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Relationship between team level recruiting, coaching and Winning %

Hmmm...the points you guys are making, and the focus of this conversation has prompted me to wonder about 2 points:

1. What do the "good" coaches lose in terms of attrition between arrival on campus and graduation for student athletes? What's "normal" and how far off the pace are we? (and how much might this play into overall success of a coach? Is Nick Saban significantly better at keeping players than most coaches? if so, how much of it is due to Saban...and how much is due to the institutions he coaches for? Do less people leave Alabama because it's Alabama? Or is it even true that less athletes leave? Maybe an equal amount do, but they are just so deep talent-wise that we don't really notice?)

2. How many games a good coach can give you per year with the same team an average coach coaches (and how many a bad coach loses with that same team). So...take last year's CU squad...give it to one of the agknowledged best coaches in the game (forget recruiting...just hand them last year's talent) how many more games does Saban or Meyer win with that squad? How many games is a coach worth in terms of the coaching aspects MINUS recruiting (schemes, coaching them up on details in practice, motivation, etc.)?
I ask that because assuming Embree was a BAD coach (sorry Jon...I still love ya...) did he lose us 2 or 3 we could have won with an average coach? (if so, we are 3-9 or 4-8) and if a GOOD coach could give us another 1 or 2 more (then we are 5-7 or 6-6) that CERTAINLY gets you on the road to landing better recruits which begins to solve the talent deficit over time...doesn't it?

Not making any claims here...just thinking out loud based on some ideas this conversation has prompted. Not sure this is even correct....just ruminating on it a bit as I sit here...
 
Lawdogg captured some of what I wanted to say, but more than anything, I guess I am just uneasy with this idea that changing coaches from last season solves most of our issues. I would to believe that crappy coaching mostly explains last season, but I cannot. I would love to sit here and treat sports purely as a science, with recruiting rankings and on-field play should exactly line up. I love numbers as much as the next guy, but let's not ignore what we actually watched in person and on TV last season. I am guessing the numbers show we should be "close" to the other bottom barrel PAC-12 teams and that we should have had overwhelming talent advantage over teams like CSU and Sacramento State, but what did your eyes tell you? I saw plenty of terrible coaching, but I also saw a lot of pretty decent players on those "inferior" teams that could have played a lot of snaps for us last season. I find it very difficult to believe that is all on coaching.

Which brings us back to recruiting, attrition, etc. Recruiting rankings do matter, but when you are recruiting at the level we mostly have over the last five years, the correlation is likely not as strong. Attrition does not hurt teams nearly as bad if they are recruiting in the top 30-35 because there is some actual depth in those classes. If you are recruiting back in the 60s, losing even 3-4 good players out of a class is much more crippling because the overall depth of the class is non-existent. You have enough attrition over several classes and suddenly your classes do not look very different from "inferior" teams. Add in stringent JUCO standards that prevent filling roster holes at a quicker pace and now you are not only a team with questionable talent/depth, but you are a young team too. If anything, I might take more issue with the 2011 offense being so bad moreso than 2012.
 
1989Buff said:
Hmmm...the points you guys are making, and the focus of this conversation has prompted me to wonder about 2 points:

1. What do the "good" coaches lose in terms of attrition between arrival on campus and graduation for student athletes? What's "normal" and how far off the pace are we? (and how much might this play into overall success of a coach? Is Nick Saban significantly better at keeping players than most coaches? if so, how much of it is due to Saban...and how much is due to the institutions he coaches for? Do less people leave Alabama because it's Alabama? Or is it even true that less athletes leave? Maybe an equal amount do, but they are just so deep talent-wise that we don't really notice?)

2. How many games a good coach can give you per year with the same team an average coach coaches (and how many a bad coach loses with that same team). So...take last year's CU squad...give it to one of the agknowledged best coaches in the game (forget recruiting...just hand them last year's talent) how many more games does Saban or Meyer win with that squad? How many games is a coach worth in terms of the coaching aspects MINUS recruiting (schemes, coaching them up on details in practice, motivation, etc.)?
I ask that because assuming Embree was a BAD coach (sorry Jon...I still love ya...) did he lose us 2 or 3 we could have won with an average coach? (if so, we are 3-9 or 4-8) and if a GOOD coach could give us another 1 or 2 more (then we are 5-7 or 6-6) that CERTAINLY gets you on the road to landing better recruits which begins to solve the talent deficit over time...doesn't it?

