (4 stars) Notre Dame
#1 (4 stars) Ohio State
#1 (4 stars) Okla.
#1 (4 stars) Southern Cal
#1 (4 stars) Tenn.
#1 (4 stars) Texas
No other team in the Scout.com Top 25 rounded to an average of 4 stars.
If you think about it, especially given the gray areas players fall into with their development, this is actually a lot more realistic. Notre Dame was part of an echelon of teams that brought in a body of talent all roughly top-flight, with a little bit of a spread for each school. There was also variation by position, to meet various needs. But this grouping of top schools all got recruits with a certain amount of skill, strength, speed, agility, size, etc., as appropriate to their respective positions.
So the bottom line is, Notre Dame should have talent to work with, develop it, and compete with the schools on that list.
But if you still want to split hairs, here's another consideration: recalling that the issue is not accolades for past achievement, but recruiting to join college programs for the future -- lump 4- and 5-star recruits together.
Does it really matter whether someone is 4-stars or 5-stars, with respect to potential for college?
Did being a 4-star recruit stop Brady Quinn, Jeff Samardzija, or Anthony Fasano from being an All American in college and a top NFL prospect? Did being a 4-star recruit stop Maurice Stovall from being an NFL draft pick?
Conversely, did being a 5-star recruit make Rhema McKnight an All-American or an NFL draft pick?
Meanwhile, 3-star recruit John Carlson was an NFL draft pick who excelled for the Seahawks as a rookie. David Bruton, another 3-star recruit, is projected to be an NFL draft pick. So Notre Dame has shown it can develop all talent, and that 3-star recruits, at least at Notre Dame, have the potential to become big-time players.
So obviously Weis knows how to develop talent.
The bottom line for these latter considerations --
(1) 4-star and 5-star can be lumped together as "blue chips" and the distinction probably does not really matter in practical terms looking forward
(2) there's always the possibility that at least some 4- or 5-star prospects might not make it
(3) 3-stars are pretty good, and a number have NFL potential
(4) Charlie Weis knows how to develop talent, and if somebody is solid, and they want to maximize their NFL potential, Notre Dame is the place to go.
Of course, here's another issue -- even though Notre Dame is solid, man-for-man, top-10, doesn't the overall number make a difference? Well, it can, except for the fact that Notre Dame's overall number is perfect.
A specialty print publication on Notre Dame football, Blue and Gold Illustrated, did an online analysis of Notre Dame Football scholarship totals, and estimated that with this number of new recruits, Notre Dame has 78, plus five 5th year seniors, for a roster of 83 scholarship athletes, out of a maximum allowed of 85. That leaves 2 for either walk-ons to be promoted, as is the custom, or one for an additional athlete who took leave who hasn't decided yet about coming back. So the total numbers are perfect.
There are Offers, like at Notre Dame, and then there are quasi-"offers"
Another hidden story in all this -- will some of the other schools, in fact, ditch their players? Do these teenagers with their educational futures on the line even really have an actual offer from the other schools? Do they have a actual offer like the one they have from Notre Dame, which tends to make a commitment to the student athlete, and honor a scholarship for all four years? Or will the other schools be like the one that has brought in well over 100 scholarship recruits in the past four years, when it can only keep 85 on the roster.
If a football player accepts an offer to Notre Dame, he probably will graduate, and do so on a free ride. He has a more than 90% chance of graduating.
If the teenaged high school recruit accepts an "offer" from somewhere else, will they even keep the youngster on scholarship?
Can a program hand out 30 scholarships, without ditching people later? Is that type of program deliberately setting itself up, by design, to bring in people knowing it plans to filter out a portion later, even with them still in the middle of college? Is that why graduation rates are so low for some schools?
When a school from a top-competitive conference, takes on a boatload of 2-star recruits, and only some actually pan out, are they really going to make good for all those young men, for the next four or five years?
Notre Dame Football finally getting a full roster, and standing by its players
By national standards, Weis has had a great run at ND. Despite being in a massive rebuilding phase, cobbling together skeleton crews with limited depth, and building up very young players, Weis has already put together a winning percentage similar to Joe Tiller's overall winning at Purdue, where Tiller has been lionized and made Head Coach Emeritus. And his record of two BCS bowl bids, a down season with a young, depleted roster, then a rebounding season with a bowl win, all within four years, is something most coaches can only dream of.
And his overall Tiller-like winning percentage has come despite the fact that, when Weis took the ND job, it was clear that it would take at least five years to rebuild the program. In fact, the roster is not really rebuilt with respect to numbers until this season, and will not be rebuilt with respect to numbers and full recruiting cycles until 2010.
Oahu
Another interesting twist -- Notre Dame is now a recruiting power on Oahu, where the Irish brought in both the offensive co-player of the year for Hawai'i and the defensive player of the year for the United States. There apparently was scuttlebut on Oahu about how that unfolded, and why a top wide receiver had a change of heart on on national signing day and then decided to join Notre Dame a day later. In any event, suffice it to say, it just goes to show you, it pays to treat people right, and always try to do the right thing.
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