2017 3* HB Thomas Johnston

[ellitor 33,093]

54 minutes ago, thaitopher said:

I am sure we will find a great 2 star player diamond in the rough to replace him. ?

I'll be more than happy to take another Daniel Thomas.

[Tigerfinz 1,362]

1 hour ago, thaitopher said:

I am sure we will find a great 2 star player diamond in the rough to replace him. ?

Another 2 star like Darren Bates would be ok with me....

[NoALtiger 3,860]

1 hour ago, ellitor said:

I'll be more than happy to take another Daniel Thomas.

As would all of us, unfortunately there are many more examples of that not working out though. There's always the exception to the rule I suppose. 

[ellitor 33,093]

Just now, NoALtiger said:

There's always the exception to the rule I suppose. 

There are every year. It's just a matter of finding them.

[LakeBum 187]

14 hours ago, NoALtiger said:

As would all of us, unfortunately there are many more examples of that not working out though. There's always the exception to the rule I suppose. 

I think you would be surprised how many of our 2 star signees have made it to the next level. I don't have percentages but success rate is probably as good as our 5 star rate and probably better than our 3 and 4 star rates.

[NoALtiger 3,860]

30 minutes ago, LakeBum said:

I think you would be surprised how many of our 2 star signees have made it to the next level. I don't have percentages but success rate is probably as good as our 5 star rate and probably better than our 3 and 4 star rates.

Yes, I would be surprised. Outside a token handful, I can't imagine we've had a lot as we simply don't sign many 2 stars to begin with. For every Darren Bates, there are many more across the board who never even see the field as a college player much less the NFL. 

As Ellitor has gone over quite a few times over the years, there are many more 3 and 4 star recruits every year as compared to the few 5 stars so by simple math, naturally there would be more to progress to the league. The percentage of those fewer 5 stars to make it to the league is still higher though. I'm all for the occasional diamond in the rough but would take a loaded 5 star roster any day. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

What @NoALtiger said. 

The teams that win championships are the teams that recruit 5*s. Percentage wise, the recruiting rankings translate to the NFL. It's not a perfect system, but if you're ranked a 5*, your chances of making it to the NFL are better than those of a 4*, whose are better than a 3*'s, whose are better than a 2*'s. These are facts and the links to the research have been provided before. It's understandable to have a different perception based on various things, but it's an inaccurate perception nonetheless. 

Beginning with Lawson and Adams, we're about to start putting these 5* guys in the league, and the perceptions of Auburn fans will hopefully change. Tre Williams next season. Marlon Davidson, Derrick Brown and, hopefully, Byron Cowart after them. NCM was the #1 recruit in the nation at one point, and I have no reason to believe he won't get there. It's true that the Chizik regime didn't do a good job of recruiting high character 5*s, and neither did Gus at first. But I'm not mad at him for Duke, Jovon or Elijah Daniel, and it sure feels like he's recruited 10 high character kids for every one of those guys. (Not mad at him for Roc, either, but I didn't want to add him to that particular group.)

 

[auol72 188]

A coach at any high level power 5 conference team should be able to watch a kid play, hopefully come to your camp, maybe watch his feet in a basketball game and determine on his on without some rating service telling him whether the kid can play football. Ratings are influenced greatly by how a kid tested at some camp not by how he really plays football. Coach Whitt and Phillip Lolley were able to bring in great players that way notwithstanding what a recruiting service said. They brought in Spencer Johnson from little 2a Southern Choctaw and Sen'derrick Marks after watching him play basketball and a number of others. If you know what your looking at it jumps out like a neon sign and you dont need a rating service to tell you he can or cant play.

[McLoofus 35,182]

21 minutes ago, auol72 said:

A coach at any high level power 5 conference team should be able to watch a kid play, hopefully come to your camp, maybe watch his feet in a basketball game and determine on his on without some rating service telling him whether the kid can play football. Ratings are influenced greatly by how a kid tested at some camp not by how he really plays football. Coach Whitt and Phillip Lolley were able to bring in great players that way notwithstanding what a recruiting service said. They brought in Spencer Johnson from little 2a Southern Choctaw and Sen'derrick Marks after watching him play basketball and a number of others. If you know what your looking at it jumps out like a neon sign and you dont need a rating service to tell you he can or cant play.

Or maybe, just maybe, the coaches and the recruiting analysts arrive at independent conclusions based on their own research and sometime agree that a kid is good? Maybe they're going through the same channels for information upon which to base their decisions about which kids they evaluate to begin with? I personally don't need Yahoo's FFB rankings to tell me that I want to start Zeke Elliott every week. Doesn't mean they're not right. 