Not making any claims here...just thinking out loud based on some ideas this conversation has prompted. Not sure this is even correct....just ruminating on it a bit as I sit here...
Click to expand...

Have no way to prove this but I think good coaching vs. average to poor coaching can get you 2-3 games a year. As I pointed out eariler those 2-3 wins can translate into better recruiting and more motivated players so in the long term they can mean a lot more.

In terms of attrition, and again I can't give you specific numbers, the better coaches do have significantly less attrition. This is due to a number of factors. One of these is that better coaches also tend to be better evaluators of kids, they make better judgements about which kids are likely to be able to handle being part of a major college football program. Secondly well coached teams that are winning more games have more selection of players to choose from, it is easier to turn down a risky kid when you have another kid who is much lower risk who also has similar talent instead of being a major step down. Thirdly teams that lose, especially that lose because of bad coaching tend to have a lot more frustrated guys who are more likely to just decide to leave. Well coached teams generally have a more solid relationship with the coaches who are then able to motivate kids who are on the edge to take care of business and stay.
 
Duff,

If I read what you are saying correctly I agree with you. Just having better coaching isn't going to suddenly solve all our problems and make us respectable. Based on what I saw last year we could be a much better team this year than last and still be one of the worst BCS conference teams in the country.

For this program to turn around there is no magic fix. We have to coach better, we have to recruit much better, we have to retain the guality players we do recruit.

There are no secret shortcuts. You can improve your team with better coaching and schemes but other teams with better talent also have access to those same schemes and to good coaching. The idea that you can find a class full of under the radar kids or high effort kids or whaterver other excuse you want to use for taking kids who aren't highly rated has been shown to be a losing approach. In the age of the internet there just aren't that many kids who manage to get missed by other schools and if those schools are passing on a kid it isn't because they are all stupid.

The recruiting services themselves I don't buy as evaluators of talent. They just don't have the resources to look at every kid and if they were that good at judging who is going to be good or bad don't you think that Texas or ND or an SEC school would come up the money to hire them away from the service. What they do well though is look at a kid based on what other schools are offering the kid and I have no trouble making a direct correlation between number and quality of offers and probability of success. In short we have to figure out how to get kids in Boulder that other schools want playing for them and we have to get them in significant numbers.

Then when you have quality players you have to keep them and coach them up. At that point you can expect to have a competitive program.

There are no shortcuts, there are no magic coaching plans, there is no secret source of talent. To think otherwise is ignoring the reality of what our eyes tell us every season and what the scoreboards tell us every season.
 
boydbuff said:
We are having a debate in another thread about the relative importance of aggregate team level recruiting and winning percentages of major college football programs.

We have (maybe just I have) gone overboard with the debate, as we usually do when it comes to recruiting rankings. I have gone out and found published academic research on the topic. The results suggest that there is in fact (surprise surprise) a strong correlation to team recruiting rankings and winning %.


The quote is from a 2010 paper entitled:prediction Vs. Production and is written by Jamie McNeilly

Another guy ran a similar analysis and found a strong correlation b/w team recruiting rankings and wining %.
View attachment 12230

My argument is that there is an important statistical correlation b/w recruiting rankings (at a team level more than individual level) and that when a team does much better or much worse than their recruiting rankings suggest, that the most likely factor is the quality of the coaching staff (something much harder to measure with data of course).

Thus, I strongly believe that our team aggregate rankings over the past several years which is in between 50+ and 60+ would suggest that with adequate coaching we should have been around 60 in the nation last year and not 124th.

