Riley vs. Harbaugh Recruiting: A Parent Chimes In

[cm husker]

Did Tom ever have a recruiting class ranked what Riley's is?

His 1990 class, averaged out across the ranking services as that time, was a 28.33. The only data I'm aware of goes back to 1987, but I also haven't searched that hard for years prior to that.

I don't think OZ ever got very highly ranked recruiting classes. ~20th range on average. Rozier was a community college transfer. We were always 2nd fiddle to Barry in the conference in terms of talent and speed. And then it was The U, and FSU, yada yada. NE is a "coach 'em up" school, always has been, always will be. Of course, if we start winning the division on a regular basis and, heaven forbid, the conference every now and then, well, recruiting can't help but get better.

That simply isn't true, from 87-96 TO signed 5 top 10 classes.

Easier to do when there is only 1 service rating classes...and it's the AP and coaches...and there are less teams overall to contend for recruits with. We know how accurate they are. Not to mention that TO had about 7-10 more scholly's to work with in the early nineties.

Just a different era and something we can't compare to today's recruiting.

No. He didn't.

And TO signed about 22 kids a year during his tenure. He would have been well under today's scholarship limits.

 

[cm husker]

Did Tom ever have a recruiting class ranked what Riley's is?

His 1990 class, averaged out across the ranking services as that time, was a 28.33. The only data I'm aware of goes back to 1987, but I also haven't searched that hard for years prior to that.

I don't think OZ ever got very highly ranked recruiting classes. ~20th range on average. Rozier was a community college transfer. We were always 2nd fiddle to Barry in the conference in terms of talent and speed. And then it was The U, and FSU, yada yada. NE is a "coach 'em up" school, always has been, always will be. Of course, if we start winning the division on a regular basis and, heaven forbid, the conference every now and then, well, recruiting can't help but get better.

That simply isn't true, from 87-96 TO signed 5 top 10 classes.

Easier to do when there is only 1 service rating classes...and it's the AP and coaches...and there are less teams overall to contend for recruits with. We know how accurate they are. Not to mention that TO had about 7-10 more scholly's to work with in the early nineties.

Just a different era and something we can't compare to today's recruiting.

There were multiple service rankings, from 2-3 for the most part. He did have more scholarships but so did every other school. I don't see why that doesn't slightly refute the fact that TO simply "coached em up" he recruited elite talent from across the country for starters.

I wouldn't refer to it as "coaching them up" but he did run a system designed to maximize the talent he could recruit most easily.

TO built the overall winningest program of the 70s, 80s and 90s. He didn't do that by simply out recruiting everyone. He did it by having system that was dialed in for the realities of NU football. And by building a very unique culture.

 

[BigRedBuster]

So....now TO and staff didn't coach up and make players better once they got here.

Interesting.....learn something new every day on this board.

 

[Hedley Lamarr]

So....now TO and staff didn't coach up and make players better once they got here.

Interesting.....learn something new every day on this board.

I love it when people do this. You take the absolute extreme end of the spectrum. What I was and am saying is that TO recruited elite talent. He didn't take crappy recruiting classes and win titles. He did what every program that wins titles does. Recruited very well and coached very well. One alone doesn't typically win you hardware

 

[cornographic]

Did Tom ever have a recruiting class ranked what Riley's is?

His 1990 class, averaged out across the ranking services as that time, was a 28.33. The only data I'm aware of goes back to 1987, but I also haven't searched that hard for years prior to that.

I don't think OZ ever got very highly ranked recruiting classes. ~20th range on average. Rozier was a community college transfer. We were always 2nd fiddle to Barry in the conference in terms of talent and speed. And then it was The U, and FSU, yada yada. NE is a "coach 'em up" school, always has been, always will be. Of course, if we start winning the division on a regular basis and, heaven forbid, the conference every now and then, well, recruiting can't help but get better.

That simply isn't true, from 87-96 TO signed 5 top 10 classes.

Really, can you prove it?

 

[BigRedBuster]

So....now TO and staff didn't coach up and make players better once they got here.

Interesting.....learn something new every day on this board.

I love it when people do this. You take the absolute extreme end of the spectrum. What I was and am saying is that TO recruited elite talent. He didn't take crappy recruiting classes and win titles. He did what every program that wins titles does. Recruited very well and coached very well. One alone doesn't typically win you hardware

My comment wasn't towards you.

