Jump to content

2022 Class Rankings and Discussion

Leathernecks

By Leathernecks
in Football Recruiting

 Share

Recommended Posts

KDB

KDB

Posted
Posted
16 hours ago, Hoosierfan1901 said:

Did see something on Twitter that the Miami 247 staff isn’t confident getting him from like last week

 

This was some random poster over there that said Miami isn't that high on him.

Their 247 guys have made it clear that Miami wants Spells. 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Replies 722
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

RoadToZion
RoadToZion

I have nothing on Curry but there should be another 2022 commit coming soon.

btownqb
btownqb

Wait.. where are all the jokers that want to just talk when things are going poorly?  I could ramble off 3 or 4 names pretty quick that just post on here when we lose or whatever. Smh. 

btownqb
btownqb

You start posting this s*** and I'm gunna get excited.  (Talks self into understanding recruiting is a process and we might not know until FEB... deep breaths, deeeeeeep breaths)  But dear g

Posted Images

Andy06

Andy06

Posted
Posted

https://247sports-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/247sports.com/college/indiana/Article/Indiana-football-recruiting-Tom-Allen-official-visits-commits-Hoosiers-166833861/Amp/?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a6&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#amp_tf=From %1%24s&aoh=16243618587908&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2F247sports.com%2Fcollege%2Findiana%2FArticle%2FIndiana-football-recruiting-Tom-Allen-official-visits-commits-Hoosiers-166833861%2F

 

A wrtieup by Wiltfong with some good info and quotes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hoosierfan1901

Hoosierfan1901

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Leathernecks said:

I don't know if this guy knows anything, or if he just tries to sound like it. He tweeted about an upcoming commitment after Mullen's crystal ball predictions, so maybe he just saw the predictions for Cooper and Hoover. Either way, thought I'd bring it here.

 

Starting to back himself up with the way staff is reacting on Twitter 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
olsontex

olsontex

Posted
Posted

The timing of my post is a bit less than ideal, given the focus (including mine) on this thread right now is entirely on another commitment expected to drop.  I originally posted my comment in a new thread but it was suggested that my topic would fit in nicely in this thread.  Counting were I first starting writing my post - third time's a charm, that's what I always say (not really).

I started writing the following novel in the '2022 QB Josh Hoover' thread in response to btownqb's comment:

"A commitment from Hoover moves us to like 33rd overall and we'd be the highest ranked team with 6 commits." 

I decided to be a respectful poster and not clutter the John Hoover thread with a comment that was only marginally related at best.  It's hard sometimes to have the foresight that a post is going to veer too far off course to belong in a specific thread, then again sometimes it should be blatantly obvious.  I don't know if it bothers other folks all that much but it's a pet peeve for me so I don't want to add to the problem.

OK, moving on...  btownqb's comment reflects exactly how I think about the quality of a recruiting class, and I doubt I'm alone.  I've never understood the logic behind team recruiting rankings being based on an accumulation of points, even when individual players are weighted in a somewhat non-linear manner.  This approach works much better for basketball than football but even then it's not ideal. 

When I was a little kid I wasn't always the best brother.  I would trade "money's" with my sisters and feign consternation over giving up the "prettier" looking coins, larger sized coins, or MORE coins (most applicable to the current team ranking system).  A typical trade would be something like 1 quarter, 5 nickles, 10 5-pfennig coins, and 6 pennies in exchange for 1 franc, 6 dimes, and 7 20-pfennig coins.  If this multi-currency example seems bizarre, it's a product of growing up as an ex-pat living in both Belgium and Germany.

For my example I didn't choose these coins or denominations randomly.  My sister landed a recruiting class of 22 coins that includes 1 high 4-star, 15 3-stars inside the top 247 1250 players, and 6 3-stars or 2-stars outside the top 1250. 

- I landed a recruiting class of 14 coins that includes 1 5-star, 4 4-stars, and 9 3-stars inside the top 247 1000 players.  My class includes 1 major difference maker, 4 high impact players, and 9 useful players most of whom will eventually start or see regular action. 

