A Common Sense Look At Recruiting

[OldVol]

I think the coaching staff has their list and it probably doesn't agree 100% with the recruiting services. A good example is the difference between the ESPN ranking and the others. Of course it does worry me when ESPN says something good about Tennessee.

When ESPN is patting us on the back it means they're hunting a spot to stick the knife.

 

[ddubb76]

:lolabove: :lolabove: :lolabove:

To all the posts above.......
So rankings dont mean anything? Stars dont mean anything?

Then how do you rank these kids???? How then do you determine which players are better?????

The coaching staff I know evaluates these kids..... they know which players they want. Dont you think they want the best player in the country at each position on the field. When they cant get the number 1 player they move down the list.

ex they wanted Brandon Warren but they could not get him so they moved down the list.

ex. they wanted broehm but he went to louisville so they took Ainge and Schaffer.

Rankings arent everything but you know good and well that fulmer would have loved to have a top 5 recruiting class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know that Tom Brady was the 199th pick overall. I would like to think that the pro scouts have a little better system for picking draft picks than the college teams do. But Sometimes the best pick is not the loud mouth, non team orriented superstar, but the guy who flies under the radar and just gets the job done. Ryan Leaf was picked over Manning.

We have a great stable full of guys that are going to make a great impact on this coming up season. I heard lot of people talk about our vanilla offense laST YEAR, I hope we have some more vanilla this year with better execution. I dont think that our qb has to be great, I think we just have to punch the D in the mouth and run the ball, then throw the ball 40 yards down field and have a receiver who will not short arm the ball and catch it. If it gets intercepted, oh well its a 40 yd punt, but the D will have to back off and the run will open back up.

Alot of our problem last year was that Riggs bought into the dark horse heisman talk, and about the time he realized that he had better do his job, he got hurt. I think we need to pick a qb early and stick with him. The position that needs to be changed weekly based upon performance needs to be the RB. Two years ago we kept swappin Riggs and Houston and the one coming off the bench ahd something to prove.

Now the coaches do.

All the off the field crap has to go, if they are getting into trouble they are not trying to get better! I think the coaches know that they are in trouble, and that crap will get you cut quickly this year. This team will be a team this year, and the O-line whoever they are is going to make holes, the running backs are going to pound it, and the d is going to stop them. No preseason hype, no personnal glamour, just smashmouth, in your face football.

 

[lawgator1]

Of course, it also helps if the guy has the physical skills to run down a locomotive, wrestle it to the ground, and bench press it 24 times

The star ranking is useful as a broad, imprecise indicator to comparing the raw talent coming into a program but not as useful, in my opinion, as a predictor of the kind of football team you are going to have down the road. Kids develope past their rating or fail to live up to it; they redshirt and transfer and fail to qualify and leave early for the NFL; they play with heart and chemistry that is unable to be objectively measured or they don't.

All in all, it looks to me like we have recruited a class full of solid SEC talent with a few less of the dynamic playmakers we are used to on the hill. Last year, we got a class full of solid SEC talent with a few more of those dynamic playmakers. In the coming years we will be putting as good or better talent on the field as anyone else in the conference, which usually means anyone else in the country. We just need to translate that into wins.

Did you actually use the word "locomotive"?

:lol: :lol:

 

[therickbol]

I guarantee you that the staff at UTK does not base who they are going to recruit on how many stars they have according to rivals. If they like a kid with 3-stars better than a kid with 4-stars who are they going to take? The 3-star, all day. The fans see the 3-star and are disappointed, but the staff has talked to the kid and his parents and watched countless game tapes so they have their own opinion completely independent of rivals.com or scout.com. For instance, I think the staff at UTK liked the LB (Thompson) as much as any LB they recruited even though his star rating was lower than the others.

 

[therickbol]

Alabama LB Ryans (going to be 1st Rd NFL Draft pick) was a 2-star according to rivals. Hmmm...

 

[ddubb76]

Kevin Burnett, one of UT's great linebackers recently was only a two star.