Why Talent/Recruiting Rankings Matter

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MnplsGopher said:
Here is post #264 even more simply stated, so that even JB18 can't find some irrelevant trivial thing to avoid answering the question:


Let's say some website says that player XYZ has been offered by the Gophers, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Warm on all three. Taking visits to all three. Etc.

Why is that information alone not enough for you? Why/How is it valuable to you, above that he has been offered by all three, what the website evaluates the player's talent?? Describe why/how this adds value.
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Because fans want to know how good that player is? These players go to camps and compete against the best and fans want to see how they stack up. It's not complicated.
 

So not only the Gophers staff, but Wisconsin and Iowa too, think the player is good enough to warrant an offer.

But that's not good enough for you? You still need someone to tell you that this player is good?
 

MnplsGopher said:
Here is post #264 even more simply stated, so that even JB18 can't find some irrelevant trivial thing to avoid answering the question:


Let's say some website says that player XYZ has been offered by the Gophers, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Warm on all three. Taking visits to all three. Etc.

Why is that information alone not enough for you? Why/How is it valuable to you, above that he has been offered by all three, what the website evaluates the player's talent?? Describe why/how this adds value.
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Good god. Talk about adding no value...

“I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that I sometimes don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” - Oscar Wilde
 


Urbandale said:
Good god. Talk about adding no value...

“I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that I sometimes don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” - Oscar Wilde
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The question was too hard. So it's a lot easier to just insult the other person than to have to think.


GopherWeatherGuy said:
No it doesn’t and again proves your failure to read
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Wrong
 


MnplsGopher said:
So not only the Gophers staff, but Wisconsin and Iowa too, think the player is good enough to warrant an offer.

But that's not good enough for you? You still need someone to tell you that this player is good?
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Sure it tells me he's good enough to earn a Big Ten West offer but it doesn't tell me how good he is compared to the rest of the nation


Who has better players Ohio State or Minnesota?
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
Sure it tells me he's good enough to earn a Big Ten West offer but it doesn't tell me how good he is compared to the rest of the nation


Who has better players Ohio State or Minnesota?
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The only way it's possible to know such a thing is for the two teams to play.
 


Questions got too hard. Declare victory and walk off
 



In the Ratings vs. Coaching argument, I also come down on the coaching side of the equation.

I will readily admit that a 4* or 5* player has an advantage over a 2* or a 3* player. But, put that 2* or 3* player in the right system, with the right coaching, and they can be very productive players. They can even become an NFL player. Rankings mean something. they do not mean everything.

You can study a recruit's on-field performance, watch hudl videos, and assign any grade, score or ranking you like. But you cannot - you absolutely cannot - assign a grade, score or ranking for heart, desire, drive, or willingness to learn. Intangibles still matter. In fact, the 2* or 3* recruit may be more driven to prove the evaluators wrong.
 


Be advised, JB18 and his ilk would have you believe that if some website says that the players we signed have an average "rating" of 4.23 stars, and the players Ohio State signed have an average "rating" of 4.13 stars ... then we won!

Don't even have to play any games. We can just declare victory.


It's amazing how that works. Quite a website, indeed.
 

MnplsGopher said:
Be advised, JB18 and his ilk would have you believe that if some website says that the players we signed have an average "rating" of 4.23 stars, and the players Ohio State signed have an average "rating" of 4.13 stars ... then we won!

Don't even have to play any games. We can just declare victory.


It's amazing how that works. Quite a website, indeed.
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Nice strawman, upsets happen in sports. It doesn't mean that because Lehigh beat Duke in a basketball game that Lehigh has better basketball players.

Who has better players Ohio State or Iowa?
 



Johnnyboy18 said:
It doesn't mean that because Lehigh beat Duke in a basketball game that Lehigh has better basketball players.
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WHAT?????

I literally almost fell out of my chair. That is .... incredible.


"Yeah you won the game ... but you ain't better than us"


Johnnyboy18 said:
Who has better players Ohio State or Iowa?
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Play a game, find out
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
We're done here. Please everyone just stop replying to him.
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Take your own advice and just ignore him. He's either willfully ignorant or a troll, and neither one paints him in a positive light.
 

G-D right I am willfully ignorant of the following concept:

- games don't matter. Winning the "recruiting online game" is what matters.


I'm willfully ignorant of such an absurd concept, every day and twice on Sunday.




That's what it boils down to. That's why some people demand a "number" to be associated with each player: so they can claim that they "won" the "recruiting game". That's literally all it comes down to.

I mean ... is it any less arbitrary than people who play video games for entertainment? I suppose not.
 