 

[cornographic]

Sleepovers and Harbaugh go way back:

 

[Saunders]

Big difference between what Coach Harbaugh walked into and what Coach Riley walked into.

Michigan man returning home, after successful stints at Stanford and the NFL.

Kids anxious to see him, meet him, knowing how important the return of a Michigan Man is.

Nothing but positives to deal with.

Riley not so much.

The hate here for him is still staggering by some.

Recruiting is about relating to the kid, really nothing more. Coach Harbaugh seems to be doing it. If he signs the number 3 class no one at Michigan is going to be complaining. He had a great season his first season. A very tough loss to Michigan State no question, but deep down the fans feel he should have won. .

Nobody here hates Mike Riley. You can state that people don't like the hire, or aren't a fan of his, but to say that people hate him (something that we can all agree was true for Bo and Bill) is simply not true.

 

[cm husker]

So....now TO and staff didn't coach up and make players better once they got here.

Interesting.....learn something new every day on this board.

I don't know who you think said that, but it's a semantics issue. Clearly, TO didn't just take a bunch of bad news bears and make them champions.

But he did take atheletes and maximize their production. Not sure if that's "coach'n them up" or "playing to their talents" but I do know that the former implies that the raw material was pretty much below average.

I think TO's players were plenty atheletic for what he wanted them to do. Do I think they would have been athletic enough to efficiently and consistently execute (i.e., win the one on battles) that are asked of players at Alabama? No. I don't think so.

But they were good enough as a team to win a lot of games, and that's all that matters.

 

[Red Five]

Did Tom ever have a recruiting class ranked what Riley's is?

His 1990 class, averaged out across the ranking services as that time, was a 28.33. The only data I'm aware of goes back to 1987, but I also haven't searched that hard for years prior to that.

I don't think OZ ever got very highly ranked recruiting classes. ~20th range on average. Rozier was a community college transfer. We were always 2nd fiddle to Barry in the conference in terms of talent and speed. And then it was The U, and FSU, yada yada. NE is a "coach 'em up" school, always has been, always will be. Of course, if we start winning the division on a regular basis and, heaven forbid, the conference every now and then, well, recruiting can't help but get better.

That simply isn't true, from 87-96 TO signed 5 top 10 classes.

Really, can you prove it?

I see 4 top 5s (and 7 top 10s) depending on the service between over the 12 year span of 85-96. I would consider that really good recruiting.

History of Husker Recruiting by Service

Average Rank of Husker Classes

 

[cm husker]

Did Tom ever have a recruiting class ranked what Riley's is?

His 1990 class, averaged out across the ranking services as that time, was a 28.33. The only data I'm aware of goes back to 1987, but I also haven't searched that hard for years prior to that.

I don't think OZ ever got very highly ranked recruiting classes. ~20th range on average. Rozier was a community college transfer. We were always 2nd fiddle to Barry in the conference in terms of talent and speed. And then it was The U, and FSU, yada yada. NE is a "coach 'em up" school, always has been, always will be. Of course, if we start winning the division on a regular basis and, heaven forbid, the conference every now and then, well, recruiting can't help but get better.

That simply isn't true, from 87-96 TO signed 5 top 10 classes.

Really, can you prove it?

TO would not be well under today's scholarship limits. That's just a claim and it's proven false with the data above (taken from Huskermax.com's recruiting pages). Not only do people inflate Osborne's statistics, they also forget that he did have 7-10 more scholly's up until 1994. Not to take away from where he took us and what he did...just that it'd be nice if we referred to facts.

Your numbers actually prove exactly the opposite, even with your arbitrary 4-year groupings that try to show otherwise! You seem to ignore attrition all together. Reality is, TO only three times (28, 26, 28) exceeded 25 scholarships in a given year (25 being the yearly limit now, not including 3 schollie buffer that takes the limit to 28). 10 times during that period, he signed classes of 22 or less.

Try looking at the the average recruiting class size during a 4 year period of almost any other major P5 program today, and you'll see many more than 87 to 92 kids signed.

Thank you for proving that TO's recruiting numbers, at least based on signing day scholarships awarded, would have complied with today's rules.

As a sidenote: it's absurd that we are limiting scholarships like this with the money that's sloshing around CFB. So many opportunities for kids to get more free education, and we are instead arbitrarily limiting the numbers. Pure stupidity (and greed?) on the part of the Universities and Colleges.

 

[cm husker]

Did Tom ever have a recruiting class ranked what Riley's is?