- My sister's class includes a player who will gain national attention, 8 players who will becomes average starters, 7 players who will see action but not enough to make much significant impact, and 6 players who will function as practice dummies.

To reel this back to football, roughly 55-60% of players on scholarship will actually play regularly and determine the success or failure of the program.  Let's be generous and set it at 55 players, and not forget that a few transfers will come in and take someone's playing time too.  With the Redshirt system our team is comprised of 5 recruiting classes.  A few players from each class will transfer out, become too injured to continue, or simply wash out.

The question is how many QUALITY players does a team need on average in each class from a playing time perspective, and how many players in a class typically make an impact on a program.  In my mind that's where the cutoff should be set for ranking recruiting classes.

Slight detour from my main topic - I'm convinced that a smaller class with a bit higher perceived potential in combination with becoming a top tier destination for disgruntled formerly high ranked players in the transfer portal is the path for IU to remain relevant year-in-year-out.  As we continue to build momentum by winning on the field and the buzz around the positive culture within the program grows, we should not lose sight of a less positive factor.  Without the previous two mentioned elements we aren't even in the conversation for highly rated recruits, but the minute we start to over recruit we are going to run into problems.  Playing time and "bigger fish in a medium sized pool syndrome" are also significant factors.  I hate Michigan and Ohio State but at the same time I wish we were Michigan or Ohio State.  I've thoroughly enjoyed the sense that we are relatively to close to Michigan these last 2 seasons in terms of ability, but I'm not going to mistake that for equivalent national prestige.  Maybe in time we will be but we aren't close at the present.  OK, back to my actual topic.

In high school I was a basketball and baseball player but was intent on playing a sport in all 3 seasons to help stay in shape.  I made the football team but my 6'3 175 pound wirey frame was not designed to play TE and DE, nor was I fast enough to play CB.  I flipped to Cross Country the next season thinking it would be less taxing on my body (boy was I wrong).  I bring this up because the scoring system for Cross Country is close to what I think makes sense for ranking College Football recruiting classes.  In Cross Country the team consisted of 15 runners of which 12 could participate in a given race.  The top 7 finishes of the 12 runners would count for scoring.

This number is obviously too low for football recruiting rankings but conceptually I think it's the right approach.  Especially if combined with an intelligent and dynamic weighted player ranking system.  Here's what I think makes sense:

Base the team score on the 15 highest ranked commitments and employ a sophisticated non-linear points system within ranking tiers.  If "non-linear" isn't clear, what I mean is instead of players A, B, and C being uniformly separated by increments of .01 (4.21, 4.20, 4.19), allow for deviation from a straight line "curve" (oxymoron but the right term) when appropriate.  I'll illustrate one of those potential "when appropriate" scenarios in a moment (Guard vs. Skill Position) but just know there are others that I'm leaving out of this already long-winded post.  Back to "15 players" - If a class only has 14 players then they receive 0 points for the 15th slot.  If the 16th ranked player in a team's class is a 4-star ranked 350 they don't count.  I'm not suggesting depth doesn't matter, but at a certain point the likelihood of a player receiving enough playing time to matter passes a threshold of insignificance.  We have perfect examples of how this plays out if we look at some of the transfers IU has secured the past few years.   They may be positioned to be big difference makers at IU but there was simply too much competition on their higher profile team for them to make an impact on par with their recruiting ranking.  Alabama didn't get the expected value of a recruit ranked #350 and there was very little chance they could based on the queue in front of the player.  In other words the player didn't actually add much value to their recruiting class, and it was fairly predictable before the player even showed up on campus.  Why give Alabama credit in the recruiting class rankings for this player in this particular scenario?

