Anyone think this year can turn into the 2000 season?

[Irish27]

I hope not.

[ASUHATER!]

Absolutely. Or the 2010 season. Started 7-1 and were #9. Lost 5 in a row to finish. I don't think we'll do that bad, but 8-5/9-4 looks like a safe bet.

[azpenguin]

It's amusing what happens on this board when the Cats lose a game.

[dmjcat]

I hope not.

It is, unfortunately, quite possible.

The Colorado game is the only gimme (and its less of one than in years past) left on the schedule.

What SC showed tonight is that we will have trouble moving the ball against physical teams.....and the bulk of the physical defensive teams still lay ahead (ucla, utah, asu, and to a lesser extent washington). We play Wazzu on the road next, a team that beat us in Tucson last year.

It isn't getting any easier from here on out.

[Reydituto]

UA didn't have trouble "moving the ball", they had trouble scoring. Huge difference.

I think this offense can move the ball on anyone (as an aside, I wouldn't consider UCLA or ASU's defenses "physical"), but whether that yardage translates into points depends entirely on execution in the red zone, which was sorely lacking tonight.

I agree with azpenguin about the boards after a tough loss, I just don't find it as amusing as he does.

P.S. - dmjcat, your signature sucks.

[btfd16]

It's amusing what happens on this board when the Cats lose a game.

We are the overreacting kings of the universe

[cpt]

I think its very possible.

[KaibabKat]

2000 - Jeff Sagarin had us rated at #31.

This morning - Jeff Sagarin has us rated at #32.

[Longhorned]

It's amusing what happens on this board when the Cats lose a game.

We are the overreacting kings of the universe

As in 2010, the overreaction begins with getting carried away with early success. I'm avoiding the charge of a certain word starting with "o", but 2010 and 2014 both feature victories that are great for various reasons, setting victory as an expectation rather than the great achievement that it is for the collection of talent we have. Honestly, we should be grateful and celebrate that Hail Mary triumph, and then beating the #2 team in their own house. The hope should be to pick up recruiting as a condition for truly turning the corner. We're not there yet. For now, it's better to appreciate what we achieve with the limited resources we have. I'll believe that Rich Rod can't take recruiting to the next level after the next two or three seasons. The recruiting strategy is already changing over the past two weeks. I think the results will slowly start to follow, and eventually we really will turn that corner.

[dmjcat]

Longhorned:

"Honestly, we should be grateful and celebrate that Hail Mary triumph, and then beating the #2 team in their own house. The hope should be to pick up recruiting as a condition for truly turning the corner." Completely agree

We're not there yet. For now, it's better to appreciate what we achieve with the limited resources we have. I'll believe that Rich Rod can't take recruiting to the next level after the next two or three seasons. The recruiting strategy is already changing over the past two weeks. What has happened that makes you think that???? Most of our recruiting for the year is over and its a mixture of 2/3 star recruits.

[Longhorned]

Longhorned:

"Honestly, we should be grateful and celebrate that Hail Mary triumph, and then beating the #2 team in their own house. The hope should be to pick up recruiting as a condition for truly turning the corner." Completely agree

We're not there yet. For now, it's better to appreciate what we achieve with the limited resources we have. I'll believe that Rich Rod can't take recruiting to the next level after the next two or three seasons. The recruiting strategy is already changing over the past two weeks. What has happened that makes you think that???? Most of our recruiting for the year is over and its a mixture of 2/3 star recruits.

I need to shut up because I can't keep track of what I can or can't say about what I pay to read. But I'm talking about the last two weeks, and it isn't limited to 2015.

[dmjcat]

Understood and I hope what you are paying to read is accurate.

I would say, however, that if the strategy is based on AZ staying in the top 10 then we need to find a new strategy! As for now I won't believe the strategy (or results) have changed until we start seeing a few 4 stars and less 2 star commitments.

[Reydituto]

Longhorned:

"Honestly, we should be grateful and celebrate that Hail Mary triumph, and then beating the #2 team in their own house. The hope should be to pick up recruiting as a condition for truly turning the corner." Completely agree

We're not there yet. For now, it's better to appreciate what we achieve with the limited resources we have. I'll believe that Rich Rod can't take recruiting to the next level after the next two or three seasons. The recruiting strategy is already changing over the past two weeks. What has happened that makes you think that???? Most of our recruiting for the year is over and its a mixture of 2/3 star recruits.