Sammie Coates is another you can add to the list of exceptions, btw.

25 new kids a year, 85 scholarship kids on every team, over 100 teams in the country. Every team has a few Sen'Derrick Marks stories. But no staff can go out and watch every high school basketball game or track meet in hopes that they find a Sen'Derrick Marks. The search has to be narrowed somehow, such as a local high school coach who knows the college head coach personally telling him he should check out a kid at his school while said college coach is in the area recruiting other kids at a different school. I don't think they get their info from the recruiting services. It's likely from the same places that the recruiting services get their info from- stats, coaches, camp performances, family members, highlight video and letter campaigns, etc. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the recruiting services more often got their info from the coaches. 

[lionheartkc 6,150]

4 hours ago, McLoofus said:

But no staff can go out and watch every high school basketball game or track meet in hopes that they find a Sen'Derrick Marks. The search has to be narrowed somehow...

Thus why the NFL is littered with guys who's names initially illicit a "who?" from schools that make people go "where?" A coach has to know to go look at someone before they can consider them in the first place. Otherwise, your next Sen'Derrick Marks or Sammie Coates will be playing for some no name team in Palookaville and burning up the field to the joy of a small handful of fans and a couple of NFL scouts who are really good at their jobs.

[auol72 188]

Well no offense but if i was paid $400k or more a year and had the resources we spend on recruiting i would know everyone that could walk and chew gum at the same time in my recruting area. Amazing what film you can sit and watch in HD for free now without ever leaving your desk.

[mcgufcm 4,096]

I've always heard the argument that 5* kids are more likely to go to the NFL than 2* kids and thought it was completely irrelevant. That's a statement that just doesn't move the needle on this discussion, right?

The only comparison that matters is what is the success rate of 5* kids with SEC offers (all of them) compared to 2* kids at an Auburn or an LSU. There won't be many of the latter, and that comparison presumably cuts the wheat from the chaff. I have no idea what the numbers would suggest, but I find it odd that Auburn has seen so many 2* or low-3* guys with such huge success (Sen'Derrick Marks, Daren Bates, Sammie Coates, possibly Daniel Thomas coming soon, etc.). It seems like we hit those guys at an almost equal or higher clip that the 4* guys. Maybe that's just the gloss of fading memory blocking out the busts, but it seems like, if a school like Auburn, is reaching on a kid, the success rate for that kid is comparable no matter what the star level.

Anyone have any idea if I'm right or totally wrong?

[McLoofus 35,182]

15 hours ago, mcgufcm said:

Anyone have any idea if I'm right or totally wrong?

You can do some pretty quick and easy research with a quick browse of the archived recruiting classes in the Recruiting forum. And no, that's not a smart ass "Google is your friend" response. I did a little of it yesterday, don't have the time today. 

We don't sign practically any 2*s who aren't kickers (who we have been remarkably successful recruiting, but that's a different conversation). And, these days, we probably sign more 4*s than 3*s. So, again, percentages must be taken into account. 

Marks, Bates, Coates, Thomas if he actually hits... that's 4 guys in how many years? Who are the guys who fill out the "etc"? Better yet, where are the countless examples from other schools? I mean, that's what this is really about, right- how our staff has done relative to the field? Honest questions to which I don't know the answers, either. 

One other thing about the "reaches" and "projects"- of which I'd call Jonathan Wallace one, btw, who definitely did not become an impact guy on the field- is that the only reason they got signed is because of some sort of special circumstance. Somehow they really, truly wowed the coaches. Coates balled out at a camp at Auburn. Marks dunked from the free throw line. Not sure on Bates and Thomas, but they probably have some similar story. I just don't think there's this giant pool of academically and behaviorally adequate kids out there doing these things. But I could be wrong. 

Btw, we might have just struck gold on one of these cases with Willis. Obviously they reached (and failed) on Franklin. So I don't think our staff is inflexible in this regard. 

 

15 hours ago, auol72 said:

Well no offense but if i was paid $400k or more a year and had the resources we spend on recruiting i would know everyone that could walk and chew gum at the same time in my recruting area. Amazing what film you can sit and watch in HD for free now without ever leaving your desk.

Maybe they do, and maybe they just don't see all these hidden treasures that you seem to be suggesting are out there. No offense taken, btw, nor is any intended. 