The second part of this rankings topic is about the predictive nature of players ranked at specific levels and the idea that players within specific ranking ranges should all receive the same points for team rankings.  There is ample data available to assess the typical career track at each ranking range.  This can be used to assign points based on the probability of a player ranked XXX making a specific level of impact on the field.  "Impact" could be defined as some combination of games started, minutes played, and percentage of plays on the field.  I mentioned "range" a moment ago, which I think is important.  It exists to a small extent today but I think it needs a major revision.  When I look at 2 WRs, one ranked 200 overall and the other 235, the idea that there is enough information to determine any real separation between the two seems unlikely.   In my mind the team(s) should be awarded the same number of points for both of them.  The current system awards 6.6 points for #200 and 4.4 points for #235.  I chose an example of two highly ranked players but obviously once you get outside of the top 250 splitting hairs becomes even more silly.

I don't know exactly where the points of separation lay within the player rankings, but I know I could easily calculate them based on historical data.  There may be a positional component that needs to be considered as well.  I imagine the washout rate for a Guard ranked inside the top 600 is fairly low but I think exactly the opposite for skill positions that tend to be disproportionately higher ranked.  For this reason, there are very few IU targets ranked higher than Demon Moore at #414 that I consider more important potential commitments.  The points accumulated by the team that lands a player like Moore are going to fall woefully short of that player's significance.  I also don't know the degree of sophistication or effort that is currently being used to determine the current points system but on the surface it appears shallow and somehow simultaneously lacking in nuance while being numerically pinpoint.

Anyway, this was an extremely drawn out way of saying the average player ranking of IU's 2022 recruits that btownqb pointed out is WAY more important than the overall points ranking.  However, even the current perspective of average ranking is flawed in my opinion.  I'm a bit tired today and I know I didn't lay this discussion out particularly well, kinda all over the place - especially with the diversions on my youth.  Maybe I should change my handle to Nuke LaLoosh.  I also know I could improve the current points system that is currently in place on 247 by creating a dynamic non-linear model that adjusts year-over-year to reflect changes in potential (ranking) versus results (on field impact).

OK - back to commitment watch.  Truly exciting times that we haven't experienced in while!

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
olsontex

olsontex

Posted
Posted (edited)

For anyone who manages to suffer through my painfully long post, and somehow manages to still have the strength to post a reply, I've moved this most over to http://www.hoosiersportsnation.com/index.php?/topic/8538-2022-class-rankings-and-discussion/   (page 6 I think).

I also modified it a bit to hopefully make a few points more coherent.

Edited by olsontex
clarity
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Leathernecks

Leathernecks

Posted
  • Author
Posted
21 minutes ago, Hoosierfan1901 said:

Enough jokes, it’s gonna be Cooper at this point

I agree.  I'm really not sure who else it would be. The other guys we're in good with either have a commitment date (Spells), or have said they aren't planning on commitment any time soon. It is either Cooper or someone way out of left field.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Andy06

Andy06

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, Hoosierfan1901 said:

Ngl, this one surprised me, but I am not arguing! 

Ditto. 

26 offers.  20 from P5 schools,  plus ranked teams Costal Carolina and Cincinnati.  Yes please...

 

 Seems to be a bit underrated if that offer list is accurate.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Leathernecks

Leathernecks

Posted
  • Author
Posted
12 hours ago, olsontex said:

The timing of my post is a bit less than ideal, given the focus (including mine) on this thread right now is entirely on another commitment expected to drop.  I originally posted my comment in a new thread but it was suggested that my topic would fit in nicely in this thread.  Counting were I first starting writing my post - third time's a charm, that's what I always say (not really).

I started writing the following novel in the '2022 QB Josh Hoover' thread in response to btownqb's comment:

"A commitment from Hoover moves us to like 33rd overall and we'd be the highest ranked team with 6 commits." 

I decided to be a respectful poster and not clutter the John Hoover thread with a comment that was only marginally related at best.  It's hard sometimes to have the foresight that a post is going to veer too far off course to belong in a specific thread, then again sometimes it should be blatantly obvious.  I don't know if it bothers other folks all that much but it's a pet peeve for me so I don't want to add to the problem.

OK, moving on...  btownqb's comment reflects exactly how I think about the quality of a recruiting class, and I doubt I'm alone.  I've never understood the logic behind team recruiting rankings being based on an accumulation of points, even when individual players are weighted in a somewhat non-linear manner.  This approach works much better for basketball than football but even then it's not ideal. 

