Separate thread on this topic. There seems to be a general consensus that the most distinctive achievement of our head football coach is to upgrade recruiting.

Here are some facts and observations--I don't know how to synthesize them into a confident conclusion that recruiting is better now than--say--in the last five years of Hatfield

1. We have some guys in the NFL. But not sure how large our current cadre is by historical standards. And my eyes tell me that Jordan Taylor makes more big plays than McDonald or Willson did.

2. We have corners who seem to make a lot of plays. I don't recall ever saying that about Rice teams in the past

3. Depth at skill positions is often deemed suspect, in the sense that it is cited as a mitigating factor in disappointing losses (eg. Ross vs UH; McHargue vs. Marshall/Memphis in 2012)

4. Our safeties are cited by many as a critical flaw--is this about ability or scheme or execution?

5. On the other hand, we had a key d-lineman quit the team before the season and we are still playing pretty good defense up front, aren't we?

Is this the visual equivalent of jazz--we know it when we see it?

Is it in the W and L, in the sense that he is only 3 games under .500 during the years when all of the players were his recruits vs. 10 games under for his whole tenure?

This is a good question. My inclination is that one objective measure would be playing time as you get to the two deep or three deep positions, excluding injury considerations.

I've come to believe that assembling a geoup of decent starters is a matter of selling kids that they will get playing time. If you can recruit players into backup roles that may be kids who might start elsewhere, then you've achieved something good.

Another measure is how good your starters are, but I think you can cue Gravy Owl to show this is something of a crap shoot. Looking at A team like UH, I think they've got a good freshman class with guys that have good measurables - speed, size, etc. - that are clearly desired by every coach in FBS and are thus in high demand.

I'm inclined to look at the difference between production of the starters and backups at each position, though.

(10-03-2013 06:53 AM)MemOwl Wrote:  Separate thread on this topic. There seems to be a general consensus that the most distinctive achievement of our head football coach is to upgrade recruiting.

Here are some facts and observations--I don't know how to synthesize them into a confident conclusion that recruiting is better now than--say--in the last five years of Hatfield

1. We have some guys in the NFL. But not sure how large our current cadre is by historical standards. And my eyes tell me that Jordan Taylor makes more big plays than McDonald or Willson did.

2. We have corners who seem to make a lot of plays. I don't recall ever saying that about Rice teams in the past

3. Depth at skill positions is often deemed suspect, in the sense that it is cited as a mitigating factor in disappointing losses (eg. Ross vs UH; McHargue vs. Marshall/Memphis in 2012)

4. Our safeties are cited by many as a critical flaw--is this about ability or scheme or execution?

5. On the other hand, we had a key d-lineman quit the team before the season and we are still playing pretty good defense up front, aren't we?

Is this the visual equivalent of jazz--we know it when we see it?

Is it in the W and L, in the sense that he is only 3 games under .500 during the years when all of the players were his recruits vs. 10 games under for his whole tenure?

I would look at wins, # of all CUSA players, # of NFL players.

Some things I have noticed are improved team speed and size. However, in the day of the spread, without a solid and consistent QB a lot of talent on the team will be hard to evaluate. Receivers can't put up consistent numbers without quality QB play and RB and OL will not look as good if the defense does not respect the pass.

A lot of people pay attention to the ratings of recruits, but that seems to be flawed as there are a number of 4 star guys that are busts and plenty of 2-3 star guys that are diamonds in the rough.

The problem with # of NFL players is that there is so much competition for spots on NFL teams and it is an incredibly tough business to get into even when you have the talent. Chase was a fantastic college QB, but the NFL did not pay attention.

It seems like there are several aspects to this question, including signing the players who are already in demand and identifying "diamonds in the rough." (Maybe the latter is more about player development than recruiting, though.)

For me it can be seen in comparing the Rice @ UT game from '08 with the Rice @ A&M game from this season.

Despite having Clement, Casey and Dillard in '08 the '13 team overall was better equipped to hold up against a top 10 team (on the road) that everyone would agree was full of top-tier college football talent.

