Topic: Top Recruiters vs Top Evaluators

[HerdEcon]

Huff and Doc were both top recruiters.  It hasn't equated to championships.  Some programs value top evaluators over top recruiters.  There has to be a balance, championships aren't won by recruiters that can't evaluate or evaluators that can't recruit. Big difference recruiting at Alabama, Penn State, or Florida where recruits are evaluated and vetted before their names are sent to the recruiters vs recruiting at G5 schools where coaches have to be good at both.

https://footballscoop.com/news/kent-states-kenni-burns-i-dont-want-my-coaches-to-be-the-best-recruiters

[MicDrass1]

Evaluating and recruiting to your system.  No star rankings needed. 

[Johnnyherd]

This is a fascinating thread, thank you Econ.  I appreciate guys that take time to start these types of conversations, they are a welcome reprieve from all the simple minded, bitching and moaning.

My first thoughts are that the guy saying making these claims, the coach, his record was 1 -11. 

I certainly do agree that for a G5 school to thrive. The coaching staff are going to have to make sound evaluations of skill and talent and potential.

We cannot just follow the star rankings, we are out gunned by the P5.  So we have to evaluate talent and find unrecognized talent. 

we have to have scouts that are particularly talented in an evaluating athletes potential.

One thing that always fascinated me and I?m not a big duck holiday fan, but the recruiting and the starting of Rakim Cato.

He was 140 pounds when he showed up to campus and they put him as a starter and I just Nothing about that, looked like it, made any sense but it turned out to be a really good thing.

 Coach Huff stated that he wants a certain size for every position, but I think that?s definitely shortsighted because there are tremendous athletes that are overlooked because they don?t exactly fit the bill and the standard shouldn?t be a certain height or a certain weight it should be, can you play well or not?

[banker]

The analogy I used for Doc, and one that applies to Huff:

I am a great grocery shopper. I go to the same store, know where everything is and get in and out in no time. However, I?m horrible at putting together a shopping list. If my wife does the list we end up with everything we need. If I do the list we end up eating cereal for dinner by Thursday.

Doc and Huff are shoppers, not list makers.

[carolinaherdfan]

The analogy I used for Doc, and one that applies to Huff:

I am a great grocery shopper. I go to the same store, know where everything is and get in and out in no time. However, I?m horrible at putting together a shopping list. If my wife does the list we end up with everything we need. If I do the list we end up eating cereal for dinner by Thursday.

Doc and Huff are shoppers, not list makers.

Lot of substance here...

[BigJimslade]

This is a fascinating thread, thank you Econ.  I appreciate guys that take time to start these types of conversations, they are a welcome reprieve from all the simple minded, bitching and moaning.

My first thoughts are that the guy saying making these claims, the coach, his record was 1 -11. 

I certainly do agree that for a G5 school to thrive. The coaching staff are going to have to make sound evaluations of skill and talent and potential.

We cannot just follow the star rankings, we are out gunned by the P5.  So we have to evaluate talent and find unrecognized talent. 

we have to have scouts that are particularly talented in an evaluating athletes potential.

One thing that always fascinated me and I?m not a big duck holiday fan, but the recruiting and the starting of Rakim Cato.

He was 140 pounds when he showed up to campus and they put him as a starter and I just Nothing about that, looked like it, made any sense but it turned out to be a really good thing.

 Coach Huff stated that he wants a certain size for every position, but I think that?s definitely shortsighted because there are tremendous athletes that are overlooked because they don?t exactly fit the bill and the standard shouldn?t be a certain height or a certain weight it should be, can you play well or not?


Great post but it?s Rakeem

[Johnnyherd]

Um it is Rakim and in case you were not aware his coach was duck Holiday.

I used text to speech.  The correction police are going to have a field day with me.  I try to edit them, but I travel constantly for work and sometimes I don?t have downtime.

Most of the time when people publicly correct you they are just saying, I?m smarter than you.  Weirdly I like making people feel smart.

[THECHAMPISHERE]

I'm not sure if I really understand the difference (even with the creative analogies). Truly great recruiters have to be great evaluators (of talent), that's ultimately what makes them a great recruiter. The problem is Doc was never really a great recruiter. That's what some journalist said one time and we all ran with it...but again it's not hard to get good talent at a school where you can do nothing but get good talent. Just imagine how well WVU, NC State, and Florida COULD have done if Doc WAS a great recruiter. Huff so far has proven to be just as bad.

If Doc recruited at NC State...then in year 4 of helping them recruit they went 5-6. After 3 years at Florida (WITH URBAN MEYER), Florida regressed to 9-4. He was only at wvu 2 years the second time around (before Marshall) so I doubt many of the guys he recruited even played that much while he was there. Bill Stewart ended up getting fired the year after he comes to Marshall after lil ole Marshall almost beats the players Doc recruited. So I don't get it...how was he ever a great recruiter? He wasn't here...he himself didn't really move the needle even at the P5's. Is it because he landed 1 or 2 top guys at one of those places? At those schools I would argue that any warm body wouldn't have done worse.

[Johnnyherd]

I?m by no means an expert on this field, but I?ll give you my thoughts.

You have to find them first before you can wine and dine them.

I think recruiters are salesman and they convince young men to go to their school.

I think it evaluators do a very succinct job of looking at an athlete and determining their ability to play or their potential to play.