I need to shut up because I can't keep track of what I can or can't say about what I pay to read. But I'm talking about the last two weeks, and it isn't limited to 2015.

I honestly don't get why some still persist in the star-gazing argument specifically w/r/t RR's Recruiting. Let me put it in plain English for some of you: Rich Rodriguez doesn't give a flying **** about star ratings. His staff evaluates ~1,500 recruits per class, identifies 150-200 worthy of an offer, and pursue the guys they like off of film & live evaluation for their schemes. If a player they like wants to commit early, they will take him, because they trust their own evaluations; They don't evaluate recruits in the same way that the recruiting services do. That isn't going to change. Signing 4* players for the sake of signing 4* players isn't going to help matters if they are bad fits for what RR wants to do and what he wants out of his players.

Another thing I would mention is to watch how many UA offerees and commits get offers from other good programs after UA offers or gets a verbal (regardless of their ranking). It's as if other coaching staffs let RR & Co. do the evaluation and targeting leg work for them. Weird.

Finally, what LH is alluding to is the idea that UA will likely have room for 4-5 more recruits (if you factor in a decommit or 2, and the 2 Dec. JUCO grads) and that UA is looking to leverage the Oregon win & this season to close the class out strongly (and begin 2016 strongly as well) with guys who were early offerees but now have more reason to consider UA. By now, this has been reported publicly. If I had to guess looking at the online offer lists, most of them would be defensive recruits, and they span the star-ratings from NR to 4*.

Bottom line, you either trust the way RR & his staff go about recruiting, or you don't and use the star rankings as a crutch.

[azcat49]

RR is also building a culture as well as upgradiing the talent. The culture of loving football, the weight room, film study and team stats over individual stats is not always possed by 4 and 5 star guys.

I agree that it would be nice to sign those guys but its not like they would fit in our culture carte blanche.

And I agree with Rey on your sig. Makes it look like you want the cats to lose just to prove your point.

[dmjcat]

Longhorned:

"Honestly, we should be grateful and celebrate that Hail Mary triumph, and then beating the #2 team in their own house. The hope should be to pick up recruiting as a condition for truly turning the corner." Completely agree

We're not there yet. For now, it's better to appreciate what we achieve with the limited resources we have. I'll believe that Rich Rod can't take recruiting to the next level after the next two or three seasons. The recruiting strategy is already changing over the past two weeks. What has happened that makes you think that???? Most of our recruiting for the year is over and its a mixture of 2/3 star recruits.

I need to shut up because I can't keep track of what I can or can't say about what I pay to read. But I'm talking about the last two weeks, and it isn't limited to 2015.

I honestly don't get why some still persist in the star-gazing argument specifically w/r/t RR's Recruiting. Let me put it in plain English for some of you: Rich Rodriguez doesn't give a flying **** about star ratings. His staff evaluates ~1,500 recruits per class, identifies 150-200 worthy of an offer, and pursue the guys they like off of film & live evaluation for their schemes. If a player they like wants to commit early, they will take him, because they trust their own evaluations; They don't evaluate recruits in the same way that the recruiting services do. That isn't going to change. Signing 4* players for the sake of signing 4* players isn't going to help matters if they are bad fits for what RR wants to do and what he wants out of his players.

Another thing I would mention is to watch how many UA offerees and commits get offers from other good programs after UA offers or gets a verbal (regardless of their ranking). It's as if other coaching staffs let RR & Co. do the evaluation and targeting leg work for them. Weird.

Finally, what LH is alluding to is the idea that UA will likely have room for 4-5 more recruits (if you factor in a decommit or 2, and the 2 Dec. JUCO grads) and that UA is looking to leverage the Oregon win & this season to close the class out strongly (and begin 2016 strongly as well) with guys who were early offerees but now have more reason to consider UA. By now, this has been reported publicly. If I had to guess looking at the online offer lists, most of them would be defensive recruits, and they span the star-ratings from NR to 4*.

Bottom line, you either trust the way RR & his staff go about recruiting, or you don't and use the star rankings as a crutch.

I'm still amazed that some still persist in denying that the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting (signing 4 and 5 star recruits). A cursory look at the recruiting rankings over the past 4 to 5 years and who's been ranked in the top 25 during that period would show that. Anyone who would deny this, to put it in "Plain English", is a blithering idiot. The real "crutch" is those coaches who are unable to recruit successfully and then spin that by talking about how they are recruiting "their guys". And anyone who thinks that RRod doesn't know which recruits are ranked 4/5* and who are recruiting them is worse than a blithering idiot.