And we probably had better offensive coaching/coordination in '08 too.


http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=282640251

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=332430245


If you wish to remind yourself of the '08 game:

Clearly, the ultimate barometer is wins...but alot of other factors matter there (e.g., schedule strength, schemes, location of key games, X's and O's coaching adjustments, turnovers, discipline, weather, etc.) that have no bearing on talent....so you need to dig a bit deeper.

a) Guys in NFL. Yes it is flawed for a bunch of reasons already stated but there is a correlation w/ teams that have more guys in NFL (e.g., LSU, Alabama, A&M, etc.) and talent. We had more guys in NFL camps this year than at any other time in Rice Football history.

b) Size and Speed. Someone can do the research here better than I but I'm fairly confident that if you look at 1) # of guys who run 4.6 or under, 2) # of guys who bench/squat/clean more than y 3) # of guys over 300 lbs, etc. it would be clear that current team has more of them than any other time in Rice's history. I had heard at prior pressers Bailiff quoting some stats around this kind of stuff from beginning of his tenure to present..just can't remember the stats to quote here.

c) Depth. What is the drop-off in performance between the 1-deep person and 2-deep person? We saw at # of positions last year (e.g. OL, Safety, TE, RB, etc.) that when we had injuries, it was not noticeable on-the-field dropoff that you see in prior years. Again, we have been exposed by 'weakest link' whether up-front, in secondary (remember some 2-deep CB's of years past getting burned over-and-over again), etc.

d) Competitive level against tier-1 talent. Completely agree w/ Gravy here. We were pushed around and not competitive against Texas in 08...despite the trio. We were not against A&M. We shot ourselves in the foot w/ turnovers, short fields, etc. to make a competitive game a non-competitive game. You can't be competitive against Top-10 talent w/out your own talent. That was a watershed moment for the program to finally be in position where you go into games like that with the talent to compete...next step is to put other factors together to actually steal a W (Notre Dame next year?)

e) All-Conference guys. We had 12 of our 22 starters on the first four-teams of Phil Steele's All-CUSA. You have us in 14% of the all C-USA spots but we are only 7% of the conference players...so that says something to be 2x above the average.

On Safeties...that is a scheme problem vs. a people problem. White, Hill, Porras, etc. are all decent players and not like prior years where you lose Sendejo or Bradshaw and you are really exposed. We lost Frazier and that did not happen. Problem is that we run alot of blitz packages and you have 4.6 guys covering 4.4 guys. That is fine if you have pressure on QB and good technique but if you don't have pressure..eventually you will get burned. As stated on prior post, the TD in FAU game was on a CB blitz where we put our Safety on their fastest guy. That is crazy to take your NFL caliber CB and take him out-of-coverage for a blitz. IMO, the talent in the secondary is P5 quality.

Like most things, you can see what you want to see.

I think our number of players in the NFL is as large as it has EVER been... and absolutely larger than Hatfield EVER produced, but Hatfield was by any reasonable relative measure a successful coach and thus recruiter at Rice.

I see high levels of individual talent... I see high quality individuals. That to me is a sure sign of quality recruiting. What I don't see is that recruiting manifesting itself into a particularly effective team... The defense is solid and even put a few guys on pro rosters, but not exceptional even by CUSA standards despite at least 2 NFL caliber corners. The offense is unreliable at best. There are all sorts of reasons for this to be the case... injuries etc etc etc... and I suspect this is among the hardest things a coach does... "project" holes and development and injuries... but it is also why I put such a premium on (as Bum said) takin' his'n and beatin' your'un and then takin' your'un and beatin' his'n coaching skills... to be able to take what you have to work with and do as much as possible with it.

Hatfield got a lot out of guys that most other places didn't want. Goldsmith, too. Graham got a lot out of the very same guys other people couldn't (see 2006 vs 2005 and 2007). Obviously it wasn't all the head guy and in fact probably often wasn't the head guy at all. Maybe Graham could get better/more motivated assistants because everyone saw him as the jerk that would whip a team into as much as they COULD be and they could use him to move up... and they often did... maybe Bailiff is the guy that coaches love to work for because he isn't a jerk and he recruits respectful kids...

At the end of the day, you are what your record says you are... and because unlike the league to which that quote was intended... we don't get to play the entire league... I call our "record" our "power ranking". I'm just not satisfied with that.... hence the dichotomy of great people, great athletes, quality coaches... but not (imo) maximized potential.

Considering 2008 vs 2013, I find I would take ~7 of the starters on both offense and defense from 2013 vs. 2008, so that does indicate better recruiting. I think this is qualitatively apparent as we look at the team, too, though I think it's a little exaggerated based on the low expectations set by years of Hatfield's recruiting philosophy, and getting a rivals site.

