By
Denny O'Brien
©2012 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
If nothing else, National Signing Day
provides some entertaining fodder for Internet message boards and sports
talk radio. Credit a flawed, misleading evaluation system for that.
The practice of rating the
potential of high school football players has exploded with the
evolution of the Internet, and its effects have rippled through every
thread of college football, from the stands, to the press box, and all
the way to the coach’s office.
The net result of this
growing obsession has certainly produced more attention, and ultimately
more money for the cash cow of college sports, but it has done so with
more than its share of drawbacks. The argument can easily be made that
the negatives here far outweigh any benefits, especially for coaches.
Just ask Chuck Amato.
From the moment he arrived
at N.C. State, Amato delivered celebrated recruiting classes with
regularity. But by the end of almost every season, the Wolfpack
under-delivered when comparing the wins and losses to the excitement
delivered each Signing Day.
That’s because Chuck the
Chest’s most prized recruits were too often secluded to specific
position groupings. He stockpiled his share of blue chip defensive
linemen and fortified a couple of other units but he faltered in
critical areas such as the offensive front.
The inability to discover
any type of balance along the recruiting trail partially led to his
undoing. The fact that much of the talent he corralled wasn’t properly
developed didn’t help much, either.
That alone should spark
enough skepticism about a system that so many consider gospel. It’s a
system that doesn’t factor team needs into the overall evaluation.
Hypothetically, if a coach
signs a 20-man class that includes six five-star running backs and six
five star field generals, he almost guarantees his Signing Day haul will
secure his school the top spot in the national recruiting rankings.
Given that recruiting class rankings are evaluated by averaging the
number of stars attached to each recruit, you can narrowly focus on
elite recruits at a couple of positions and the system will proclaim
your class a great one.
But star rankings don’t
promise a national title for those that dominate recruiting, or life in
the cellar for programs that often lack Signing Day praise.
East Carolina
traditionally has been among the latter. The Pirates have never been in
the business of signing elite recruits and, at least in the current
climate, are unlikely to routinely steal blue chippers away from the
nation’s powerhouse programs.
Where East Carolina has
found success is with shrewd decision making by coaches who understand
the type of player it takes to succeed at the Pirates’ level, and then
developing them to maximize potential.
We saw this to a great
degree with both Steve Logan and Skip Holtz, who often signed players
passed over by BCS AQ schools. These tended to be players with potential
who seemed to fit well within the philosophies each coach was trying to
teach.
Much of that approach to
recruiting was out of necessity.
Most ECU standouts didn’t
arrive in Greenville as readymade stars. And while many were targets of
AQ programs, some would have been expected to change positions or settle
for minor roles.
Such has been the
recruiting storyline for East Carolina. For every blue chipper like
Linval Joseph, there have been four Nick Johnsons who developed over
time and drove towards success through a strong work ethic and
understanding of the system.
With Ruffin McNeill’s
third recruiting class, it should be clear now that the he and his staff
are capable of upgrading recruiting in the eyes of the self-proclaimed
experts. His 2012 Signing Day class included a four-star signee
according to ESPN and 11 three-star signees according to rivals.com.
Along the way, McNeill
even signed a couple of players who had offers from Miami, Nebraska, and
several other notable AQ programs.
The key now is to take a
solid class and make each component of it better. How well each player
develops over the next four years and adapts to his role within the
system will ultimately determine how well the ECU staff did on the
recruiting trail this year.
This is largely why I lend
little credence to college football recruiting rankings. And it’s why I
provide the same response each year when asked about the success of East
Carolina’s recruiting haul:
Ask me in about four
years.