I tend to watch recruiting because that gives me some insight into the future. Watching recruiting, however, isn't easy, because the recruiting services focus most of their efforts on the top 25 teams, and on the 4 and 5-star players, and not much effort on the 2-star players. I use a variety of methods to try to evaluate them. Probably the most accurate is the number of other teams that have made offers to the players. Before making an offer, the other team obviously did a thorough evaluation, and saw something, and, more importantly, they put their money where their mouth is. By contrast, on 2-star players, I think that the recruiting services often give little more than a passing glance.

When a player comes in, they normally redshirt the first year. Even if they play as a true freshman, they normally don't play a lot, and rarely start. The key players on a team are usually the Juniors and Seniors, meaning that the quality of a team is actually determined by the quality of recruits 4-5 years earlier.

So, how have recruiting classes looked? I have tracked this data mostly since 2006. Without going into too much depth about how i compute the numbers:

     # of Freshmn   Method 1  Method 2  Oth Offers  Early Accept   # True Fresh played
2005     23            2.95                .1            0               10
2006     17            2.65       173      .82           1                5
2007     20            2.65       180      .75           6                4
2008     15            2.93       224     2.00           1                2
2009     17            3.00       225     1.18           2                3
2010     12            2.42       238     1.00           3                1
2011     21            3.09       297     2.62           4                2
2012     13            3.31       317     2.77           5                2
2013     17            3.29       294     2.42          12                6
2014     15            3.30       305     2.47          14       

Method 1 and 2 are simply mathematical computations I do based on various inputs. Other offers is the number of other offers players had who chose Ohio, while Early Accepts is the number of early acceptances Ohio got from the initial batch of offers that Ohio sends out in Feb-June. The remainder of the class is generally players who got secondary offers in the December-January time frame.

There are three different recruiting coordinators. Germano years are blue, Isphording is Red, and Haines is green. Under Germano, you can see that recruits were steadily improving by all measures. The recruiting quality did take a notable drop in 2006-2007 after a certain "incident", but by 2008-2009 was  back on track.  The one year under Isphording was a step backwards, both smaller, and not as good. Worse, many of those players have left the program already, so that year is kind of a hole in the recruiting footprint. Under Haines you can see a continuation of the trend of improvement that we saw under Germano. By all of my measures the last few classes are the best yet.

By my estimate the early classes were in the lower half of the MAC. In 2005-2008, Ohio rarely won recruiting battles with other schools. If a kid had offers from some other MAC school and Ohio, they rarely would pick Ohio. Ohio got good players by looking where other schools weren't looking, and taking under-appreciated players. As a result you saw most recruits coming from out of state, places like Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. In recent years that no longer is true - players with an offer from Ohio and another MAC school now are more likely to choose Ohio than the other MAC school. As a result you see an increasing percentage of Ohio recruits coming from Ohio. In 2008 and 2009 only 4 and 2 respectively of the recruits were from Ohio. So far this year 12 of the 15 recruits are from Ohio.

If there is a steady trend upward in the quality of recruiting classes, why aren't we seeing that on the field?  I attribute it to the two recruiting gaps. The first was 2006-7, after the "incident", and the second was the gap in 2010 under Isphording. Teams are normally made up predominately of the Junior and Senior classes, with depth provided by the younger players. Last year's team was mad up predominately of the 2008-2009 recruiting classes, which were a step up from the gap before. This year's team is supposed to be made up of 2009-2010, but because of the hole in 2010, we see a lot of players from 2011-12 playing, but they are only Freshmen/Sophomores. With no injuries, this was still a pretty good team. With injuries, it became a young team in a hurry.

What will next year bring? Sadly, the apparent plateau will continue. Next year should be made of 2010-2011 players. There are very few players left from the 2010 class, so instead it will be made of 2011-2012 players. They are good, but young. They will have to really overachieve to win a MAC East, in my opinion. A 7-9 win season is more likely than 10+.

