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State of Modern Recruiting (My Two Cents)

vinniew_11

Well-Known Member
I have always been interested in college football and in particular, recruiting. CU/CSU/Air Force are teams that I do follow as they are local teams with CU always being my first. In today’s modern recruiting the state of Colorado is actually at a disadvantage and I will give examples if you bear with me.

This year the State of Colorado pumped out approx 23 Division 1 football players and approx another 30+ to FBS schools. Not all those 23 kids went to BCS schools as well. On the other hand, the State of California has SJSU, SDSU, USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Fresno State at the Division 1 school level with a pick of hundreds of Division 1 level players and they can, for the most part, focus on those top level kids. It is easier to keep those top level players in state. CU then has to come in and make a compelling case to pull kids across three state lines. This is the same for recruiting in Texas. They have a lot to offer up there in Boulder, but sometimes, kids just don’t want to leave home.

Another example: The University of Virginia. They hire Mike London whom is a HS coaching god in the Virginia Beach area. Thus, they keep a lot of the high level talent in the Virginia/DC area (of which a lot of the top 100 talent is located) and they don’t have to venture out of state lines much to get guys. This year, they had a 2-10 record. This current recruiting cycle? Top 25. Year before 4-8 and a overall 4 year record of 16-21. So what has recruiting all these 4* - 5* level guys have gotten London? On the hot seat because he just isn’t a good coach and have assembled a pretty poor staff (Steve Fairchild anyone?). Proof that being an ace recruiter means nada if you can’t coach.

The approach I have seen Coach Mac take is to take kids whom are athletic, smart, and not without a small chip on their shoulder (and whom are actually good football players). He is taking guys who he knows will, in all likely hood, stay for 4 years. Thus, after two-three classes, he has depth to take a chance on a guy whom might have a red flag and may burn out after a year or two. If they do, he has depth to back it up. At this moment, we are paper thin. Where Mike excels is in coaching up IMHO.

Where is this all going you may be asking? CU has several recruiting obstacles that need to be overcome. Yes, the reputation of the program is a big one. Location is another. A HS population that is full of transient kids from other states. Recruiting against some closer geographical schools. Being in an area where there just isn’t as many highest level HS football players (including CO, WY, NM). Mac needs to show kids that he can coach them to be better players. That CU is a desirable place to be. Good facilities are on the way. Tough, close games against the Pac 12 teams will help out a lot. Win against teams they should beat and sneak in a few wins where they were not is the key to turning the ship around up in Boulder.

Go Buffs!
 
vinniew_11 said:
I have always been interested in college football and in particular, recruiting. CU/CSU/Air Force are teams that I do follow as they are local teams with CU always being my first. In today’s modern recruiting the state of Colorado is actually at a disadvantage and I will give examples if you bear with me.

This year the State of Colorado pumped out approx 23 Division 1 football players and approx another 30+ to FBS schools. Not all those 23 kids went to BCS schools as well. On the other hand, the State of California has SJSU, SDSU, USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Fresno State at the Division 1 school level with a pick of hundreds of Division 1 level players and they can, for the most part, focus on those top level kids. It is easier to keep those top level players in state. CU then has to come in and make a compelling case to pull kids across three state lines. This is the same for recruiting in Texas. They have a lot to offer up there in Boulder, but sometimes, kids just don’t want to leave home.

Another example: The University of Virginia. They hire Mike London whom is a HS coaching god in the Virginia Beach area. Thus, they keep a lot of the high level talent in the Virginia/DC area (of which a lot of the top 100 talent is located) and they don’t have to venture out of state lines much to get guys. This year, they had a 2-10 record. This current recruiting cycle? Top 25. Year before 4-8 and a overall 4 year record of 16-21. So what has recruiting all these 4* - 5* level guys have gotten London? On the hot seat because he just isn’t a good coach and have assembled a pretty poor staff (Steve Fairchild anyone?). Proof that being an ace recruiter means nada if you can’t coach.

The approach I have seen Coach Mac take is to take kids whom are athletic, smart, and not without a small chip on their shoulder (and whom are actually good football players). He is taking guys who he knows will, in all likely hood, stay for 4 years. Thus, after two-three classes, he has depth to take a chance on a guy whom might have a red flag and may burn out after a year or two. If they do, he has depth to back it up. At this moment, we are paper thin. Where Mike excels is in coaching up IMHO.