When I was a little kid I wasn't always the best brother.  I would trade "money's" with my sisters and feign consternation over giving up the "prettier" looking coins, larger sized coins, or MORE coins (most applicable to the current team ranking system).  A typical trade would be something like 1 quarter, 5 nickles, 10 5-pfennig coins, and 6 pennies in exchange for 1 franc, 6 dimes, and 7 20-pfennig coins.  If this multi-currency example seems bizarre, it's a product of growing up as an ex-pat living in both Belgium and Germany.

For my example I didn't choose these coins or denominations randomly.  My sister landed a recruiting class of 22 coins that includes 1 high 4-star, 15 3-stars inside the top 247 1250 players, and 6 3-stars or 2-stars outside the top 1250. 

- I landed a recruiting class of 14 coins that includes 1 5-star, 4 4-stars, and 9 3-stars inside the top 247 1000 players.  My class includes 1 major difference maker, 4 high impact players, and 9 useful players most of whom will eventually start or see regular action. 

- My sister's class includes a player who will gain national attention, 8 players who will becomes average starters, 7 players who will see action but not enough to make much significant impact, and 6 players who will function as practice dummies.

To reel this back to football, roughly 55-60% of players on scholarship will actually play regularly and determine the success or failure of the program.  Let's be generous and set it at 55 players, and not forget that a few transfers will come in and take someone's playing time too.  With the Redshirt system our team is comprised of 5 recruiting classes.  A few players from each class will transfer out, become too injured to continue, or simply wash out.

The question is how many QUALITY players does a team need on average in each class from a playing time perspective, and how many players in a class typically make an impact on a program.  In my mind that's where the cutoff should be set for ranking recruiting classes.

Slight detour from my main topic - I'm convinced that a smaller class with a bit higher perceived potential in combination with becoming a top tier destination for disgruntled formerly high ranked players in the transfer portal is the path for IU to remain relevant year-in-year-out.  As we continue to build momentum by winning on the field and the buzz around the positive culture within the program grows, we should not lose sight of a less positive factor.  Without the previous two mentioned elements we aren't even in the conversation for highly rated recruits, but the minute we start to over recruit we are going to run into problems.  Playing time and "bigger fish in a medium sized pool syndrome" are also significant factors.  I hate Michigan and Ohio State but at the same time I wish we were Michigan or Ohio State.  I've thoroughly enjoyed the sense that we are relatively to close to Michigan these last 2 seasons in terms of ability, but I'm not going to mistake that for equivalent national prestige.  Maybe in time we will be but we aren't close at the present.  OK, back to my actual topic.

In high school I was a basketball and baseball player but was intent on playing a sport in all 3 seasons to help stay in shape.  I made the football team but my 6'3 175 pound wirey frame was not designed to play TE and DE, nor was I fast enough to play CB.  I flipped to Cross Country the next season thinking it would be less taxing on my body (boy was I wrong).  I bring this up because the scoring system for Cross Country is close to what I think makes sense for ranking College Football recruiting classes.  In Cross Country the team consisted of 15 runners of which 12 could participate in a given race.  The top 7 finishes of the 12 runners would count for scoring.

This number is obviously too low for football recruiting rankings but conceptually I think it's the right approach.  Especially if combined with an intelligent and dynamic weighted player ranking system.  Here's what I think makes sense:

Base the team score on the 15 highest ranked commitments and employ a sophisticated non-linear points system within ranking tiers.  If "non-linear" isn't clear, what I mean is instead of players A, B, and C being uniformly separated by increments of .01 (4.21, 4.20, 4.19), allow for deviation from a straight line "curve" (oxymoron but the right term) when appropriate.  I'll illustrate one of those potential "when appropriate" scenarios in a moment (Guard vs. Skill Position) but just know there are others that I'm leaving out of this already long-winded post.  Back to "15 players" - If a class only has 14 players then they receive 0 points for the 15th slot.  If the 16th ranked player in a team's class is a 4-star ranked 350 they don't count.  I'm not suggesting depth doesn't matter, but at a certain point the likelihood of a player receiving enough playing time to matter passes a threshold of insignificance.  We have perfect examples of how this plays out if we look at some of the transfers IU has secured the past few years.   They may be positioned to be big difference makers at IU but there was simply too much competition on their higher profile team for them to make an impact on par with their recruiting ranking.  Alabama didn't get the expected value of a recruit ranked #350 and there was very little chance they could based on the queue in front of the player.  In other words the player didn't actually add much value to their recruiting class, and it was fairly predictable before the player even showed up on campus.  Why give Alabama credit in the recruiting class rankings for this player in this particular scenario?

