Why would we take a 3 star over a 4, especially if the 4 is from Chicago? I thought my post was quite clear, TALENT. Don't care if they come from Australia or Champaign
The reason I asked that question (which was immediately followed by a post with data to support my question) was that if "TALENT" is the criteria, for the past 6 years UoI has pulled a grand total of 11 kids from the state of IL. If we were to deal with just the top 20 kids from the state of IL that would be 11 out of 120 kids (including all *s). Less than 10%. If we were to categorize them by stars, from the state of IL we signed 1 / 36 4+5* and 10 / 84 3*.
In the same period, UoI signed (from all other states) 69 kids (3* and above).
Lovie, in yesterday's presser, mentioned UoI offered 19 2020 IL kids, none came (I think he meant UoI offered 20 and 1 committed, not signed as yet)
Coming back to 2020 (just data folks) our best recruiter would have been the 4th best recruiter at MN (for 2020).
Every B10 West team got a higher ranking kid than our highest raking kid (who has yet to sign with us). Our highest raking kid would be the 7th best at 2020 NB.
Here are the numbers for 2020 for
average rankings (from 247) (can provide URL, do not have it handy right now). These DO NOT have JC or transfers (I do not know how to rank JS/transfers):
NB: 590 (18 kids: signed and hard commits)
NW: 828 (17)
WI: 863 (19)
IA: 877 (22)
MN: 940 (26)
IL: 1013 (13) (comment by Robert in his rant article has this at 888. I think he included JC, which I did not)
IF I were to equalize the numbers for 13 players, the numbers would be rather *?#@ for UoI. The data shows we are not in the ballpark.
I have yet to gather and make sense of some numbers, BUT, I think what helped UoI last season are the portal kids. And, had we had the kids on the injury list we would have performed even better.
However, I do NOT think the past season's record can be replicated with consistency. UoI is hitting a very common ceiling that we see in any business. Has UoI improved? Absolutely - no two ways about it. Can it continue on this trajectory: I do not think so, the returns always diminish. As a result, after a certain point, no matter what UoI does they will not improve. (They may improve relative to themselves, but not other teams.)
UNLESS?
IMHO, based on data I have collected, UoI needs to absolutely upgrade the recruiters and at some point in time the coaches. Given that the two positions are the same better to get hold of great coaches that can recruit at a very high level. In short pay more (there is data out there that provides ranking as recruiters and pay).
Meanwhile, depend very heavily on the portal. That is what saved us this past year.
Again, these are just data points (collected it at 2 AM, so apologies if there are any mis-computations). Nothing more, nothing less. We do this type of analysis every day on the commercial (and the defense) side. However, I will admit that we take a lot more care than I have taken here, before publishing (this is the internet
).
Comments?