Ohio Football Recruiting Topic
Topic: Recruiting service comparison
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Bcat2
2/17/2014 8:43 PM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
... He studies the MAC and is usually very accurate....

I agree that he studies the MAC, but I'm curious what you base your claim on that he is "very accurate"?
Clicking thru his site I found his prediction for the 2012 Independence Bowl.

Nick’s Pick: Louisiana Monroe 33 - Ohio 29
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Casper71
2/18/2014 12:11 AM
L.C. that is a good start to the recruiting!  Even better would be signing as many of those 3-4 star guys as WMU did this year
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L.C.
2/18/2014 1:06 PM
Bcat2 wrote:expand_more
... He studies the MAC and is usually very accurate....

I agree that he studies the MAC, but I'm curious what you base your claim on that he is "very accurate"?


Clicking thru his site I found his prediction for the 2012 Independence Bowl.

Nick’s Pick: Louisiana Monroe 33 - Ohio 29[/QUOTE]
Nick's pick's were generally pretty good, except where it came to Ohio. For awhile it seemed if he picked Ohio, they would lose, and if he picked the foe, Ohio would win.

I'm not trying to pick on Nick, but when it comes to analyzing recruiting, I have a hard time crediting anyone as "very accurate" because there is so much uncertainty. Some "can't miss" guys get hurt. Others don't pan out. Meanwhile some other players surprise and do much more than was expected. I don't think Nick was worse than other recruiting services. I just think he had the same issues as everyone else.

I do miss his annual analysis of recruiting, but I suspect he gave it up because he realized that no matter how hard he tried, recruiting analysis is always going to be uncertain.

[QUOTE=Casper71]L.C. that is a good start to the recruiting!  Even better would be signing as many of those 3-4 star guys as WMU did this year

It's going to be a smaller class, this year, perhaps 15 players instead of the 24 last year, so I hope they keep focusing on the best players.
Last Edited: 2/18/2014 1:07:52 PM by L.C.
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L.C.
2/18/2014 4:17 PM
Here are some links to past Vandelay recruiting reports on Ohio. Note, again, I'm not trying to knock Nick. I'm just pointing out how difficult it is to really nail recruiting analysis.
2005 - In fairness, he admits "Many of these players came in under the radar screen that I could barely find data on outside of published reports by OU." His favorite? Spencer Farley. Others worth a mention? Jayson White, Mitch Morsillo,  Brandon Jones, Josh Febus, Idris Lawrence, Lee Renfro, Steven Jackson, and Mike Mitchell. Overall he ranked Ohio "Good", his second from the bottom rating.
2006 - Only player getting special mention is Robert Hightower. He ranked this class "Excellent", 6th in the MAC. On the whole I think it was a worse class than 2005.
2007 - Ohio ranked "Very Good", 8th in the MAC. He wrote a much more detailed report on Ohio for 2007, some of it right, some not. He like Scott at QB. His favorite RB was Davidson, and I'd say Harden was better. His favorite receivers were Dunlop and Zac Clark, with no mention of Brazille. He really liked the linemen Flading, Laudermilch, O'Hara, and Spegal, and Flowers on the Defensive line. Flading did turn out well, and Flowers was good, too, once moved to offense.
2008 - Again Ohio was middle of the pack recruiting. His Ohio report liked Bussey, Boo Jackson, Hitlon Dawson, Tremayne Scott, and Matt Britain, with sleepers of Gerald Moore and Jordan Thompson. Among the players he doesn't mention are Eric Herman, Patrick Tafua, Vince Carlotta, Alphonso Lewis, and Matt Weller.
2009 - Ohio is rated bottom of the MAC for 2009. He does like Lechner and Xavier Hughes, two of the best in the class, and mentions as sleepers Gary Fortune and Carl Jones, again, two very good choices. The class wasn't that bad, though, and some players like Tettleton, Skyer Allen, Donte Foster, Ryan Boykin, Mario Dovell, Sam Johnson, and Jelani Woseley turned out to be pretty good players, too. Over the next 5 years this "bottom of the MAC" recruiting class won a lot of games.
2010 - This report he nails the group right, ranking Ohio 2d to last, but fails on the individuals, picking as his favorites Blake Jones, Jamal, Tarrant and Mark Smith. The players from 2010 that have played the most have been Cochran, Carpener, Ingoll, and Kristoff.
2011 - Again, I think he got the group right, putting Ohio in 2d in the MAC. His favorites were Crutcher, Russell, Welter, Macer, Hammonds, and Eddie Price, a mixed bag.
2012 - Puts Ohio 10th, and the only player mentioned is Jake Schany.
2013 - Puts Ohio 8th. The only players mentioned were Justin Wyatt and Zach Murdock.
2014 - Ohio is 3rd, but he is no longer doing independent ratings. "...I do a compilation of all public information I can find, score it in Excel, and then do a aggregate ranking of that data." That's all good, but his ratings are no longer independent of the others. As a result, if a player like Maleek Irons or Papi White is overlooked by the services, he will overlook him, too.

In summary, I don't think I'd call his ratings "very accurate", but on the other hand, they certainly are no worse than Scout, Rivals, etc.
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Checkrama
2/18/2014 7:15 PM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
... He studies the MAC and is usually very accurate....

I agree that he studies the MAC, but I'm curious what you base your claim on that he is "very accurate"?


I had no basis for this claim. I just figured it would force you to do the actual research to find out

But seriously you are probably right, he used to do more in depth independent breakdown, but not so much anymore. I've always thought his rankings were good because he was comparing the MAC schools in relation to each other, whereas Scout, Rivals, etc. are doing MAC recruiting rankings as an afterthought
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L.C.
2/18/2014 7:46 PM
Haha, Nice one.

I agree with you though. I always looked forward to his old rankings because, right or wrong, he added new information since he did original research. Now that he just pulls it from the other services, I have to admit I haven't been going there much.
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