Recruiting
(Written by kencraw)
I’ve gotten a few comments asking for info on what’s going on in recruiting. I figured I should clear that up…
I know nothing about recruiting.
In fact, I’m not allowed to know anything about recruiting beyond what you can get on subscriptions sites like Rivals/BearTerritory.net. See, as a season ticket holder, I’m not allowed to talk to recruits or to the coaching staff or to anyone else about recruiting. It’s off limits. As a person who’s just public enough to potentially fall under scrutiny for my activities, I make sure to be squeeky clean about not getting involved in anything recruiting oriented.
So you won’t get any particular wisdom about why we only have 4… make that 5… recruits right now. But I will give some general thoughts on recruiting:
There is only 1 day a year to worry about recruiting, and it’s in February. Signing day is when all of this speculation becomes reality. So, just because there are only 5 names next to Cal doesn’t mean that there’s not 15 guys who are planning on coming to Cal. It just means they haven’t publically stated that they’re coming. Signing day is when everyone states where they’re actually going. Until then it’s all speculation.
Also, don’t worry much about stars, particularly 1-star differences. The amount of time the recruiting sites spend looking at each guy is pretty darned small. You’re also looking at players who are vastly superior to the rest of the competition, from a high school perspective. So who is awesome, super-awesome and super-duper-awesome is a bit of a question mark and a guessing game, particularly when they’re spread all over the country and there isn’t that much cross-polination.
I guess what I’m saying is that recruiting is something to worry about in the off-season and even then only as evaluating the coaching staff. In the end, what matters is whether the Bears are fielding a team full of talented players, not whether those players were considered great when they were recruited or whether they were willing to publically state they were coming to Cal long before signing day.
If you look at the number of unheralded 2-star recruits who were added at the last minute who became college and NFL super-stars as well as the number of 4 and 5 stars who changed their verbal commitment 3 times and then never played to their potential when they got to college, it makes it pretty clear that this is any over emphasis on recruiting at this point is just a way to raise your blood pressure.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Really good points, and ones we often forget.
But in the modern era of the recruiting arms race, it’s hard not to get unnerved when other conference rivals appear to be snatching up 4 and 5 star recruits left and right.
On a related note, Cal’s picked up some big recruits the past few days as I’m sure you’re well aware. It’s unfortunate you can’t comment on them. 🙂
November 20th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Ken,
Very professional post. You remind us of some very important truths.
However, I think there is a little more correlation between recruit rankings and on the field performance than you acknowledge. I don’t remember Cal ever having more talent than USC. USC always has a vastly superior recruiting ranking than us. I think that there is a correlation between these two realities. Sure, there are always busts and surprises, but that doesn’t mean that Cal shouldn’t go after and convince 5 star talent to come to Cal.
I have been disappointed the last few years. I hope Tedford can step it up a notch this weekend. But until we can get some elite offensive talent on the roster, we may be doomed to some mediocre bowls (or worse!).
The Bay Are is beautiful. Cal offers one of the best educations in the world. We have had some success. But now we need to do better convincing elite recruits to come be part of our program.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Duke, yes I was definitely over-emphasizing one side of it. There is no doubt that recruiting matters and that recruiting ranking is at least a reasonable place to start in determining good recruiting classes. At the same time, OSU has thoroughly dominated Cal the last two years with recruiting classes far worse than Cal’s… at least by the numbers. That would be my main point.
Nevertheless, there’s no doubt USC has a huge recruiting edge over Cal and everyone in the Pac-10. At the same time, I think Cal is holding their own against the rest of the Pac-10 and occasionally we grab a few recruits away from USC, including a 5-star now and again. However, until we beat USC and go to a BCS game, we’re not going to be able to recruit with them, so it’s unfair to grade the job that the coaching staff is doing against USC, particularly star-wise, at this point.