Where is this all going you may be asking? CU has several recruiting obstacles that need to be overcome. Yes, the reputation of the program is a big one. Location is another. A HS population that is full of transient kids from other states. Recruiting against some closer geographical schools. Being in an area where there just isn’t as many highest level HS football players (including CO, WY, NM). Mac needs to show kids that he can coach them to be better players. That CU is a desirable place to be. Good facilities are on the way. Tough, close games against the Pac 12 teams will help out a lot. Win against teams they should beat and sneak in a few wins where they were not is the key to turning the ship around up in Boulder.

Go Buffs!
Click to expand...
"This year the State of Colorado pumped out approx 23 Division 1 football players and approx another 30+ to FBS schools."
I stopped reading after this sentence. Am I missing something?
 
vinniew_11 said:
I have always been interested in college football and in particular, recruiting. CU/CSU/Air Force are teams that I do follow as they are local teams with CU always being my first. In today’s modern recruiting the state of Colorado is actually at a disadvantage and I will give examples if you bear with me.

This year the State of Colorado pumped out approx 23 Division 1 football players and approx another 30+ to FBS schools. Not all those 23 kids went to BCS schools as well. On the other hand, the State of California has SJSU, SDSU, USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Fresno State at the Division 1 school level with a pick of hundreds of Division 1 level players and they can, for the most part, focus on those top level kids. It is easier to keep those top level players in state. CU then has to come in and make a compelling case to pull kids across three state lines. This is the same for recruiting in Texas. They have a lot to offer up there in Boulder, but sometimes, kids just don’t want to leave home.

Another example: The University of Virginia. They hire Mike London whom is a HS coaching god in the Virginia Beach area. Thus, they keep a lot of the high level talent in the Virginia/DC area (of which a lot of the top 100 talent is located) and they don’t have to venture out of state lines much to get guys. This year, they had a 2-10 record. This current recruiting cycle? Top 25. Year before 4-8 and a overall 4 year record of 16-21. So what has recruiting all these 4* - 5* level guys have gotten London? On the hot seat because he just isn’t a good coach and have assembled a pretty poor staff (Steve Fairchild anyone?). Proof that being an ace recruiter means nada if you can’t coach.

The approach I have seen Coach Mac take is to take kids whom are athletic, smart, and not without a small chip on their shoulder (and whom are actually good football players). He is taking guys who he knows will, in all likely hood, stay for 4 years. Thus, after two-three classes, he has depth to take a chance on a guy whom might have a red flag and may burn out after a year or two. If they do, he has depth to back it up. At this moment, we are paper thin. Where Mike excels is in coaching up IMHO.

Where is this all going you may be asking? CU has several recruiting obstacles that need to be overcome. Yes, the reputation of the program is a big one. Location is another. A HS population that is full of transient kids from other states. Recruiting against some closer geographical schools. Being in an area where there just isn’t as many highest level HS football players (including CO, WY, NM). Mac needs to show kids that he can coach them to be better players. That CU is a desirable place to be. Good facilities are on the way. Tough, close games against the Pac 12 teams will help out a lot. Win against teams they should beat and sneak in a few wins where they were not is the key to turning the ship around up in Boulder.

Go Buffs!
Click to expand...

I wouldn't stress too much about not getting the in-state Colorado kids as I played HS football in Colorado and I officiate HS football in Alabama and the difference is so glaring that I would not put much stock in local kids. They may be good athletes but they have not faced that kind of team speed in HS as they face in college whereas kids from the south, Texas, and SoCal face it every Friday night. I know that qualifying kids from the south can be a little more daunting than out west but I'd take a 3 star kid from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama or Georgia before I would sell the farm on a 4 or 5 star from Colorado.
 
patebuff said:
"This year the State of Colorado pumped out approx 23 Division 1 football players and approx another 30+ to FBS schools."
I stopped reading after this sentence. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

If you are not going to even read the rest of the post, why bother responding?
 
BeachBronco said:
I wouldn't stress too much about not getting the in-state Colorado kids as I played HS football in Colorado and I officiate HS football in Alabama and the difference is so glaring that I would not put much stock in local kids. They may be good athletes but they have not faced that kind of team speed in HS as they face in college whereas kids from the south, Texas, and SoCal face it every Friday night. I know that qualifying kids from the south can be a little more daunting than out west but I'd take a 3 star kid from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama or Georgia before I would sell the farm on a 4 or 5 star from Colorado.
Click to expand...