I think 2008 Texas was a significantly better team than 2013 A&M, and don't think that's a very useful source of comparison.

(10-03-2013 09:08 AM)Caelligh Wrote:  The problem with # of NFL players is that there is so much competition for spots on NFL teams and it is an incredibly tough business to get into even when you have the talent. Chase was a fantastic college QB, but the NFL did not pay attention.

It seems like there are several aspects to this question, including signing the players who are already in demand and identifying "diamonds in the rough." (Maybe the latter is more about player development than recruiting, though.)

The other problem with using NFL is that they aren't really looking for the best college players. They're looking for the players who best project to the NFL, which typically means the players with the best measurables.

As for "diamonds in the rough," I don't think this has much to do with development. For most Rice players, it has usually been pretty clear early on whether they are going to star, contribute, or not. There have been highly-rated and lowly-rated recruits in each group. There are exceptions, but not many.

And frankly I don't think it has much to do with identifying the players. We credit Hatfield with identifying, say, Jarett Dillard, but the way his recruitment happened suggests Hatfield had no idea how good Dillard was going to be. Likewise with Bailiff and Bradshaw. And on the flip side, both coaches have had highly-rated recruits who didn't pan out. All of which is also true for most coaches at most schools. That's why I say it is a crapshoot. (And based on I45's comment, I'm apparently repeating myself -- sorry about that.)

I am not saying that talent doesn't matter. I am saying that talent, at least at this level, is not necessarily the same as recruiting.

(10-03-2013 11:21 AM)owl40 Wrote:  d) Competitive level against tier-1 talent. Completely agree w/ Gravy here. We were pushed around and not competitive against Texas in 08...despite the trio. We were not against A&M. We shot ourselves in the foot w/ turnovers, short fields, etc. to make a competitive game a non-competitive game. You can't be competitive against Top-10 talent w/out your own talent. That was a watershed moment for the program to finally be in position where you go into games like that with the talent to compete...next step is to put other factors together to actually steal a W (Notre Dame next year?)

Well, that was talon. What he said is tempting but as far as I'm concerned, being competitive with A&M is a moot point if you turn around and lose to UH and struggle against FAU at home.

At this point I think the best explanation for the A&M game is that we didn't see anything close to their best game.

Given the tertiary nature of sports, the fact that we did somewhat better against one team than another... particularly based on vastly different years/teams/personnel speaks volumes. Match-ups were the keys... not overall or even specific talent.

Watched a few plays from the UT game talon posted.. sigh, IMO having a guy like Clement in the QB position would immediately make our entire offense perform MUCH better.

Imagine if we were in a BCS conference.... http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recrui...ting-texas

(10-03-2013 06:32 PM)ChicagoOwl (BS 07) Wrote:  Watched a few plays from the UT game talon posted.. sigh, IMO having a guy like Clement in the QB position would immediately make our entire offense perform MUCH better.

My God, having Chase this year we would have rolled over everyone in our schedule. He would finally have had a defense that could keep you in a game. We saw during his carrier that he could make almost anyone into a good receiver (see how many receivers he often threw to in a game) and we have enough receiver threats that, even though none are as good as JD, he would be able to find them regularly.

From the '08 team, I think I would only take Chase, JD, Thor, Scott Mitchell, Sendejo, Solomon and Raines over the equivalent starters in both sides for us. I think that shoes that recruiting has increased. However, the drop in talent in QB has been great because Chase spoiled the crap out of us.

I'm sure there were other guys from 2008 who we would prefer over the current team too. I don't recall the entire OL from 2008 but I do believe it was a much superior line to our current one (Berken in particular was really good). Q. Smith was a quality RB, although I like our current backs too. On the DL, both the ends were standouts and later played in the NFL (both Solomon and Cheta). And Kyle Martens probably was punting back in 2008 (although I think Farrimond is doing okay as a redshirt freshman this year).

In general though, Bailiff's recruiting has been solid. The staff does a good job of identifying talent. My only complaint is I wish they played it a little closer to the vest because I think too many of our early commits have been stolen away by other teams. Maybe that would happen if we were trying to keep the commit list secret, but it almost seems like schools are using our recruiting skills to do their dirty work of identifying the talent.

(10-04-2013 06:16 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  And Kyle Martens probably was punting back in 2008 (although I think Farrimond is doing okay as a redshirt freshman this year).

I'm glad you brought up Martens. He and Boswell were obviously great pickups on the recruiting trail. Offense and defense have gotten all the attention thus far in this thread.