His 1990 class, averaged out across the ranking services as that time, was a 28.33. The only data I'm aware of goes back to 1987, but I also haven't searched that hard for years prior to that.

I don't think OZ ever got very highly ranked recruiting classes. ~20th range on average. Rozier was a community college transfer. We were always 2nd fiddle to Barry in the conference in terms of talent and speed. And then it was The U, and FSU, yada yada. NE is a "coach 'em up" school, always has been, always will be. Of course, if we start winning the division on a regular basis and, heaven forbid, the conference every now and then, well, recruiting can't help but get better.

That simply isn't true, from 87-96 TO signed 5 top 10 classes.

Really, can you prove it?

I see 4 top 5s (and 7 top 10s) depending on the service between over the 12 year span of 85-96. I would consider that really good recruiting.

History of Husker Recruiting by Service

Average Rank of Husker Classes

Perhaps I'm miss reading the charts, but that's not what it says. Are you looking at the AP final rankings column? Or double counting the same classes (e.g., Lemming and Wallace both ranked the '96 class in the top 10)?

 

[Red Five]

Did Tom ever have a recruiting class ranked what Riley's is?

His 1990 class, averaged out across the ranking services as that time, was a 28.33. The only data I'm aware of goes back to 1987, but I also haven't searched that hard for years prior to that.

I don't think OZ ever got very highly ranked recruiting classes. ~20th range on average. Rozier was a community college transfer. We were always 2nd fiddle to Barry in the conference in terms of talent and speed. And then it was The U, and FSU, yada yada. NE is a "coach 'em up" school, always has been, always will be. Of course, if we start winning the division on a regular basis and, heaven forbid, the conference every now and then, well, recruiting can't help but get better.

That simply isn't true, from 87-96 TO signed 5 top 10 classes.

Really, can you prove it?

I see 4 top 5s (and 7 top 10s) depending on the service between over the 12 year span of 85-96. I would consider that really good recruiting.

History of Husker Recruiting by Service

Average Rank of Husker Classes

Perhaps I'm miss reading the charts, but that's not what it says. Are you looking at the AP final rankings column? Or double counting the same classes (e.g., Lemming and Wallace both ranked the '96 class in the top 10)?

Top 5 classes

85 - #1 Emfinger

92- #5 Emfinger

95 - #3/#5 Emfinger/Lemming

96 - #2 Wallace

Top 10 classes

Above plus

86 - #6/#7 Emfinger/Wallace

90 - #10 Wallace

94 - #6 Emfinger

 

[Enhance]

Apologies if someone posted this - Hail Varsity did a story a few years back that averaged out recruiting rankings each season from 1987-2012. I may have posted this myself either in this thread or another recently, too.

Anyways, focusing from 1987-1997, TO's last years, he averaged recruiting classes of 15.88. He a couple classes ranked around 28, but he also had five Top 10.

This tells me TO did a fairly consistent job recruiting elite talent, but, it also wasn't to the same level of places like Alabama or Florida. Nebraska, even at the height of it's dominance, was incapable of raking in a Top 10 class every single year, and that's with one of the best college football dynasties ever. Conversely, Alabama extended it's #1 recruiting class ranking streak to five years running in 2015.

Nebraska will likely always be at a recruiting disadvantage.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

So....now TO and staff didn't coach up and make players better once they got here.

Interesting.....learn something new every day on this board.

I don't know who you think said that, but it's a semantics issue. Clearly, TO didn't just take a bunch of bad news bears and make them champions.

But he did take atheletes and maximize their production. Not sure if that's "coach'n them up" or "playing to their talents" but I do know that the former implies that the raw material was pretty much below average.

I think TO's players were plenty atheletic for what he wanted them to do. Do I think they would have been athletic enough to efficiently and consistently execute (i.e., win the one on battles) that are asked of players at Alabama? No. I don't think so.

But they were good enough as a team to win a lot of games, and that's all that matters.

Again.

To run Tom Osborne's option offense in all its permutations, you had to be an excellent athlete and operate a precision offense where timing and execution was everything.

That's a credit to Tom and the players, and I'm not sure why you want to keep taking it away from them.

TO sophisticated offense did ask for a skillset that was slightly more demanding at certain positions than other schemes, but I'll be damned if I can see where those were Nebraska or midwest related skillsets, requiring Nebraska to lower its expectation for the quality of recruits we'll ever be able to land.