[Puerco]

You have really good interpersonal skills.

[Merkin]

There is definitely a link between HS star ratings and success in the college ranks.

Individually:





Odds of Becoming an All-American, by Recruiting Ranking
5–Star: 1 in 4.
Top 100: 1 in 6.
4–Star: 1 in 16.
3–Star: 1 in 56.
2–Star: 1 in 127.
All FBS Signees: 1 in 45.

and team:

[Irish27]

There is definitely a link between HS star ratings and success in the college ranks.

Individually:





Odds of Becoming an All-American, by Recruiting Ranking
5–Star: 1 in 4.
Top 100: 1 in 6.
4–Star: 1 in 16.
3–Star: 1 in 56.
2–Star: 1 in 127.
All FBS Signees: 1 in 45.

and team:

Thanks. Our newest commit is a 3-star player.

[Chicat]

It could be 2000 all over again . . . or it could be 1998.

5-0 record coming off an impressive road victory they come home and lose to a good LA team. Then go on the road to the Pacific Northwest where they proceed to shake off the loss, and roll through the rest of the season.

Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

[azpenguin]

It could be 2000 all over again . . . or it could be 1998.

5-0 record coming off an impressive road victory they come home and lose to a good LA team. Then go on the road to the Pacific Northwest where they proceed to shake off the loss, and roll through the rest of the season.

Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

This season is a lot closer to 1998 than it is to 2000. Tomey caught lightning in a bottle in 2000 over the first half of the season - the team was not as good as that start made them look. This year's team has a ton more firepower.

[Irish27]

It could be 2000 all over again . . . or it could be 1998.

5-0 record coming off an impressive road victory they come home and lose to a good LA team. Then go on the road to the Pacific Northwest where they proceed to shake off the loss, and roll through the rest of the season.

Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

This season is a lot closer to 1998 than it is to 2000. Tomey caught lightning in a bottle in 2000 over the first half of the season - the team was not as good as that start made them look. This year's team has a ton more firepower.

I agree. I liked Tomey but I think Rich Rod is a better coach and they can beat every team that remains on the schedule.

[Reydituto]

Longhorned:

"Honestly, we should be grateful and celebrate that Hail Mary triumph, and then beating the #2 team in their own house. The hope should be to pick up recruiting as a condition for truly turning the corner." Completely agree

We're not there yet. For now, it's better to appreciate what we achieve with the limited resources we have. I'll believe that Rich Rod can't take recruiting to the next level after the next two or three seasons. The recruiting strategy is already changing over the past two weeks. What has happened that makes you think that???? Most of our recruiting for the year is over and its a mixture of 2/3 star recruits.

I need to shut up because I can't keep track of what I can or can't say about what I pay to read. But I'm talking about the last two weeks, and it isn't limited to 2015.

I honestly don't get why some still persist in the star-gazing argument specifically w/r/t RR's Recruiting. Let me put it in plain English for some of you: Rich Rodriguez doesn't give a flying **** about star ratings. His staff evaluates ~1,500 recruits per class, identifies 150-200 worthy of an offer, and pursue the guys they like off of film & live evaluation for their schemes. If a player they like wants to commit early, they will take him, because they trust their own evaluations; They don't evaluate recruits in the same way that the recruiting services do. That isn't going to change. Signing 4* players for the sake of signing 4* players isn't going to help matters if they are bad fits for what RR wants to do and what he wants out of his players.

Another thing I would mention is to watch how many UA offerees and commits get offers from other good programs after UA offers or gets a verbal (regardless of their ranking). It's as if other coaching staffs let RR & Co. do the evaluation and targeting leg work for them. Weird.

Finally, what LH is alluding to is the idea that UA will likely have room for 4-5 more recruits (if you factor in a decommit or 2, and the 2 Dec. JUCO grads) and that UA is looking to leverage the Oregon win & this season to close the class out strongly (and begin 2016 strongly as well) with guys who were early offerees but now have more reason to consider UA. By now, this has been reported publicly. If I had to guess looking at the online offer lists, most of them would be defensive recruits, and they span the star-ratings from NR to 4*.

Bottom line, you either trust the way RR & his staff go about recruiting, or you don't and use the star rankings as a crutch.