What about 2015 and beyond? Now you are going to be looking at teams made up primarily of 2011-2012-2013 players. Those classes continue to improve, perhaps not as fast as some recruiting "haters" would like, but my number do show continuing improvement. Thus, the teams should be significant step up from the current "plateau".

In summary, I see 3 distinct stages. I see 2005-2008, where teams were made up primarily of Knorr recruits and early Solich recruits. Those teams were not that great, though the 2006 team was an overachiever and won the MAC East anyway with a very good Senior class, and exceptional Senior leadership. I see a second stage from 2009-2014 where the teams are made up primarily of Germano recruits. Those teams are pretty good - capable of winning the MAC East in good years. Then I see a new wave of improvement coming in 2015 and beyond. Thus, no, I don't think Ohio has plateaued. Well, they have temporarily, but only because of the bad 2010 class, which left a hole behind.

I actually have a table where I track comings and goings, and include Juco's, too, and adjust for player that never redshirt, to estimate team strength, past present and future. Here are my estimates (note - numbers are not proportional - 595 is not twice as good at 279):

       Est Stren     Record     Comments
2005      279         4-7
2006      366         9-5       (overachieved)
2007      359         6-6
2008      423         4-8       (underachieved)
2009      431         9-5
2010      453         8-5       (should have beaten Kent)
2011      488        10-4
2012      500         9-4       (excessive injuries)
2013      479         6-4       (underachieved, could still be 9-4)
2014      472                   Hoping for 9-4
2015     ~584                   Plateau is over
2016     ~595                   Plateau is over

Anyway, like everyone else, I'm very disappointed with how this season has turned out. I had hopes for a better year than we've seen, and surely for a better finish than the last two games. This team obviously has some internal issues, which I hope they will resolve before the last two games. My outlook for next year is tempered - it can be an OK team, but is probably going to continue the perception of a plateau, but beyond that, I have high hopes for the future.

I appreciate the effort you put into this, LC. It's a solid look at the facts. Overall, we're improving, and that is demonstrated by your analysis. That 2010 class is hurting the program, and will continue to hurt the program. Hopefully, we can ride out the storm without throwing out the baby.

If Ohio were to move up to the AAC, 10-15 a year might be a reasonable goal. No MAC team has ever recruited 15 of them, and only a handful of teams have ever recruited over 5 in a year. per Scout.com, the only times a MAC teams have been over 5 have been:
Akron - 2007 (6)
Ohio - 2011 (7)
BG - 2011 (6)
CMU - 2013 (6)
Toledo - 2011 (9), 2012 (10), 2013 (10)

So far this year WMU has 12, and Ball State has 7, but it remains to be seen how many actually sign.

In the absence of such a major change as a jump to the AAC or to 15 3-star recruits, my numbers try to capture smaller incremental improvements.

By the way, Casper, I'm not disagreeing that better talent is important, nor that better talent in the end "should" lead to better results. My point is that the "star" system isn't accurate enough at the 2-3 star level to capture smaller incremental changes in overall quality of the class. That's why my inputs include things like the number of other schools that made offers to the same player, or the number of early offers. It's still hit or miss, but I see steady, though small, incremental improvements in recruiting, year after year. If you compare this year's class to, say, 2005-2008, I think you'll see a difference using almost any measure, not just by my measures.


Well, my hopes for next year aren't that high, but you never know.

What more do you want?  Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State.  Tennessee, Kentucky.  Louisville, Schiano's Rutgers, and Kansas.

I don't think playing Bama and LSU in the same season is going to help us.

L.C.--You oughta sell this analysis....get some pay for your efforts.

There is clearly some inflation at work in some of the measures. For example, Scout used to rate people as 1 star, now the minimum is 2 stars. Rivals used to have a lowest rating of 4.9, now the minimum is 5.2. As you point out, there may be some in "other offers", too. I also think it is possible that they give more "3 star" ratings out than before. It's difficult for me to assess the impact of these, but knowing what goes into the two factors, the "Method 2" numbers are more subject to inflation than the "Method 1" numbers. Thus the result that "Method 2" is up 80% while "Method 1" is up only 10% doesn't surprise me. I think that the 10% is more accurate.