The second part of this rankings topic is about the predictive nature of players ranked at specific levels and the idea that players within specific ranking ranges should all receive the same points for team rankings.  There is ample data available to assess the typical career track at each ranking range.  This can be used to assign points based on the probability of a player ranked XXX making a specific level of impact on the field.  "Impact" could be defined as some combination of games started, minutes played, and percentage of plays on the field.  I mentioned "range" a moment ago, which I think is important.  It exists to a small extent today but I think it needs a major revision.  When I look at 2 WRs, one ranked 200 overall and the other 235, the idea that there is enough information to determine any real separation between the two seems unlikely.   In my mind the team(s) should be awarded the same number of points for both of them.  The current system awards 6.6 points for #200 and 4.4 points for #235.  I chose an example of two highly ranked players but obviously once you get outside of the top 250 splitting hairs becomes even more silly.

I don't know exactly where the points of separation lay within the player rankings, but I know I could easily calculate them based on historical data.  There may be a positional component that needs to be considered as well.  I imagine the washout rate for a Guard ranked inside the top 600 is fairly low but I think exactly the opposite for skill positions that tend to be disproportionately higher ranked.  For this reason, there are very few IU targets ranked higher than Demon Moore at #414 that I consider more important potential commitments.  The points accumulated by the team that lands a player like Moore are going to fall woefully short of that player's significance.  I also don't know the degree of sophistication or effort that is currently being used to determine the current points system but on the surface it appears shallow and somehow simultaneously lacking in nuance while being numerically pinpoint.

Anyway, this was an extremely drawn out way of saying the average player ranking of IU's 2022 recruits that btownqb pointed out is WAY more important than the overall points ranking.  However, even the current perspective of average ranking is flawed in my opinion.  I'm a bit tired today and I know I didn't lay this discussion out particularly well, kinda all over the place - especially with the diversions on my youth.  Maybe I should change my handle to Nuke LaLoosh.  I also know I could improve the current points system that is currently in place on 247 by creating a dynamic non-linear model that adjusts year-over-year to reflect changes in potential (ranking) versus results (on field impact).

OK - back to commitment watch.  Truly exciting times that we haven't experienced in while!

Excellent post! A few points to add.

If I remember correctly, 247 only counts the top 20 players for each team's ranking. With the increase in transfers, I could see them lowering that number in the future.

If we boil it down to its most basic element, recruiting rankings are really only out there to make money. They generate fan interest which in turn makes recruiting services money. The more fan interest they generate, the more money they make.  Most ranking models that are out there are going to be focused on the top teams. Those services know where their money comes from.  They're always going to have their rankings set up to generate the most interest, not necessarily to be the most fair/accurate.

Similar to Vegas. They don't set their odds on what they think is going to happen, they set their odds to get the most amount of bets on both sides. Obviously a million other factors go into it too, but Vegas does everything based on what will make them the most money. If they have Iowa as a 5 point favorite in our opening game, doesn't necessarily mean they think Iowa will win by 5. Recruiting services do similar things. They know OSU, Bama, Clemson, etc. are where they make their money, so the rankings system isn't really set up to always be the most fair way of ranking prospects. 

How many times have we seen someone commit to IU, and their ranking drops a week later? Or commit to OSU and their ranking goes up a week later?

I agree their could be changes to improve some things in the rankings, but it is really tough to find a perfect model for an imperfect system.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading your post, and there were a lot of really good thoughts in it!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


×
×
  • Create New...