Sipple: Osborne weighs in on Husker recruiting

Recruiting sources provide entertainment. That is it. As long as people subscribe to their services and get all worked up about recruits that may or may not come to their school, they will keep raking in the money.

In the grand scheme of things, they have very mixed success in picking who is going to be good or not.

I guess probably in a macro sense, they do a decent job. In general, I'm sure their 4-5 star guys do better than their 2-3 star guys.

The problem comes down to when you try to paint a certain player into a corner based on these rankings. There is a very very long list of 5 star guys who couldn't do a thing in college and a very very long list of 3 star guys who turned out to be very good.

There is absolutely no way these services can analyze ever single player in the US fairly. A kid like Jared Crick in the middle of Texas or Florida is probably going to be at least a 4 star kid. In the middle of Nebraska that same kid is only a 3 star because the perception is that he hasn't played against anyone good. Then, if a particular player all of a sudden gets offers from Texas, USC and Alabama...guess what happens to his rankings. The kid hasn't changed but the perception has.

Bottom line is it's for entertainment purposes only. Decisions should not be made on coaches jobs..etc. based on recruiting service rankings.
This is where you start to see the correlation between recruiting rankings and on-field success.

2006 January 8, 2007 2 Florida 41 1 Ohio State 14 BCS National Championship 2007 January 7, 2008 2 LSU 38 1 Ohio State 24 BCS National Championship 2008 January 8, 2009 1 Florida 24 2 Oklahoma 14 BCS National Championship 2009 January 7, 2010 1 Alabama 37 2 Texas 21 BCS National Championship 2010 January 10, 2011 1 Auburn 22 2 Oregon 19 BCS National Championship 2011 January 9, 2012 2 Alabama 21 1 LSU 0 BCS National Championship
True, if you cherry pick the ones you want:

Texas - 2012 - #2, 2011 - #3, 2010 - #3, 2009 - #5, 2008 - #14; Five-Year Record: 44-16

Miami - 2012 - #9, 2011 - #36, 2010 - #16, 2009 - #15, 2008 - #5; Five-Year Record: 34-26

Auburn - 2012 - #10, 2011 - #7, 2010 - #4, 2009 - #19, 2008 - #20; Five-Year Record: 36-24

Texas A&M - 2012 #15, 2011 - #27, 2010 - #17, 2009 - #22, 2008 - #16; Five-Year Record: 32-27

Tennessee - 2012 #17, 2011 - #13, 2010 - #9, 2009 - #10, 2008 - #35; Five-Year Record: 26-32

Compared to Nebraska - 2012 - #25, 2011 - #15, 2010 - #22, 2009 - #28, 2008 - #30; Five-Year Record: 44-18

So our best class were ahead of two classes that same year plus we were ahead of Tennesse one other time. Other than that, we were last for each given year. Yet we are only slightly behind one team for the best record over that time (and there may-or-may-not have been a disputed ending that could have changed that around).

 
FWIW, Bo's highest ranked recruiting class since he's been here is 2011.
I wonder where it would end up now - considering the core of that ranking is not on the roster. Ryan Klachko, Tyler Moore, Aaron Green, Bubba Starling (and Stafford/Carter are gone after this year).

 
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Recruiting battles are way over-hyped IMO. Proof: Boise State and Mildcats (KSU). Just the opposite, Texass, a bunch of 5-Star players. Another example, Collin Klein (2-Stars) was offered only three schools, Colorado St., Air Force and KSU.

 
FWIW, Bo's highest ranked recruiting class since he's been here is 2011.
I wonder where it would end up now - considering the core of that ranking is not on the roster. Ryan Klachko, Tyler Moore, Aaron Green, Bubba Starling (and Stafford/Carter are gone after this year).
I noticed that as well. Really only Stafford will end up being a major contributor. Ouch.
Not entirely. Jamal Turner, Zach Sterup, David Santos, Ryne Reeves, Todd Peat, and Charles Jackson were 4 star recruits from that class. Jamal, David and Charles have seen a good amount of time on the field and have bright futures at Nebraska. Zach and Ryne will probably get more looks at rotating in next year. Todd Peat, well his future remains uncertain.

 
FWIW, Bo's highest ranked recruiting class since he's been here is 2011.
I wonder where it would end up now - considering the core of that ranking is not on the roster. Ryan Klachko, Tyler Moore, Aaron Green, Bubba Starling (and Stafford/Carter are gone after this year).
I noticed that as well. Really only Stafford will end up being a major contributor. Ouch.
Not entirely. Jamal Turner, Zach Sterup, David Santos, Ryne Reeves, Todd Peat, and Charles Jackson were 4 star recruits from that class. Jamal, David and Charles have seen a good amount of time on the field and have bright futures at Nebraska. Zach and Ryne will probably get more looks at rotating in next year. Todd Peat, well his future remains uncertain.
If he could get healthy and remain healthy, with the talent we have next year, we could have a wrecking ball d-line.

 
so you're telling me Osborne had some top ten classes and ranking between 15-30 in the recruiting ranking? i thought all the rosters from the 1990's were made up of walk-ons and 1 star kids, coaching is the most important thing but you got to get some elite kids as well
The difference being we were Bama' dominant then with classes ranked in the 15-30 while Bama' is Bama' dominant with classes ranked 1-5. We gotta get "some" elite kids. We don't have to have the entire recruiting class made up of elite players. This is what TO did was get "some". Bo has been getting "some". If our wins and losses come down to whether we have consecutive top ten recruiting classes or not, fans are more than likely going to be awfully disappointed.
very true, get some "elite kids" and some unheralded guys that maybe their big instate school didn't want and then coach them up to be great college football players.

 
The fact that these recruiting rankings have a large varying range between them leads me to believe they aren't all that accurate. And the statistics posted on page one about recruiting class rank and national champs....could it be that almost all of those teams have high quality coaching staffs?

 
FWIW, Bo's highest ranked recruiting class since he's been here is 2011.
I wonder where it would end up now - considering the core of that ranking is not on the roster. Ryan Klachko, Tyler Moore, Aaron Green, Bubba Starling (and Stafford/Carter are gone after this year).
I noticed that as well. Really only Stafford will end up being a major contributor. Ouch.
Not entirely. Jamal Turner, Zach Sterup, David Santos, Ryne Reeves, Todd Peat, and Charles Jackson were 4 star recruits from that class. Jamal, David and Charles have seen a good amount of time on the field and have bright futures at Nebraska. Zach and Ryne will probably get more looks at rotating in next year. Todd Peat, well his future remains uncertain.
I meant that was a pretty good list of players that kchusker_chris ticked off and only Stafford will end up contributing much. Didn't mean to imply that no one else in the class would contribute because they obviously will.

 
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