In the NFL there is no recruiting. There is simply evaluating players potential ability to play in the organization.  Head coaches do no recruiting, they work with a player / personnel director to build a team and every year there are major personnel changes.

It could just be semantics, recruiting should encompass evaluating, but I think you could separate the two and a coach could be good at one and not good at the other.

If we think of other levels of college football, the FCS level, the D3 level, They don?t get three star four star recruits, but they find good players.  They have to be good at finding players without strictly following the scouting services.

We?ve had a couple players from lower divisions come up and be good players. Lance Guidry brought that one secondary player. I forget his name he end up playing for one year and then left for Miami or LSU.  He Was a heck of a player.  How did those coaches find those guys?  They have to evaluating high school teams or in contact with scouts that evaluate.

On a separate subject, I was thinking about the players we?ve had that have been undersized and I think some of the most impactful we?re obviously Tommy Schuler, even Rakeem Cato, John Grace, Will Edwards and even Troy Brown was undersized and ended up being superstars and most Marshall Hall of Famers.

Just going off my memory, but I remember John Grace to be one of the most amazing linebackers we?ve ever had and I think his size limited his looks in the NFL but he went to the Canadian football league and end up being the most valuable player so I think that definitely validated his ability to play football.

Then the other pieces to assembling talent is player development and now more than ever getting rid of players that don?t have it and making room to find those that can play and contribute.

I heard Jim Tressell say as OSU HC, I?m paraphrasing Every player I recruit, will play for me, I never recruit a player that I do not believe in.   Im sure there?s a little salesmanship BS in that statement and it?s very simple, but I believe it?s a good fundamental principle.

[herdfan93]

I?m by no means an expert on this field, but I?ll give you my thoughts.

You have to find them first before you can wine and dine them.

I think recruiters are salesman and they convince young men to go to their school.

I think it evaluators do a very succinct job of looking at an athlete and determining their ability to play or their potential to play.

In the NFL there is no recruiting. There is simply evaluating players potential ability to play in the organization. d coa Heaches do no recruiting, they work with a player / personnel director to build a team and every year there are major personnel changes.

It could just be semantics, recruiting should encompass evaluating, but I think you could separate the two and a coach could be good at one and not good at the other.

If we think of other levels of college football, the FCS level, the D3 level, They don?t get three star four star recruits, but they find good players.  They have to be good at finding players without strictly following the scouting services.

We?ve had a couple players from lower divisions come up and be good players. Lance Guidry brought that one secondary player. I forget his name he end up playing for one year and then left for Miami or LSU.  He Was a heck of a player.  How did those coaches find those guys?  They have to evaluating high school teams or in contact with scouts that evaluate.

On a separate subject, I was thinking about the players we?ve had that have been undersized and I think some of the most impactful we?re obviously Tommy Schuler, even Rakeem Cato, John Grace, Will Edwards and even Troy Brown was undersized and ended up being superstars and most Marshall Hall of Famers.

Just going off my memory, but I remember John Grace to be one of the most amazing linebackers we?ve ever had and I think his size limited his looks in the NFL but he went to the Canadian football league and end up being the most valuable player so I think that definitely validated his ability to play football.

Then the other pieces to assembling talent is player development and now more than ever getting rid of players that don?t have it and making room to find those that can play and contribute.

I heard Jim Tressell say as OSU HC, I?m paraphrasing Every player I recruit, will play for me, I never recruit a player that I do not believe in.   Im sure there?s a little salesmanship BS in that statement and it?s very simple, but I believe it?s a good fundamental principle.

Some NBA HC's don't evaluate talent either.  Believe it or not DD evaluated talent for MD as per MD.

The player that transferred out to LSU was Andre Sam I believe.

[banker]

Evaluating and recruiting are two opposite sides of the coin.

An example would be something like a large pharmaceutical company pitching a big deal to a hospital chain. You have an analytics team that works up a proposal that is good for the company and then you have a sales guy that has to go out and get the hospital to take the deal. The sales guy understands what goes into the presentation, but his real job is just to listen and overcome objections to get the deal closed, often he?ll bring an analyst with him to cover specific technical aspects.

Doc wasn?t the guy who went to the head coach and said ?these are the players we need?, he was the guy that went and sold the players he was assigned to.  Now a coach like Doc or Huff most likely contribute names to the list. For example I?m sure Huff would put together a list of running backs, but then he sits down with the staff, then the OC and finally the HC to rank those recruits. 

At the schools he has coached at everyone on that list would have obvious high level measurables and talent that was widely recognized and documented. You don?t usually have those options at Marshall. You have to go find severely underrated players. Guys that likely miss on measurable, but make up for it with brains, heart or attitude.  We are not going to sign a 4-star, 6-5, 220 rocket arm QB that can make all the throws, has great football mind, that tore it up in HS and won 2 state championships. We are able to get the 5-10, 160 guy that has a great football mind, can make all the throws and has a huge chip on his shoulder or the 6-5 200 guy everybody else thinks is more suited to be a TE.

Huff needs to get away from trying to recruit how Alabama or Penn State recruit.

[HerdEcon]

Has NIL made hiring the best recruiters obsolete? 

Hire the best evaluators.  Recruiting comes down to who will pay the most NIL money. 

[Johnnyherd]

Disregard