College Football '10 - Conference switching chaos!!

[Drake Tungsten]

Whatever, Sloww. That excuse might fly if you didn't make reading errors in every single thread you post in...

[SpencerH]

I was a little surprised by the ND recruiting scores from rival.com which indicate to me that ND does recruit surprisingly well. In addition, there does appear to be a disconnect compared to the final (or current) rankings (compared to AL).

ND
YR recruit rank
2010 12 100*
2009 21 51
2008 2 52
2007 8 83
2006 21 17
2005 40 11

AL
YR recruit rank
2010 2 1*
2009 2 2
2008 1 6
2007 10 40
2006 11 54
2005 18 8


That doesnt change my opinion, however, that the dynamics of football recruiting have fundamentally changed. ND and the few other previously powerfull northern football teams will never return to their past glory (ie national titles) although ND will likely do better than it has in the last few years.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Whatever, Sloww. That excuse might fly if you didn't make reading errors in every single thread you post in...

[DanS]

That doesnt change my opinion, however, that the dynamics of football recruiting have fundamentally changed. ND and the few other previously powerfull northern football teams will never return to their past glory (ie national titles) although ND will likely do better than it has in the last few years.

Why do you insist on dismissing the evidence that you identified? Further, why do you think ND wouldn't get a boost in recruiting if it does well on the field?

Even at the current time, ND does better on the recruiting trail than 11 of its 12 opponents. And even against USC, ND wins some recruiting battles.

[Guynemer]

Dan, you are missing the point.

Subjective analysis of recruiting classes is a load of bullocks. The proof of recruiting lies in results. Notre Dame has not gotten any results since Willingham's recruits have left. That suggests that Willingham was a better recruiter, while Weis was a better coach.

Notre Dame can not recruit nationally unless it has a prominent national presense. And it doesn't have that any more; nor can it get such a presense back. The best it can hope for is to get a prominent regional presense, either in the Midwest or the Northeast, and the only way to do that is to join the Big Ten or Big East. If they join a conference, they'll put up 9/10 win seasons fairly consistently. Without it, you're looking at topping out at 8 at the best of times.

[DanS]

1) As stated, recruiting rankings are based primarily on who has offered a recruit. This is both objective and subjective criteria. It's not a load of bullocks. Rather, it's just not precise. I wouldn't trust it to know who among the top 5 classes is the best. But I would trust it to know what is a top class versus a class ranked 20th, for instance.

2) Notre Dame recruits well enough nationally to bring in #1 recruiting classes in its darkest days. What more do you want? I'm mystified.

[Drake Tungsten]

Notre Dame recruits well enough nationally to bring in #1 recruiting classes in its darkest days. What more do you want?

So did Bill Callahan at Nebraska. Nebraska fans eventually decided they'd rather win football games than meaningless recruiting titles. Maybe Notre Dame will make the same choice someday.

[Boris Godunov]

ND has no historical reference outside of national championships in this regard. The goal is a national championship. Full stop. Every year.

Then here's where I'm failing to see your reasoning: not since the BCS was instituted in 1998 has a non-conference team gone to the National Championship game. Not once. And I don't think the BCS is ever going to invite a non-conference team to the championship game. Why would it?

So it seems to me that the only way for ND to ever even hope to see a national championship again would be to actually join a conference.

[DanS]

Then here's where I'm failing to see your reasoning: not since the BCS was instituted in 1998 has a non-conference team gone to the National Championship game. Not once.

Yes, but that's just a function of the fact that the pool of possible independent NC teams consists of just one: ND.

You can rest assured that if ND is worthy to play in an NC title game, it will be invited.

[SpencerH]

Why do you insist on dismissing the evidence that you identified? Further, why do you think ND wouldn't get a boost in recruiting if it does well on the field?

Even at the current time, ND does better on the recruiting trail than 11 of its 12 opponents. And even against USC, ND wins some recruiting battles.

You're missing the point. I am surprised by how good the ND recruiting is but ND only averages a recruiting rank over 17 during the years I posted compared to AL who averaged a recruiting rank of 7 over the same time (despite that the team wasnt playing up to expectations) ie we recruit better than ND even when we suck (cos of the coaching tumoil).

Why? Because we have a bigger and better pool to recruit from and we'll take the top players who dont meet the academic standards that ND (and for example Tulane) require. So does Florida, so does Texas, so does USC, and so does every big team in the southlands. ND will make runs into the top ten again but the chances of a national title are slim to none IMO.

[DanS]

For three of those years, Alabama had the benefit of a good coach to match good recruiting. Remove those years to make it a normal Alabama sucky season and recalculate. Also, Alabama in particular enrolls many fewer recruits than it signs. For example, ND had the #1 enrolled class in 2008, even though Alabama had the #1 signed class in 2008. Believe it or not, there actually are athletes that are so stupid that Alabama will not enroll them into its kinesiology program.

As stated before, ND does have higher academic standards. But that goes both ways. It is easier to attract the smarter athletes to ND. Some athletes look at a 95%+ African American football graduation rate as a negative while others look at it as a positive. Some athletes see no value in a real degree while others view it as valuable. ND doesn't have a ton of competition for the smart athletes, although as you mention Stanford has been doing better lately in this regard (although not nearly enough to be a thorn in ND's side).

Lastly, ND has a vastly larger recruiting footprint than does Alabama. It's really contrasting two different approaches to recruiting. I don't know which pool is bigger, but I do know that ND evaluates a lot more athletes than does Alabama, while offering far fewer. ND's recruiting apparatus is large and sophisticated, which is in keeping with its recruiting approach.

[Boris Godunov]

Yes, but that's just a function of the fact that the pool of possible independent NC teams consists of just one: ND.

Whoever is ranked within the top 2 gets an invite, so why can't any other independent team be "possible" for this? Boise State is an obvious potential contender.

You can rest assured that if ND is worthy to play in an NC title game, it will be invited.

This seems to be more resting on the laurels of ND's mythic reputation than an actual argument. If and when ND is once again in position to compete for the NC, that reputation will be even less of a factor.

[DanS]

Boise State is in the WAC.

Neither Navy nor Army (the only other D1 independents) schedule for a national championship. So it's quite unlikely for them to be national champions, even with an undefeated season.

This seems to be more resting on the laurels of ND's mythic reputation than an actual argument. If and when ND is once again in position to compete for the NC, that reputation will be even less of a factor.

ND has specific contractual protection with the BCS agreement -- the parties to the agreement are the BCS conferences, the bowls, and ND. And if ND doesn't get a fair shake one season, then the BCS agreement will be changed. None of the bowls want to exclude ND, so they will see to it that ND isn't excluded.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It really won't be up to them. It'll be up to the Harris poll voters, the Coaches poll voters, and the computers.

[DanS]

Yep, and the only factor among the three where ND could get hosed is with the coaches poll. But while some coaches may vote a team higher because they are in the team's conference, others may vote them lower. Overall, I'm not concerned about it. If it's a problem one year, then the BCS formula will be changed because ND is a signatory to the agreement. None of the conference members are signatories.