I'm still amazed that some still persist in denying that the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting (signing 4 and 5 star recruits). A cursory look at the recruiting rankings over the past 4 to 5 years and who's been ranked in the top 25 during that period would show that. Anyone who would deny this, to put it in "Plain English", is a blithering idiot. The real "crutch" is those coaches who are unable to recruit successfully and then spin that by talking about how they are recruiting "their guys". And anyone who thinks that RRod doesn't know which recruits are ranked 4/5* and who are recruiting them is worse than a blithering idiot.

You still don't get it.

I'm going to highlight the key parts of what I said above for further reference ...

Rich Rodriguez doesn't give a flying **** about star ratings.

...

Bottom line, you either trust the way RR & his staff go about recruiting, or you don't and use the star rankings as a crutch.

The first part isn't even an argument. It's the truth. Of course they are aware of where a kid is ranked, but that has NO influence on who they recruit. None. Zippo. Zilch. THEY DO THEIR OWN EVALUATIONS. How hard is that for you to understand and appreciate? Also, star ratings matter none once they are on campus. No one is guaranteed anything by their HS rating except an opportunity once they arrive.

Secondly, here's the thing about star rankings - They are for fanboys like you. Aside from the database function they perform - the cataloging of recruits, their physical measurements, and the schools recruiting them - it is largely an exercise in PR. People who want to brag about arbitrarily framed recruiting victories as if they matter as much as the results on the field, "Well, we sure are bringing in some good players, those guys said so! Derpy Derp!!!". Sure, schools will feed into that if they can see it generate season ticket and merchandise sales. And yes, certainly there is significant coincidence and overlap between signing highly ranked players and winning in college, but there are too many outliers to assert a true correlation, and too many other factors that impact results on the field. Yet that doesn't stop you and others from arguing it as if it's some absolute, immutable truth.

You cite a link between Top 25 recruiting rankings (which is basically an opinion poll) and Top 25 team polls each season (again, an opinion poll) over the last 4-5 years. For one, I would point out the sample size issue there as well as the high level of subjectivity involved. More importantly though, take a deeper look past the last 4-5 years, to the history of College Football, while keeping in mind that the writers' and coaches' polls long predate the recruiting rankings, and see how much (i.e., little) turnover there is (and how much institutional memory there is) in the Top 25 from season to season, and decade to decade. Maybe, just maybe, many have the alleged correlation backwards.

No one here - Certainly not I - is saying that you don't need good players to be good, or great players to be great. The teams who are most successful in college FB not only get better players over the long haul, they also coach them up and employs schemes and strategies that best maximize the talents they have and are developing. Therefore, your trite little coda about "the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting" is at best, an entirely incomplete statement, and at worst, flawed reasoning, since the only thing you use to back the idea of "success" up are the recruiting rankings.

So to sum up, It's not about getting the highly rated guys, it's about getting the right guys. If you think that RR, his coaches and Matt Dudek should just click on over to Scout or Rivals and just recruit by what they say are the top players, then you are the blithering idiot. Clearly, you don't trust the way this staff recruits, despite the fact RR is 21-11 so far, so just admit it and move on.

Or, you can feel free to come at me again. It's like batting practice.

P.S. - Your signature still sucks.

[azpenguin]

/searches for rep button
//dammit, it still ain't there

[az91]

I think if we can go 3-3 the rest of the season, with one of those wins against ASU, it will be a successful season.

[dmjcat]

Longhorned:

"Honestly, we should be grateful and celebrate that Hail Mary triumph, and then beating the #2 team in their own house. The hope should be to pick up recruiting as a condition for truly turning the corner." Completely agree

We're not there yet. For now, it's better to appreciate what we achieve with the limited resources we have. I'll believe that Rich Rod can't take recruiting to the next level after the next two or three seasons. The recruiting strategy is already changing over the past two weeks. What has happened that makes you think that???? Most of our recruiting for the year is over and its a mixture of 2/3 star recruits.

I need to shut up because I can't keep track of what I can or can't say about what I pay to read. But I'm talking about the last two weeks, and it isn't limited to 2015.