I know that some people would like to see a quick jump for Ohio from bottom-of-the MAC recruiting to mid-AAC level recruiting. Heck, i would, too, but I don't think it will happen. Of all the coaches we've seen come and go in the MAC, none have been able to recruit at that level, with the exception of PJ Fleck, and while he's gotten some very good verbals, his long-term overall track record as a coach is unproven. Therefore, in the absence of an immediate jump to all 3-star recruits, I have tried to find measures that have some accuracy, and yet can pick up more incremental moves.

As far as playing true freshmen, that's a mixed bag as a metric, too. Sometimes a Freshman gets played because he is just really good, while other times he gets played because of a lack of depth, or because of injuries. You saw high numbers in the early years due to a lack of depth, and then the numbers tapered off. They are high again this year. While injuries were the reason you saw Mangen and Wood playing, they are also good, and the only reason you are seeing players like Stewart, Sayles, Basham, and Sebastian Smith is because they are good.

In the end the best test of my methods is whether my long term predictions based on them have been accurate. I think they have been.

For those that buy into the notion that the recruiting service ratings, are accurate, it isn't like the cupboard is empty. Even here the numbers are growing. The average per year was 3 a year from 2005-2008, then 5 a year in 2009-2010, and has been 8 a year from 2011-2014. Here's a list of the three star and better recruits:
2005 (3) - Brandon Jones (Scout) plus xfers Hinton (4 in both), Bower (3 in both)
2006 (5) -  Horace Hubbard (Rivals), Hodge (Rivals), McCrae (Scout) plus JUCO Alan Goff (Rivals, Scout), Nwokocha (4 from Scout)
2007 (1) -  xfer Braunstein (4 Scout, 3 Rivals)
2008 (3) - Jucos Tafua (Scout), Hilton Dawson (Rivals, Scout), Boo Jackson (4 Scout, 3 Rivals)
2009 (7) - Lechner (Scout, Rivals, ESPN), Hughes (ESPN, Rivals), Gary Fortune (Rivals), James Davis (ESPN), Jelani Woseley (Rivals) plus xfer Phillip Bates (Rivals, ESPN), Jerry Gross (Rivals)
2010 (3) -  xfers John Prior (All), Kyle Kozak (Rivals), Omar Leftwich (Rivals)
2011 (14) - Ben Russell (Rivals, ESPN), Landon Smith (Scout), Crutcher (ESPN, Scout), Eric Price (Rivals), Tony Davis (Scout), Jacob Welter (Scout, Rivals), Lorenzo Fisher (Rivals), Justin Haser (Scout), Kyle Hammonds (Scout), Andrew Bennet (Scout), Lucas Powell (Rivals), Grant Venham (ESPN), plus juco Tyler Knight (Rivals) and xfer Beau Blankenship (All)
2012 (5) - Gibbons (Rivals), Sebastian Smith (Rivals, Scout), Schany (Rivals, ESPN), plus Jucos Tim Edmond (Rivals, ESPN), Wade Wells (Rivals)
2013 (7) - Wyatt (ESPN), James Alexander (Scout), Tate Leavitt (Scout), Zach Murdock (Rivals, 247), Corey Quallen (247), Mason Morgan (247), Cedric Brown (247)
2014 Verbals (8) - Duckworth (All), Lowrey (All), Walker (247, ESPN), Brumfield (Scout), Brunson (Scout), Connor Brown (247) plus Juco Chris Murray (Rivals), Clark (Scout, Rivals)

Note - in the early years ESPN didn't give stars. Then they called 7.5 and up 3 stars.  Now 7.0 and up is 3 stars. For the early years before they actually gave stars I used 7.5 and up

By the way, those that are astute might notice that none of the players who were drafted made this list, that many other players we consider to be the best players of the Solich era are missing as well. I think that Ohio is now getting a better grade of 3-star players, so in the future that may no longer be true.