Because HCMM has done the opposite of Embree-achieved winning % above what his recruiting numbers would suggest, that he and his crew are in fact a good coaches capable of altering the outcome of a few games a year at least.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

That is a HUGE assumption. There are so many factors that to point to coaching as the only relevant factor is folly in my opinion. I think you have to evaluate recruiting rankings and winning percentage in the of your competitive peers. If my recruiting is ranked 60th and I am in the MWC that is not too bad because that means I am at the top of my conference, but if I am ranked 60th and in the PAC12 that is very bad because I am in the bottom of my conference. I will give you a factor that probably has as much impact as coaching - having a difference maker emerge at the QB position. MacIntyre improved at SJSU when he got a QB into the program. The same thing happens with other programs - a good QB can cover a lot of deficiencies. Remember MacIntyre went 1-12 in his first year at SJSU losing to UC-Davis which they should of had more talent than and barely beating Southern Utah (both of these are not Div 1 teams). So MacIntyre was unable to outcoach many others in his first year at SJSU.

Remember that SJSU recruiting was usually in the upper part of the WAC conference.

Duff Man said:
Lawdogg captured some of what I wanted to say, but more than anything, I guess I am just uneasy with this idea that changing coaches from last season solves most of our issues. I would to believe that crappy coaching mostly explains last season, but I cannot. I would love to sit here and treat sports purely as a science, with recruiting rankings and on-field play should exactly line up. I love numbers as much as the next guy, but let's not ignore what we actually watched in person and on TV last season. I am guessing the numbers show we should be "close" to the other bottom barrel PAC-12 teams and that we should have had overwhelming talent advantage over teams like CSU and Sacramento State, but what did your eyes tell you? I saw plenty of terrible coaching, but I also saw a lot of pretty decent players on those "inferior" teams that could have played a lot of snaps for us last season. I find it very difficult to believe that is all on coaching.

Which brings us back to recruiting, attrition, etc. Recruiting rankings do matter, but when you are recruiting at the level we mostly have over the last five years, the correlation is likely not as strong. Attrition does not hurt teams nearly as bad if they are recruiting in the top 30-35 because there is some actual depth in those classes. If you are recruiting back in the 60s, losing even 3-4 good players out of a class is much more crippling because the overall depth of the class is non-existent. You have enough attrition over several classes and suddenly your classes do not look very different from "inferior" teams. Add in stringent JUCO standards that prevent filling roster holes at a quicker pace and now you are not only a team with questionable talent/depth, but you are a young team too. If anything, I might take more issue with the 2011 offense being so bad moreso than 2012.
Click to expand...

Duff, I am trying to understand your point in that statement. I overall agree with you that thinking everything is fixed just because we have a new staff is most likely wishful thinking. I do believe an attribute of good coaches is to not leave wins on the field. Over the last 7 years that has happened too often to CU - over the course of Embree's career at CU he left 5 wins on the field in my opinion...Cal and WSU in 2011, CSU, Sac St and Utah in 2012. The better coaches do not allow that to happen very often.
 
MtnBuff said:
For this program to turn around there is no magic fix.
There are no secret shortcuts.
There are no shortcuts, there are no magic coaching plans, there is no secret source of talent.
Click to expand...

If the shortcuts are, in fact, secret, how do you know there aren't any secret shortcuts? They're secret.

:lol:
 
I am not saying aggregate recruiting rankings is the only variable which predicts winning % just saying it is the most important variable, i.e. represents the highest correlation of all possible variables with winning %. The academic research which I went out to find after starting this debate, supports my argument.

Yes there are other important variables such as strength of schedule, but they are not as highly correlated, and in fact most academic models I uncovered support that some form of metric on coaching, such as ability to coach up their talent are only behind aggregate recruiting rankings as most important predictors of winning %.

In sum, my argument is recruiting rankings plus quality of coaching staff trump everything else as most important. And when there is a major deviation between aggregate recruiting rankings and winning %, the most likely explanation is the quality of coaching (ability to coach up, ability to motivate, ability to implement schemes that complement the abilities of their athletes, ability to make game-time adjustments, ability to inspire the fan base...)
 
boydbuff said:
Thanks for simplifying my point and making it obvious that my geeked out analysis makes obvious sense.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I couldn't resist - you did a lot of research and made some posts that even Mtn would think were a little long winded that lead you to the conclusion that recruiting and coaching are important to winning. I had to chuckle, just busting your balls.
 
boydbuff said:
I am not saying aggregate recruiting rankings is the only variable which predicts winning % just saying it is the most important variable, i.e. represents the highest correlation of all possible variables with winning %. The academic research which I went out to find after starting this debate, supports my argument.
Click to expand...