It's not that we are not getting the instate kids, it's that there just isn't that many to get in the first place. We have to go into CA and TX to pull kids. That is the up hill battle. It's not that we have a huge pool of in-state kids to pull from.
 
Why is this more of a disadvantage than it was before the modern era?

CO has a much larger population now than it did before.
DIA is now one of the main hub airports for the nation.
Media growth has made college sports less regional - you can find a way to see every game no matter where you are.
Scholarship limits & general population growth has resulted in a lot more good prospects trickling down from UT, USC, etc.

On the negative side, it's harder for CU to get high school kids to its camps or to come on unofficial visits. Those are more important than ever and CU is at a disadvantage there.

But on balance, recruiting to CU is better-positioned than it ever has been.
 
Buffnik said:
Why is this more of a disadvantage than it was before the modern era?

CO has a much larger population now than it did before.
DIA is now one of the main hub airports for the nation.
Media growth has made college sports less regional - you can find a way to see every game no matter where you are.
Scholarship limits & general population growth has resulted in a lot more good prospects trickling down from UT, USC, etc.

On the negative side, it's harder for CU to get high school kids to its camps or to come on unofficial visits. Those are more important than ever and CU is at a disadvantage there.

But on balance, recruiting to CU is better-positioned than it ever has been.
Click to expand...

IMHO, it comes down to the modern, 24 hours news sports cycle. A kid can search CU football and get 17,000 hits in less than .7 seconds. And lately, most of what they read is bad. Back in the 80's and early 90's, a guy like Coach Mac can sell CU and his vision. Today, it's a lot harder as kids can see so much stuff (good and bad) about CU.

I agree that we have grown in population, but we still aren't producing the talent level of someone like the Virginia Beach area where London can recruit a top 25 team WITHOUT the results on the field.
 
The transient nature of our population in Colorado means that we can't take for granted that a kid playing HS ball in Colorado is actually loyal or interested in Colorado (CU) football. It sucks that we see so many of the top rated kids leave the state, but they aren't all ours to lose either.
 
vinniew_11 said:
IMHO, it comes down to the modern, 24 hours news sports cycle. A kid can search CU football and get 17,000 hits in less than .7 seconds. And lately, most of what they read is bad. Back in the 80's and early 90's, a guy like Coach Mac can sell CU and his vision. Today, it's a lot harder as kids can see so much stuff (good and bad) about CU.

I agree that we have grown in population, but we still aren't producing the talent level of someone like the Virginia Beach area where London can recruit a top 25 team WITHOUT the results on the field.
Click to expand...
Must be one helluva bong!
 
Buffnik said:
Why is this more of a disadvantage than it was before the modern era?

CO has a much larger population now than it did before.
DIA is now one of the main hub airports for the nation.
Media growth has made college sports less regional - you can find a way to see every game no matter where you are.
Scholarship limits & general population growth has resulted in a lot more good prospects trickling down from UT, USC, etc.

On the negative side, it's harder for CU to get high school kids to its camps or to come on unofficial visits. Those are more important than ever and CU is at a disadvantage there.

But on balance, recruiting to CU is better-positioned than it ever has been.
Click to expand...

I always laff when recruits from Tejas or SoCal come to Boulder and comment on their change in perception of Boulder: "Gee, I thought Boulder was in the middle of nowhere" or "I thought Boulder was in the mountains under a ton of snow."

But then, its sorta like half the people who comment on AB.
 
Buffenuf said:
I always laff when recruits from Tejas or SoCal come to Boulder and comment on their change in perception of Boulder: "Gee, I thought Boulder was in the middle of nowhere" or "I thought Boulder was in the mountains under a ton of snow."

But then, its sorta like half the people who comment on AB.
Click to expand...

You serious, Clark?
 
vinniew_11 said:
It's not that we are not getting the instate kids, it's that there just isn't that many to get in the first place. We have to go into CA and TX to pull kids. That is the up hill battle. It's not that we have a huge pool of in-state kids to pull from.
Click to expand...

and my point was to expnad and recruit the deep south
 
Duff Man said:
California is not nearly as hard to recruit as portrayed by the OP.
Click to expand...