This method also provides no support for the perspective that Ohio has plateaued. Note in particular the big jump in the number 3-star players in 2011 and after. These are Freshmen and Sophomores, mostly. They are the group that I expect to power the next step up in Ohio football, in 2015-2016, when they are Juniors and Seniors. Note also that this method also shows a recruiting "hole" in 2010 - without counting transfers, there were none at all.

It hasn't hurt Buffalo.

(but I agree with you anyway)

I'm not going to argue that point with you, as compared to the current team, but I think that the team 2 years out will be just as good, and especially on the line, even better. Before I go on to that, I want to point out that, having just posted my list of 3-star players, you made one of my points for me.

(I bolded the few players that you mentioned that were on the list of 3-star players)


Now, moving to a look ahead at the teams of the future:
Defensive line - In those years you had one true DT, Marcellis, plus and Hodge (converted DE), plus for depth Carl Jones (converted DE) and Huynh (converted DE).  Next year you'll have Crutcher, McLeod, Tony Davis, Brandon Purdum, Tautiaiki, plus Aloese and Porter, plus Clark, if he comes. Of those, only Davis and Purdum are converted DEs. I think some of those are going to be very good players. At DE in 2009 you had Notestine and Reilly backed up by Tremayne Scott and Gatling. In a couple years you will be looking at Basham, Sayles, Laseak, plus some new guys we haven't seen yet. The 2009 group was very good, but this group is, too.

Offensive Line - In 2009 you had Rodgers, Strum, White, Flowers and Bunner, plus for depth you had Herman,  Carlotta, and Flading. Give the current crop of Freshmen 2 years, and I think McQueen, Lucas, Powell, Wood, and Watson, plus Gibbons,  Welter, Haser, Everhart, Curtis, Murdock, and Leavitt and you are going to have a significantly better line. Today that group is not as good as the 2009 starters, but with 2 more years experience, they will be.

At LB, again, there are a lot of young players playing. In 2 years, you'll still have Ben Russell, Jovon Johnson, Schany, William Johnson, and Blair Brown. With 2 more years of experience, that is going to be a very good group. They have the speed - they just need the experience and maturity.

AT WR, it would be hard to top the group of Brazill, Price, Futrell, McCrae, plus Gary Fortune, but I think you'll feel the same way in a couple years about Sebastian Smith, Landon Smith, Jordan Reid, Cedric Brown, Justin Wyatt, and Chris Murray (if he comes).

There are a few positions that I feel less certain about, and unfortunately they are key positions. QB needs to be settled, and more RB's are needed. DB is also a place I'd like to see more talent. That's exactly why, on the recruiting forum, I have been calling for more recruits at these specific positions.

we are playing weak schedules. That is not deniable. Pretty much every MAC team plays at least 1AQ team, many play 2. Check out Miami, NIU and Toledo for more challenging schedules.

Whoa. That is some pretty heavy math for a football bulletin board! Pretty detailed analysis.

The most encouraging thing I saw in all that analysis was the belief that the DL will be strong in the future.  To get to the next level, Ohio needs to start having dominating defenses.  You can't play great defense without great defensive lineman.

Perhaps next year will be a year like 2006 and senior leadership will prevail and find ways to win.  Or perhaps some of the freshman will arrive onto the scene in grand fashion.

I do think the fact Ohio had no IPF hurt them recruiting wise.  If you look around college football, it really is an arms race for facilities right now, so teams in non-AQ conferences really have a hard time competing.    WIth the IPF complete, I expect Ohio to win a lot more of those recruiting battles against other MAC teams.

It is a complex thing we're talking about, but as I said elsewhere, I have lowered my expectations based on 9 years of results on the field.
I'll cheer and support the Bobcats, I'm just not buying us taking it to the top of the MAC. We have plateaued and may even be regressing based on this years results to date .