Your argument is that recruiting better usually means more wins? I left for vacation on Wednesday and that is most definitely not what you were arguing.

In sum,

66051-Sarah-Michelle-Geller-angry-gi-NxaQ.gif
 
boydbuff said:
I am not saying aggregate recruiting rankings is the only variable which predicts winning % just saying it is the most important variable, i.e. represents the highest correlation of all possible variables with winning %. The academic research which I went out to find after starting this debate, supports my argument.

Yes there are other important variables such as strength of schedule, but they are not as highly correlated, and in fact most academic models I uncovered support that some form of metric on coaching, such as ability to coach up their talent are only behind aggregate recruiting rankings as most important predictors of winning %.

In sum, my argument is recruiting rankings plus quality of coaching staff trump everything else as most important. And when there is a major deviation between aggregate recruiting rankings and winning %, the most likely explanation is the quality of coaching (ability to coach up, ability to motivate, ability to implement schemes that complement the abilities of their athletes, ability to make game-time adjustments, ability to inspire the fan base...)
Click to expand...


Please present these academic models that show some form of metric on coaching...I really want to see how they modeled "coaching up players".

And what are aggregate recruiting rankings?
 
I would say that "coaching up" players is seen when you perform better than your recruiting ranking says you should. If you have a team in the 60's who plays in the 40's, then they've been coached up. Obviously, there are variables that impact that such as strength of schedule, injuries, etc. It's a generalization.

I don't think Boyd is trying to make the claim that a coaching change "solves all of our problems".
 
I am kind of surprised this thread has created as much debate as it has. I was arguing the following:
1.) Aggregate team recruiting rankings (i.e. taking an average of recruiting class rankings for a rolling 3-4 year period) is the best predictor of winning % (prior links I have posted from academic research support this claim, repeatedly). Not sure why anyone on AB would argue that.
2.) When a team's aggregate recruiting rankings do not have a strong correlation to their winning % or final ranking in the polls, that the most important variable is quality of the coaching staff. That is, in some cases, coaches are able (through scheme, coaching up players, charisma, whatever) get more out of their players than their skill level suggests-leading to a better winning % than their aggregate rankings would suggest. The same is true in the reverse when coaches are in over their head and do not get the best out of their players resulting in winning % below aggregate team rankings

Truthfully as Sinkratz said, this is not rocket science. Who really wants to argue that a.) quality of recruiting is not incredibly important to W/Ls; b.) coaches are not important contributors to the success of a team

Anyone, anyone, Bueller?

Sure there are other variables like strength of schedule and attrition, etc. which contribute to the final W/L but they are not nearly as important as recruiting quality and coaching quality in predicting W/L. This was my own theory-which is not difficult to come to, and it is supported by the academic research I linked into this thread earlier (including one that had a proxy for coaching up players).
 
Niks post was spot on....60 ranked class is great for the WAC, not so good for the PAC. But we have much, much better coaches. That should let us win fomr 3 to 5 games this year. If they can pull 6 wins and go to a bowl game, they are ****in' superstars. Either way, it should mean better ranked classes next year. I think they have to work at the more sure, slow improvement, building block kids now, and hope that the occasional 4 star skill player pops in here and there. A few of them can change a class from ok to good in a hurry.
 
BuffUp said:
in agreement here, Big Time
Click to expand...
Me too-and this is consistent with my argument: higher ranked classes usually lead to more wins but when bad coaching is inserted into a prediction model, the wining % is going to drop below what recruiting rankings would suggest. Embree was an example, I think Kiffin is an example, look at their preseason rankings last year and where they finished and look at the ranking of their last recruiting classes.

Bad coaches can make good recruits look bad and good coaches can make average recruits look good.
 
MtnBuff said:
If M2 and staff can impove that record by say 3 wins and end up 4-8 it will still not put us in the running for elite talent but at least we will be able to get more of the middle level kids to look at us.
Click to expand...