I honestly don't get why some still persist in the star-gazing argument specifically w/r/t RR's Recruiting. Let me put it in plain English for some of you: Rich Rodriguez doesn't give a flying **** about star ratings. His staff evaluates ~1,500 recruits per class, identifies 150-200 worthy of an offer, and pursue the guys they like off of film & live evaluation for their schemes. If a player they like wants to commit early, they will take him, because they trust their own evaluations; They don't evaluate recruits in the same way that the recruiting services do. That isn't going to change. Signing 4* players for the sake of signing 4* players isn't going to help matters if they are bad fits for what RR wants to do and what he wants out of his players.

Another thing I would mention is to watch how many UA offerees and commits get offers from other good programs after UA offers or gets a verbal (regardless of their ranking). It's as if other coaching staffs let RR & Co. do the evaluation and targeting leg work for them. Weird.

Finally, what LH is alluding to is the idea that UA will likely have room for 4-5 more recruits (if you factor in a decommit or 2, and the 2 Dec. JUCO grads) and that UA is looking to leverage the Oregon win & this season to close the class out strongly (and begin 2016 strongly as well) with guys who were early offerees but now have more reason to consider UA. By now, this has been reported publicly. If I had to guess looking at the online offer lists, most of them would be defensive recruits, and they span the star-ratings from NR to 4*.

Bottom line, you either trust the way RR & his staff go about recruiting, or you don't and use the star rankings as a crutch.

I'm still amazed that some still persist in denying that the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting (signing 4 and 5 star recruits). A cursory look at the recruiting rankings over the past 4 to 5 years and who's been ranked in the top 25 during that period would show that. Anyone who would deny this, to put it in "Plain English", is a blithering idiot. The real "crutch" is those coaches who are unable to recruit successfully and then spin that by talking about how they are recruiting "their guys". And anyone who thinks that RRod doesn't know which recruits are ranked 4/5* and who are recruiting them is worse than a blithering idiot.

You still don't get it.

I'm going to highlight the key parts of what I said above for further reference ...

Rich Rodriguez doesn't give a flying **** about star ratings.

...

Bottom line, you either trust the way RR & his staff go about recruiting, or you don't and use the star rankings as a crutch.

The first part isn't even an argument. It's the truth. Of course they are aware of where a kid is ranked, but that has NO influence on who they recruit. None. Zippo. Zilch. THEY DO THEIR OWN EVALUATIONS. How hard is that for you to understand and appreciate? Also, star ratings matter none once they are on campus. No one is guaranteed anything by their HS rating except an opportunity once they arrive.

Secondly, here's the thing about star rankings - They are for fanboys like you. Aside from the database function they perform - the cataloging of recruits, their physical measurements, and the schools recruiting them - it is largely an exercise in PR. People who want to brag about arbitrarily framed recruiting victories as if they matter as much as the results on the field, "Well, we sure are bringing in some good players, those guys said so! Derpy Derp!!!". Sure, schools will feed into that if they can see it generate season ticket and merchandise sales. And yes, certainly there is significant coincidence and overlap between signing highly ranked players and winning in college, but there are too many outliers to assert a true correlation, and too many other factors that impact results on the field. Yet that doesn't stop you and others from arguing it as if it's some absolute, immutable truth.

You cite a link between Top 25 recruiting rankings (which is basically an opinion poll) and Top 25 team polls each season (again, an opinion poll) over the last 4-5 years. For one, I would point out the sample size issue there as well as the high level of subjectivity involved. More importantly though, take a deeper look past the last 4-5 years, to the history of College Football, while keeping in mind that the writers' and coaches' polls long predate the recruiting rankings, and see how much (i.e., little) turnover there is (and how much institutional memory there is) in the Top 25 from season to season, and decade to decade. Maybe, just maybe, many have the alleged correlation backwards.

No one here - Certainly not I - is saying that you don't need good players to be good, or great players to be great. The teams who are most successful in college FB not only get better players over the long haul, they also coach them up and employs schemes and strategies that best maximize the talents they have and are developing. Therefore, your trite little coda about "the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting" is at best, an entirely incomplete statement, and at worst, flawed reasoning, since the only thing you use to back the idea of "success" up are the recruiting rankings.

So to sum up, It's not about getting the highly rated guys, it's about getting the right guys. If you think that RR, his coaches and Matt Dudek should just click on over to Scout or Rivals and just recruit by what they say are the top players, then you are the blithering idiot. Clearly, you don't trust the way this staff recruits, despite the fact RR is 21-11 so far, so just admit it and move on.

Or, you can feel free to come at me again. It's like batting practice.

P.S. - Your signature still sucks.