[ellitor 33,093]

Back to TJ. I would love to have him as a HB or LB.

[FASTCOMPANY 394]

49 minutes ago, ellitor said:

Back to TJ. I would love to have him as a HB or LB.

So he is a "take" as of now?

[NoALtiger 3,860]

16 hours ago, mcgufcm said:

I've always heard the argument that 5* kids are more likely to go to the NFL than 2* kids and thought it was completely irrelevant. That's a statement that just doesn't move the needle on this discussion, right?

The only comparison that matters is what is the success rate of 5* kids with SEC offers (all of them) compared to 2* kids at an Auburn or an LSU. There won't be many of the latter, and that comparison presumably cuts the wheat from the chaff. I have no idea what the numbers would suggest, but I find it odd that Auburn has seen so many 2* or low-3* guys with such huge success (Sen'Derrick Marks, Daren Bates, Sammie Coates, possibly Daniel Thomas coming soon, etc.). It seems like we hit those guys at an almost equal or higher clip that the 4* guys. Maybe that's just the gloss of fading memory blocking out the busts, but it seems like, if a school like Auburn, is reaching on a kid, the success rate for that kid is comparable no matter what the star level.

Anyone have any idea if I'm right or totally wrong?

So many 2 or 3 stars? If you can name more than a handful over a 20 year period I'll be pretty impressed. 4 or 5 tops doesn't constitute "so many" to me. Again, there's always the exception to the rule but facts are facts. 

[ellitor 33,093]

48 minutes ago, FASTCOMPANY said:

So he is a "take" as of now?

Don't know. 72 says he is. AU recruiting reporters have not confirmed it.

[lionheartkc 6,150]

19 hours ago, auol72 said:

Well no offense but if i was paid $400k or more a year and had the resources we spend on recruiting i would know everyone that could walk and chew gum at the same time in my recruting area. Amazing what film you can sit and watch in HD for free now without ever leaving your desk.

You would probably be shocked to see the number that would add up to.  There isn't enough time in the day for one person to watch film on every eligible player in their territory, let alone analyze it for nuances that may indicate ability above current level of play.  That's why coaches have to build networks and count on them to highlight players that need their attention... and the occasionally luck of stumbling on someone when they are there to see someone else.

That's part of why there's a small bandwagon of support for Chip Lindsey as our new OC... because he already has a network in the South.

[fredst 9,064]

Does the (seemingly) increased interest in TJ signal that Lasater is thought to be headed elsewhere or that we have less interest? Would we take both TJ and Lasater?

[ellitor 33,093]

7 hours ago, fredst said:

Does the (seemingly) increased interest in TJ signal that Lasater is thought to be headed elsewhere or that we have less interest? Would we take both TJ and Lasater?

1. No IMO unless AU backs off & not necessarily. 2. Don't know yet.

[fredst 9,064]

28 minutes ago, ellitor said:

1. No IMO unless AU backs off & not necessarily. 2. Don't know yet.

Cool. They both just seem like hard-nosed ballers. Could do worse than to end up with both of those guys on our team, IMO.

[ellitor 33,093]

8 hours ago, fredst said:

Cool. They both just seem like hard-nosed ballers. Could do worse than to end up with both of those guys on our team, IMO.

Agreed.

[TigerWar 82]

On 12/14/2016 at 8:21 AM, ellitor said:

UGA did not pass. Their recruiting reporters came to Alabama to cover the announcement. They were stunned he did not pick UGA.

E, I tried to read the thread and the messages surrounding your post and I still can't quite figure out what one player you're referring to in this post. At first, based upon the messages that precluded yours, I thought you were talking about Monty Rice but that wouldn't make sense that UGA would be stunned he didn't pick them since he actually did. Which prospect is your post referring to? And I'm sorry, I can be a little slow sometimes.

 

TIA

[ellitor 33,093]

10 minutes ago, TigerWar said:

E, I tried to read the thread and the messages surrounding your post and I still can't quite figure out what one player you're referring to in this post. At first, based upon the messages that precluded yours, I thought you were talking about Monty Rice but that wouldn't make sense that UGA would be stunned he didn't pick them since he actually did. Which prospect is your post referring to? And I'm sorry, I can be a little slow sometimes.

 

TIA

It was Monty and he originally picked LSU. Flipped to UGA about a week later.

[TigerWar 82]

Just now, ellitor said:

It was Monty and he originally picked LSU. Flipped to UGA about a week later.

Gotcha! Makes sense. Thanks!