MnplsGopher said:
The only way it's possible to know such a thing is for the two teams to play.
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My sincere and heartfelt advice: Because anything to do with recruiting seems to be not only pointless and meaningless to you but also produces apparently near-debilitating discomfort, simply tune out until Fresno St. on September 8th. You will be much happier.
 

What's wrong with challenging the current "common sense"?

Why not use the message boards to debate? It just sits there otherwise. People should be able to defend the things they believe in. No harm, at the end of the day.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
In the Ratings vs. Coaching argument, I also come down on the coaching side of the equation.

I will readily admit that a 4* or 5* player has an advantage over a 2* or a 3* player. But, put that 2* or 3* player in the right system, with the right coaching, and they can be very productive players. They can even become an NFL player. Rankings mean something. they do not mean everything.

You can study a recruit's on-field performance, watch hudl videos, and assign any grade, score or ranking you like. But you cannot - you absolutely cannot - assign a grade, score or ranking for heart, desire, drive, or willingness to learn. Intangibles still matter. In fact, the 2* or 3* recruit may be more driven to prove the evaluators wrong.
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Sure but that’s not the point. How many teams made up of only 2 and 3*’s win divisions? Conferences? National championships? Few to none in the P5
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Sure but that’s not the point. How many teams made up of only 2 and 3*’s win divisions? Conferences? National championships? Few to none in the P5
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Because the people making up the number that goes with each player do so specifically in order to make sure such a correlation doesn't happen. That way, their subscribers believe that their numbers are actually legitimate predictions.
 

Spoofin said:
Yes, it points out that 4-star and 5-star recruits have higher talent/potential/ability than 2-star and 3-star recruits. No one I have seen would dispute that and the pro-ranking gurus on this site are arguing that fact against no one. Where I think it gets hairy, and I disagree with many, is this whole "high"/"mid"/"low" 3-star comparisons - those filling up the 25-50 (give/take) ranked teams. IMO, which of those teams got the best recruiting class is a crap-shoot and depends more on the coaches ability to evaluate & find the right fit for his team/roster/style/etc. than anything else. See Tim Brewster as exhibit A. Dear, they rank that mass of kids to 4-decimal places now and I'm to be told simple math proves a .8434 player is better than a .8433 player?


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Completely agree that the reliability suffers when looked at granularity at the "intra-star level". The whole basis of all these debates is (or should be) that the system is effective at predicting outcomes on the whole population of recruits. Recruiting rankings are not a be all end all regarding which team is better, it is an indicator of this but not a decider. There are multiple factors at play, but the recruiting rankings are one data point that has strong correlation.
 

MnplsGopher said:
Because the people making up the number that goes with each player do so specifically in order to make sure such a correlation doesn't happen. That way, their subscribers believe that their numbers are actually legitimate predictions.
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Provide some evidence please, you have yet to present anything other than conjecture and opinion.
 


MnplsGopher said:
G-D right I am willfully ignorant of the following concept:

- games don't matter. Winning the "recruiting online game" is what matters.
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I think what was said was that the best team does not always win which is obvious. That is why the games are played. I believe the OP stated that the team with the most talented roster (based on the players from their past recruiting classes who are still with the team) wins 75% of the time. That is a pretty strong correlation.

I guess you could theorize that the recruits on each team are essentially the same and that the coaches are so much better at the helmet schools that their players get much better over time. Therefore recruiting analysts give their rating based upon the school that the player commits to knowing that a player will turn out to be a 4* down the road because of great coaching.

That seems far less likely to me than better players committing to better teams with better coaching means higher recruiting rankings for the better teams. In college football the rich get richer and the rest are fighting for the leftovers.

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rugger14 said:
I think what was said was that the best team does not always win which is obvious. That is why the games are played. I believe the OP stated that the team with the most talented roster (based on the players from their past recruiting classes who are still with the team) wins 75% of the time. That is a pretty strong correlation.
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No one can deny the correlation.

What they can deny, and what I do deny, is that the correlation is meaningful. Like I gave the example of planting rocks being highly correlated with tiger maulings. That is a great example of a meaningless correlation.


The correlation could just as well mean that the following is extremely easy to do: give higher rankings to players who are likely to sign with teams that win more, on average. It's so easy to do that, apparently, that the websites can achieve 75% success rate, in a sense.

And by doing that, they can market the appearance of value to people who want to buy them.
 

Urbandale said:
My sincere and heartfelt advice: Because anything to do with recruiting seems to be not only pointless and meaningless to you but also produces apparently near-debilitating discomfort, <b>simply tune out until Fresno St. on September 8th. </b>You will be much happier.
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Why should he ignore the 8/30 game vs NMSU?


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