Hard to know where to start with your deluded incoherent ramblings.

Let me make this easy for you (although I doubt anything is easy for you). College football coaches at places like Indiana, Rice, Wyoming, and yes, Arizona love to throw out the standard excuses why they can't sign the 5 star players that the Ohio States, Alabamas, Floridas, etc sign every year (in other words, the college football powerhouses). Telling the alumni that they will never out-recruit USC, etc. won't go over well with the well-heeled alumni so the coaches instead talk about "recruiting their type of guy", or "tough hard nosed kids" or yes, "OKG's). This keeps the gullible and clueless (this is where you come in Rey) happy and content. Despite the large amount of evidence that other posters in this thread have provided to you which proves that consistently recruiting top line talent almost always results in success, you prefer to stick your head where the sun doesn't shine.
Think about this for a minute...why did RRod recruit all of those 4 star players while at Michigan??? Are the "OKG's" in the midwest all 4 Star players while the west coast "OKG"s are 2 star????

But don't let that stop you Rey. Hell, I suggest you go pay a visit to Sean Miller. Give him the benefit of your brilliance and advise him to stop recruiting all of those 5 star players. No, Miller needs to recruit 2 star OKG guys to win the National Title!

Oh, and speaking of "batting practice" I suggest you change the analogy. Instead of batting practice, you need to do a little more basic research on the actual game we are talking about.......football.

[Puerco]

Paging Mr. Winger, clean up on Aisle 9.

[Reydituto]

You still don't get it.

I'm going to highlight the key parts of what I said above for further reference ...

Rich Rodriguez doesn't give a flying **** about star ratings.

...

Bottom line, you either trust the way RR & his staff go about recruiting, or you don't and use the star rankings as a crutch.

The first part isn't even an argument. It's the truth. Of course they are aware of where a kid is ranked, but that has NO influence on who they recruit. None. Zippo. Zilch. THEY DO THEIR OWN EVALUATIONS. How hard is that for you to understand and appreciate? Also, star ratings matter none once they are on campus. No one is guaranteed anything by their HS rating except an opportunity once they arrive.

Secondly, here's the thing about star rankings - They are for fanboys like you. Aside from the database function they perform - the cataloging of recruits, their physical measurements, and the schools recruiting them - it is largely an exercise in PR. People who want to brag about arbitrarily framed recruiting victories as if they matter as much as the results on the field, "Well, we sure are bringing in some good players, those guys said so! Derpy Derp!!!". Sure, schools will feed into that if they can see it generate season ticket and merchandise sales. And yes, certainly there is significant coincidence and overlap between signing highly ranked players and winning in college, but there are too many outliers to assert a true correlation, and too many other factors that impact results on the field. Yet that doesn't stop you and others from arguing it as if it's some absolute, immutable truth.

You cite a link between Top 25 recruiting rankings (which is basically an opinion poll) and Top 25 team polls each season (again, an opinion poll) over the last 4-5 years. For one, I would point out the sample size issue there as well as the high level of subjectivity involved. More importantly though, take a deeper look past the last 4-5 years, to the history of College Football, while keeping in mind that the writers' and coaches' polls long predate the recruiting rankings, and see how much (i.e., little) turnover there is (and how much institutional memory there is) in the Top 25 from season to season, and decade to decade. Maybe, just maybe, many have the alleged correlation backwards.

No one here - Certainly not I - is saying that you don't need good players to be good, or great players to be great. The teams who are most successful in college FB not only get better players over the long haul, they also coach them up and employs schemes and strategies that best maximize the talents they have and are developing. Therefore, your trite little coda about "the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting" is at best, an entirely incomplete statement, and at worst, flawed reasoning, since the only thing you use to back the idea of "success" up are the recruiting rankings.

So to sum up, It's not about getting the highly rated guys, it's about getting the right guys. If you think that RR, his coaches and Matt Dudek should just click on over to Scout or Rivals and just recruit by what they say are the top players, then you are the blithering idiot. Clearly, you don't trust the way this staff recruits, despite the fact RR is 21-11 so far, so just admit it and move on.

Or, you can feel free to come at me again. It's like batting practice.

P.S. - Your signature still sucks.

Hard to know where to start with your deluded incoherent ramblings.