Why is winning one conference game and 3 OOC games acceptable to so many people on this board? I think we could have gone 4-8 the last two years with the talent we have. I think we all know why we didn't.

4-8 is a failure in my eyes this year. I don't think many recruits will see this record as a positive. It is a move in the right direction, but is it really attractive to recruits? I doubt it.

I hope that we win all OOC games and sneak out wins vs Utah, Cal and UA. These are tangible results for recruiting. We need to beat these teams on the field and then we will start beating them for 3/4* players.

The next tier of success would include beating ASU, UW and UCLA then of course the ultimate goal would be competing with USC and UO.

I like the recruits that MM is getting right now considering how terrible we were last year.
 
HUFset said:
Why is winning one conference game and 3 OOC games acceptable to so many people on this board? I think we could have gone 4-8 the last two years with the talent we have. I think we all know why we didn't.

4-8 is a failure in my eyes this year. I don't think many recruits will see this record as a positive. It is a move in the right direction, but is it really attractive to recruits? I doubt it.

I hope that we win all OOC games and sneak out wins vs Utah, Cal and UA. These are tangible results for recruiting. We need to beat these teams on the field and then we will start beating them for 3/4* players.

The next tier of success would include beating ASU, UW and UCLA then of course the ultimate goal would be competing with USC and UO.

I like the recruits that MM is getting right now considering how terrible we were last year.
Click to expand...

Because our team really, really sucks, and our schedule is really hard.
 
HUFset said:
Why is winning one conference game and 3 OOC games acceptable to so many people on this board? I think we could have gone 4-8 the last two years with the talent we have. I think we all know why we didn't.

4-8 is a failure in my eyes this year. I don't think many recruits will see this record as a positive. It is a move in the right direction, but is it really attractive to recruits? I doubt it.

I hope that we win all OOC games and sneak out wins vs Utah, Cal and UA. These are tangible results for recruiting. We need to beat these teams on the field and then we will start beating them for 3/4* players.

The next tier of success would include beating ASU, UW and UCLA then of course the ultimate goal would be competing with USC and UO.

I like the recruits that MM is getting right now considering how terrible we were last year.
Click to expand...
Yes because it shows progress and that the team under performed last year. 4-8 would be a successful year, all things considered. Go 4-8 this year then 6-6 the next and we will be in the thick of it for 4*'s and maybe a 5*.
 
HUFset said:
Why is winning one conference game and 3 OOC games acceptable to so many people on this board?
Click to expand...

Because it's unrealistic to expect anything better at this point. We have fallen a long, long way.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 
Why is winning 4 games acceptable.

Because we are small, slow, weak, and lacking in skills. Offensively we have very few players who are able run over, around, or by the players we will be facing. Defensively our guys will get run over, around and by on a regular basis.

At least 8 teams on our schedule have significantly better talent than we do, Fresno is arguable, Utah is about even with us. We have better talent than CSU (only because they really, really suck) and even Central Arkansas will probably have a few players who are better than ours.

I don't like 4 wins, I don't want to be a fan of a team that consistently wins 4 games, but from where we have been 4 wins will mean that we are winning the games we should be winning.

To recruits 1-11 is embarassing, especially the manner that most of the 11 were lost. Winning 4 games and being more competitive in our losses will give the staff something tangible to talk about. I also think the influence of the kids already on the team in recruiting in understated. A one win team exudes losing, it's not much fun to be on a team that is a joke.

Win four games and the guys who went through 1-11 will have a different attitude, they will be able to have a positive outlook, hold their heads up. That change in attitude will be translated to the HS kids who visit the progam, who know the current players from HS or from camps, etc.
 
I get not being excited with a 4-8 season, but labeling it a failure is going overboard IMO.
 
J.R. Ewing said:
How do you figure?
Click to expand...
You've got CSU and Sacramento State that should have been wins with decent coaching and of course WSU and then there was Utah. In the Utah game we had a 28-20 lead heading into the 4th and that kick return was the pivotal moment in the game that swong the momentum in Utah's favor. So either 3-9 or 4-8 is what I believe the record should have been last year seeing as how we blew 3 decent sized leads last season.
 
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