Good point.

How are we positioned in terms of replacing Boswell?

So far, I think our punt game is much better than last year.

(10-04-2013 06:16 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  I'm sure there were other guys from 2008 who we would prefer over the current team too. I don't recall the entire OL from 2008 but I do believe it was a much superior line to our current one (Berken in particular was really good). Q. Smith was a quality RB, although I like our current backs too. On the DL, both the ends were standouts and later played in the NFL (both Solomon and Cheta). And Kyle Martens probably was punting back in 2008 (although I think Farrimond is doing okay as a redshirt freshman this year).

Ozougwu is the most glaringly obvious omission from Lad15's list.
Agree about the OL, based on what we've seen so far this year.
Q.Smith graduated in '08. T.Smith was on the roster but missed the season due to injury. I think I'd take Ross regardless, but T.Smith was a quality RB.
Martens was a freshman in '08 but was really inconsistent that year.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Bradshaw, although there's a coverage vs. hitting tradeoff there.

I listed them out and had 8 from 2008, 7 from 2013, and the rest being roughly washes (some of which might be a bit generous to 2013). One thing that doesn't show up here is that '08 had much better depth across the DL.

Considering the importance of QB, I think the '08 roster was significantly better than '13.

Quote:it almost seems like schools are using our recruiting skills to do their dirty work of identifying the talent.

I seriously doubt that.

Commitment switching is just part of the business these days. Rice has been on both sides of it.

(10-03-2013 08:33 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(10-03-2013 06:32 PM)ChicagoOwl (BS 07) Wrote:  Watched a few plays from the UT game talon posted.. sigh, IMO having a guy like Clement in the QB position would immediately make our entire offense perform MUCH better.

My God, having Chase this year we would have rolled over everyone in our schedule. He would finally have had a defense that could keep you in a game. We saw during his carrier that he could make almost anyone into a good receiver (see how many receivers he often threw to in a game) and we have enough receiver threats that, even though none are as good as JD, he would be able to find them regularly.

From the '08 team, I think I would only take Chase, JD, Thor, Scott Mitchell, Sendejo, Solomon and Raines over the equivalent starters in both sides for us. I think that shoes that recruiting has increased. However, the drop in talent in QB has been great because Chase spoiled the crap out of us.

Im with you on those adds!

(10-04-2013 10:48 AM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  I listed them out and had 8 from 2008, 7 from 2013, and the rest being roughly washes (some of which might be a bit generous to 2013). One thing that doesn't show up here is that '08 had much better depth across the DL.

But how much of that depth is a consequence of recruiting. With Shahin, that depth would look better, and without looking, it seems like we're missing at least one more DL (Michael Sam) that is for reasons other than recruiting.

An as-yet unmentioned issue is graduation rate. That is unquestionably related to recruiting, and it appears that Bailiff and his staff have done well on that count.

(10-04-2013 10:48 AM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(10-04-2013 06:16 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  I'm sure there were other guys from 2008 who we would prefer over the current team too. I don't recall the entire OL from 2008 but I do believe it was a much superior line to our current one (Berken in particular was really good). Q. Smith was a quality RB, although I like our current backs too. On the DL, both the ends were standouts and later played in the NFL (both Solomon and Cheta). And Kyle Martens probably was punting back in 2008 (although I think Farrimond is doing okay as a redshirt freshman this year).

Ozougwu is the most glaringly obvious omission from Lad15's list.
Agree about the OL, based on what we've seen so far this year.
Q.Smith graduated in '08. T.Smith was on the roster but missed the season due to injury. I think I'd take Ross regardless, but T.Smith was a quality RB.
Martens was a freshman in '08 but was really inconsistent that year.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Bradshaw, although there's a coverage vs. hitting tradeoff there.

I listed them out and had 8 from 2008, 7 from 2013, and the rest being roughly washes (some of which might be a bit generous to 2013). One thing that doesn't show up here is that '08 had much better depth across the DL.

Considering the importance of QB, I think the '08 roster was significantly better than '13.

Quote:it almost seems like schools are using our recruiting skills to do their dirty work of identifying the talent.

I seriously doubt that.

Commitment switching is just part of the business these days. Rice has been on both sides of it.

I thought about Cheta, but unlit matey decided on Bauer because of the fact that he is producing when he doesn't have someone like Solomon to distract the
OL protection. I also think our inside DL this year is better with Covington.