Let me make this easy for you (although I doubt anything is easy for you). College football coaches at places like Indiana, Rice, Wyoming, and yes, Arizona love to throw out the standard excuses why they can't sign the 5 star players that the Ohio States, Alabamas, Floridas, etc sign every year (in other words, the college football powerhouses). Telling the alumni that they will never out-recruit USC, etc. won't go over well with the well-heeled alumni so the coaches instead talk about "recruiting their type of guy", or "tough hard nosed kids" or yes, "OKG's). This keeps the gullible and clueless (this is where you come in Rey) happy and content. Despite the large amount of evidence that other posters in this thread have provided to you which proves that consistently recruiting top line talent almost always results in success, you prefer to stick your head where the sun doesn't shine.
Think about this for a minute...why did RRod recruit all of those 4 star players while at Michigan??? Are the "OKG's" in the midwest all 4 Star players while the west coast "OKG"s are 2 star????

But don't let that stop you Rey. Hell, I suggest you go pay a visit to Sean Miller. Give him the benefit of your brilliance and advise him to stop recruiting all of those 5 star players. No, Miller needs to recruit 2 star OKG guys to win the National Title!

Oh, and speaking of "batting practice" I suggest you change the analogy. Instead of batting practice, you need to do a little more basic research on the actual game we are talking about.......football.

Oh goodie, more pus thrown by the site's resident spitballer for me to crush ...

1.) Deluded incoherent ramblings, meet Kettle. The fact that you seem incapable of understanding what I write says much more about you than it says about me, but I'll try to dumb down the rest of my responses just for you.

2.) Gullible and clueless people like yourself rely on the rankings alone to tell them that a player or a recruiting class is good, because they are either too lazy or don't know enough about football otherwise to evaluate the recruits for themselves. But don't get confused - I'm not arguing against UA signing highly rated players, I'm arguing against using the star ratings as the sole and final arbiter of whether Rich Rod is doing a good job of recruiting at UA, and against recruiting highly rated players just for the sake of them being highly rated by a recruiting service.

3.) The "evidence" shared by others above doesn't exactly prove the case you are trying to make, and miss the same point about subjectivity and institutional memory of both the polls and rankings. You want "evidence" though, so here's a list of BCS Bowl Participants over the prior 5 years that consistently outperform their recruiting rankings on the field: Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Kansas State, Baylor, Michigan State, Stanford, TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Northern Illinois. They actually do not "sign the 5 star players that the Ohio States, Alabamas, Floridas, etc sign every year" and that you want UA to do. Yet, somehow, they win titles, bowl games and succeed on the field. Weird. BTW, the list of schools who over the prior 5 seasons constantly underperform their recruiting rankings on the field is just as long. Here's a graphic from Deadspin:



4.) Talk about clueless, here's a news flash: Until UA wins Pac-12 titles and Rose Bowls or BCS playoff games, UA won't be able to out-recruit the USCs and the Michigans of the world, programs with a history of success and academic pedigree that recruits itself to top prospects. I'm secure enough in my UA fandom to admit that, but in addition to your lack of fandom-esteem, you must have a really dim view of boosters and well-heeled alumni, because almost all of the boosters and well-heeled alumni I know realize this very fact. Unlike yourself, they don't need the PR bump that would come from a highly rated recruiting class, nor do they need smoke blown up their ass about the players RR is recruiting. Like them, you know what keeps me "happy and content"? You clearly don't so I'll tell you: Wins on the field. Rich Rod is 21-11 at UA. I'm content and happy so far, and I think the future for UA Football is bright - if you don't that's your problem.

5.) Never mind that Arizona Basketball operates on a different level than Arizona Football relative to their peers. Football recruiting is such a different animal than basketball recruiting, that your red herring about me advising Sean Miller just proves how deficient your arguments are. It's simple math, which is something I'm also starting to think you have a real trouble grasping. Basketball coaches only have to identify, recruit and sign 3-4 good prospects a year, while football coaches have to identify, recruit and sign 20-28 top prospects a year. Top basketball recruits get identified at a much earlier age than football recruits (due to the differing physical requirements and rates of development for each), and their scouting is much more organized due to AAU tournaments and skills camps, so that by their JR years, every coach, and every scout knows who the top players are as well as the realistic targets, making it difficult to fly under the radar. This isn't the case in Football, based on the sheer number of players both scouts and coaches need to evaluate, as well as the relative lack of organized offseason competition and camps that all coaches can attend - one need look no further than Scooby Wright to understand the difference, as if he were a similarly talented basketball prospect, every Pac-12 school and some of the national programs would have seen him play several times and offered him. All of which is to say, Sean Miller probably pays even less attention to the star ratings for basketball players than Rich Rodriguez does to the ratings of football prospects (if it's possible to care less than the 0% RR does), because guess what: MILLER DOES HIS OWN EVALUATIONS TOO.