The toughest thing about recruiting California is going against the high profile programs that are there and the other schools from out of state that also come in. The competition for the best talent is stiff. The balance to that is that there is so much talent there that even with schools like USC cherry picking certain players there are plenty left for an effective recruiter to pick from.

Making California a better target for recruiting is that many of the thing we complain about in recruiting Colorado kids also apply there. a big portion of the population is within a generation or two of moving there from someplace else. The kids don't have the alliegiences to the home state schools that are hard to overcome and many of them are at least interested in the idea of going someplace different like Colorado.

With that in mind if we are going to be any good we have to get better at recruiting both Colorado and California. Colorado may not have huge number of top prospects but we historically haven't won without getting at least a reasonable number of them. In California we have to start winning more recruiting battles for kids that at least the middle to upper middle of the PAC also want. Beating Utah, Washington State, Oregon State, and Cal for a few recruits recently has been a step up from where we were but going forwards that needs to be the standard for the bottom of our class out of Cali not the top. We need to start taking kids away from UW, UCLA, the Zonas, and even occassionaly from SC and Stanford if we intend to belong on the same field as them.

As to Beach Broncos post, other than Florida which is a lot like California in terms of transient population I don't know how much luck you are going to have getting good kids to leave the deep south. You may get some but the return on time invested isn't likely to be worth it.
 
MtnBuff said:
The toughest thing about recruiting California is going against the high profile programs that are there and the other schools from out of state that also come in. The competition for the best talent is stiff. The balance to that is that there is so much talent there that even with schools like USC cherry picking certain players there are plenty left for an effective recruiter to pick from.

Making California a better target for recruiting is that many of the thing we complain about in recruiting Colorado kids also apply there. a big portion of the population is within a generation or two of moving there from someplace else. The kids don't have the alliegiences to the home state schools that are hard to overcome and many of them are at least interested in the idea of going someplace different like Colorado.

With that in mind if we are going to be any good we have to get better at recruiting both Colorado and California. Colorado may not have huge number of top prospects but we historically haven't won without getting at least a reasonable number of them. In California we have to start winning more recruiting battles for kids that at least the middle to upper middle of the PAC also want. Beating Utah, Washington State, Oregon State, and Cal for a few recruits recently has been a step up from where we were but going forwards that needs to be the standard for the bottom of our class out of Cali not the top. We need to start taking kids away from UW, UCLA, the Zonas, and even occassionaly from SC and Stanford if we intend to belong on the same field as them.

As to Beach Broncos post, other than Florida which is a lot like California in terms of transient population I don't know how much luck you are going to have getting good kids to leave the deep south. You may get some but the return on time invested isn't likely to be worth it.
Click to expand...

A lot of this was the gist of my post. We are going after (rightfully now) the lower middle end of CA prospects and to get those top tier guys, it's an up hill battle. And those middle tier kids, for the most part, are better players than a lot of CO upper tier guys.
 
We can land middle tier CA kids every year (even down years). Been that way for decades.
 
vinniew_11 said:
Sigh. I KNOW that. It's going after the top tier kids that will put us over the edge. THAT is the point. We can't do that right now.
Click to expand...

Only because people treat it as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Recruiting CA is not hard for CU.
 
Duff Man said:
Only because people treat it as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Recruiting CA is not hard for CU.
Click to expand...

We sure are pulling in top tier talent from there! Whew. That's a relief. (Sarcasm font).

The fact is, we are not pulling in top tier talent from there. Not even upper middle tier talent. And until we have something better to offer them than Stanford, USC, UCLA, even freaking Fresno State and most of the other PAC 12 teams, it's going to be tough to. That was my point. It's going to get better, IMO, with Mac hitting up Northern CA which seems to have been somewhat neglected by other CU coaching staffs. It's real easy for a kid, now a days to Google CU football when that wasn't the case with Coach Mac in the 80's and 90's.
 
Duff Man said:
Do you know what self-fulfilling prophecy means?
Click to expand...

Yes I do. And as a fan, there is nothing we can do. It's up to the staff to get those kids. Nothing we say or do make a spit of difference in that. You can say self-fulfilling prophecy all you want, but that is the reality in my mind.
 
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