Two hot topics on this board have been the IPF and our TV exposure. Solich made some interesting remarks referencing the influence these two things have played in our ability to recruit recently. I found the entire thing pretty interesting beyond just the talk of the incoming players...

I read somewhere online this morning that Miami did not lose a single recruit that visited their campus to another MAC school. They must feel the same way.

This has another explanation . . . after visiting Oxford the Suction Vortex got a hold of them and like a bungee cord attached to their feet it just pulled them back. I.E., Miami Sucks! ;-)

I thought that was with regard to Christian, who came with Mayne, and who was originally committed to Purdue. That's a tremendous compliment to the fans that he liked the game atmosphere better in Athens than at Purdue.

I'll bet he wasn't here for a weekday night game in November. ;-)

Here are the rankings:
Rivals- Three 3-star recruits, #109 in the US, #7 in the MAC
247Sports - Four 3-star recruits, #91 in the US, #5 in the MAC
ESPN - One 4-star recruit, 7 3-star recruits (once they add Colbert), ranking is lower than 75, which is as high as they go. I would guess it would be about #80 if they ranked down that far
Scout.com - Eight 3-star recruits (once they subtract Stevens-McKenzie), #81 in the US, #6 in the MAC

Keep in mind that the ratings are pretty accurate near the top, where they put most of their effort, and not very accurate at all nearer to the bottom, where they put very little effort. ESPN is honest about it, and they don't give a rank at all below #75, and I think they used to stop at 50.

I'd say that Ohio's class in the top third of the MAC, which is quite a bit higher than they used to be. They used to normally be ranked about #8-10 most years.

Christian did not visit until a couple weeks ago. He visited with Javon Hagan (already committed) and decided to commit.

Hagan has spoken multiple times highly of both the atmosphere in Peden and our great campus.

I gave up taking the rankings very seriously a long time ago. To make my point of how the accuracy is slanted to the front end, looking at Rivals, the team ranked #1 has 3193 points, while the team ranked #10 has 2478 points, a difference of 700 points. The difference between Ohio and the team ranked #1 in the MAC, WMU, is <300 points.

Even then, their "rankings" are a total mystery. For example, compare Ohio to BG. Per their info, Ohio has 23 recruits, with three 3-star recruts, and an average rating of 2.13. BG has 22 recruits, with two 3-star recruits, and an average rating of 2.06. Somehow BG is rated #5, while Ohio is #7.

I do look at the rankings, I just don't put a lot of stock in them. Instead I have started watching the actual film, and judging for myself. I haven't looked at the film of the other MAC teams' recruits, so I can't tell you how Ohio looks relative to them, but I can say that I think this is a very good group compared to the players Ohio normally has had.



I probably have it wrong then. I'll have to listen and see who it was that they said visited, and liked the game-day atmosphere.

LC, I'm with you -- I wouldn't put too much stock in the rankings. I would especially discount the rankings if Ohio bucked the trend by having several players on all-MAC teams.

But the average recruiting rankings and the below-average level of players on the all-conference teams lead me to think that Ohio is not getting the quality level of players that they should be getting (given the reasons I cited in my post above). With all that we have going for the program, we should be better than below average in this conference in regards to recruiting and player recognition.

Moving some data from page three of the "way too early 2015 depth chart thread, since it applies to this discussion, and adding this year's data, here are the average MAC rankings of Ohio recruiting classes, averaging all the rankings together:
2002 8.5 Knorr/
2003 8.7 Knorr/
2004 6.7 Knorr/Germano
2005 7.0 Solich/Germano
2006 5.3 Solich/Germano
2007 8.0 Solich/Germano (was really much better, see discussion below)
2008 7.7 Solich/Germano
2009 6.7 Solich/Germano
2010 12.0 Solich/Isphording
2011 4.0 Solich/Haines (was really much worse, see discussion below)
2012 7.0 Solich/Haines
2013 8.7 Solich/Haines (so far looks to be much better)
2014 4.5 Solich/Haines
2015 6.0 Solich/Haines

As I said in the other thread, I think history clearly shows that the 2008 class was better than it was rated, while the 2011 class was not as good at the rating. The 2008 Class included tons of unranked and unknown players that turned out well, Jordon Thompson, Eric Herman, Neal Huynh, Alphonso Lewis, Vince Carlotta, Tyler Futrell, Travis Carrie, and Matt Weller, and only a few 3-star players, Bakari Bussy, Matt Britain, Tremayne Scott and Gerald Moore. Meanwhile, the 2011 class included a lot of 3-star rated players that never contributed, or who left the program early, such as Ronnie Bell, Andrew Bennett, Kyle Hammonds, Justin Haser, Lorenzo Fisher, and Eric Price.

Adjusting for that, you can see that the data isn't totally worthless, or totally wrong; it's just a bit off sometimes. You can see also that recruiting under Germano was decent, and that was reflected in the improving teams up to 2011. As for the 2010 class, that one shows conclusively that the data isn't totally off, especially when you get an extreme result. The rankings said it was an extremely bad class, and it was at least that bad.

So, where are we today? I think history will show that the 2013 class was, like the 2008 class, significantly better than it's ranking. Like 2008 it had a large number of unknown recruits that are turning out to be good football players. Among the people from 2013 who got no 3-star ratings are Brendon Cope, Troy Mangen Cleon Aloese, Tyrell Basham, Tony Porter, Dorian Brown, Quentin Poling, Trent Smart, Casey Sayles, Durrell Wood, Mason Morgan, and Corey Quallen. I'm sorry, but now that I've seen them play, I definitely don't think that group is a bottom of the MAC recruiting class.

Other than 2013, all the recent classes have been rated middle of the MAC or better, and I think that's right. We could quibble about whether or not the 2015 class should be ranked #4 or #6, but the difference isn't significant. It's still a top half of the MAC recruiting class, perhaps better.

In my opinion, the 2013-2015 classes are at least comparable to 2006-2008, and probably better. The 2006-2008 bunch led to some pretty good teams from 2009-2011, including two MAC East Championships. I expect 2015-2018 to be back to the same level of play, and actually, I expect them to be better than those teams.

I think that the rural area, the lack of football tradition, and the facilities have all hurt Ohio in the past. I think that those are all being eliminated as reasons, which is why Ohio's average rating has been rising. I don't think it's done rising, either. The IPF has helped, and the new academic center will help, too. You can also see the influence that the game-day atmosphere and tremendous fan support are having. Ohio fans now have an expectation of winning, and they support the team.

If you look at the table, Ohio ranked in the #8 range in the 2002-2005 period, then about #6-7 from 2006-2009. Now they are about #5 or so. I don't think we're far from a day when Ohio starts ending up #3. Note also that the last couple years Ohio's rating has been artificially decreased one notch by the spectacular classes Fleck has recruited to WMU, which are way out of range of the historical norms for MAC programs. I think he'll be gone from there after this year, and then WMU will return back to the norm.

+1

I'd like to add that I really enjoyed the signing day press conference. Frank and Brian have fabulous chemistry and had me on the edge of my seat throughout the proceedings. Me thinks broadcasting is in Frank's future after he captures a few MAC titles!