Wednesday, February 02, 2005
National Signing Day
SportsProf has a nice high level look at signing day, when the nation's top high school football players sign letters of intent to accept scholorships from Division I schools. His interesting observation:
For Iowa Hawkeye fans, it is the best recruiting year in program history, as the Hawkeyes have a consensus Top 10 class for the first time ever. Under Captain Kirk Ferentz, the Hawkeyes have finished the last three football seasons ranked #8 in the country, in most cases harvesting fruits that were overlooked or cast off by other programs. Recent Hawkeye stars such as Outland Trophy winner Robert Gallery, all-America safety Bob Sanders, all-America tight end Dallas Clark, and Heisman runner up Brad Banks were all lightly recruited diamonds in the rough who developed into stars through hard work and good coaching. The mantra among commentators the last few seasons has been "if Ferentz can achieve this with the players he has, imagine what he could do with real talent."
It will be interesting to see what happens with the Iowa program now that it has entered the big time from a recruiting standpoint. The aforementioned Hawkeyes turned out to be spectacular college football players, among the best at their positions and far better than many who were ranked ahead of them coming out of high school, so clearly high school scouting reports are far from comprehensive. Still, it is clear that the programs like Michigan and Miami that consistently bring in the blue chip players have a year over year advantage over programs that work with the less heralded. The difference between these types of programs and the tiers below usually comes down to depth, and the ability to recover year after year as the inevitable attrition of college eligibility limits takes its toll.
Of the 100 "top" recruits as listed by USA Today, 79 already have committed. Of those 79 players, 78 of them have committed to schools in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC (the lone holdout has committed to BYU). Those 78 players have committed to a total of 31 schools. Which means, of course, that many schools in many of the BCS conferences have yet to land a Top 100 recruit.
For Iowa Hawkeye fans, it is the best recruiting year in program history, as the Hawkeyes have a consensus Top 10 class for the first time ever. Under Captain Kirk Ferentz, the Hawkeyes have finished the last three football seasons ranked #8 in the country, in most cases harvesting fruits that were overlooked or cast off by other programs. Recent Hawkeye stars such as Outland Trophy winner Robert Gallery, all-America safety Bob Sanders, all-America tight end Dallas Clark, and Heisman runner up Brad Banks were all lightly recruited diamonds in the rough who developed into stars through hard work and good coaching. The mantra among commentators the last few seasons has been "if Ferentz can achieve this with the players he has, imagine what he could do with real talent."
It will be interesting to see what happens with the Iowa program now that it has entered the big time from a recruiting standpoint. The aforementioned Hawkeyes turned out to be spectacular college football players, among the best at their positions and far better than many who were ranked ahead of them coming out of high school, so clearly high school scouting reports are far from comprehensive. Still, it is clear that the programs like Michigan and Miami that consistently bring in the blue chip players have a year over year advantage over programs that work with the less heralded. The difference between these types of programs and the tiers below usually comes down to depth, and the ability to recover year after year as the inevitable attrition of college eligibility limits takes its toll.
1 Comments:
By 
Scott, at
Wed Feb 02, 06:41:00 PM:
Joe Paterno has had a pretty good recruiting class, unfortunately PSU is years away from rebuilding and JoePa ain't going anywhere.
I liked the team the Hawkeyes fielded last year and predict that they will win the Big Ten this year. The toughest thing about the Big Ten is it's tough to come out of leaugue play undefeated and with the sorry state of the BCS they won't play for the championship.