6.) As long as we're telling each other to advise a UA coach on recruiting, go ahead, tell Rich Rodriguez that he needs to only recruit players on the Scout 300, 4*s and up. Find your cojones, and just admit that you don't trust the way RR & his staff recruits, not only on this board, but to his face. I don't think you have it in ya though, you'd rather lob insults at everyone who disagrees with you.

7.) No, it's still batting practice, because it's just so easy to swat your silly arguments and opinions over the fence. You know jack shit about how recruiting is actually done by the current UA coaches, and your continuing attempts to demonstrate otherwise flail in comparison to the actual and verifiable knowledge being shared here.

P.S. - Your signature still sucks.

[Chicat]

I'm glad you brought up Scooby. The Cal coaches told him at their camp that he should try to get a schollie at Sacramento State. Meanwhile he's now our second most effective defensive player as a true sophomore and one of the top young linebackers in the PAC-12. Think Cal wouldn't like to have him on their team this year?

Neither recruiting services nor coaching staffs are infallible. We've had 5-star talent that has flopped (Louis Holmes) and 2-star talent that has excelled. Obviously recruiting services are going to be right more often than they are wrong, but coaches at a place like Arizona have ton more riding on getting the right guy for their teams and schemes. If Scout tells you a kid is a 5-star and he turns out to be a bust, no big deal. If the Arizona coaches pull in a class of future talent that goes out on the field and stinks up the place, it could mean their jobs and the demise of their careers and the program they are trying to build.

I would say the pressure to get it right is all on the coaches and not at all on Scout or Rivals or ESPN. And I highly doubt RichRod & Company are intentionally recruiting to put a product on the field that will eventually get them fired. Just doesn't seem logical.

[UAEebs86]

So perennially Top 25 programs get Top 25 recruiting classes.
In another news flash, rich good-looking guys attract hotter women.

What I have never seen Winger or others analyze is how do you get into the Top 25 teams if you are not there already? Do you recruit better and start winning, or do you start winning and the recruits follow?

[catinfl]

I'm a stargazer and believe in recruiting rankings to an extent. There are some positions where you just don't question RR. (Basically everything on offense.), but they haven't recruited well enough on the DL to please me and the DL hasn't performed that well so I think it's ok to question what they're doing at that position. He's had a couple of LB's do well and McCall and Denson are going to be studs at CB. Still a little skeptical at S though

[Chicat]

So perennially Top 25 programs get Top 25 recruiting classes.
In another news flash, rich good-looking guys attract hotter women.

What I have never seen Winger or others analyze is how do you get into the Top 25 teams if you are not there already? Do you recruit better and start winning, or do you start winning and the recruits follow?

What's interesting to me is a team like Boise State with a lot going against it recruiting-wise (location, conference, history, etc.). Ten years ago they were pulling in classes ranked in the 70s and 80s and turned those guys into a perennial top-25 team with a couple of undefeated seasons and few more with only one or two losses. Then they flirt with switching conferences, ramp up their recruiting so now their classes are ranked in the 40s and 50s, and yet the product on the field has suffered. With more talent they've lost more games (which could be due to playing better teams and other factors). So will recruiting suffer? Well, last year their recruiting class was ranked in the mid-60s and this year doesn't look much better. And they aren't sniffing the top-25.

So it's a chicken or the egg thing. With less talent (on paper) they did better (on the field). With more talent (on paper) they've done worse (on the field). Did they reach for guys because recruiting services tabbed them as 3 and 4 star talent? Did their pool of candidates grow to the point where they felt they could take more risks? Is it that they used to get guys who were underrated and more recently they've pulled in guys who were overrated?

I would say this: If Boise had the advantages that UA has (new facilities, great location, great conference, national TV exposure, beautiful coeds, etc.) I think their recruiting ability would have gone up much farther and they likely would have been able to sustain success. A jump from lower to middle tier is not enough to keep producing undefeated/top-10 teams. You need the talent and the coaching to bring players to the point where they can compete against the best. So I've got some patience for Arizona since I know the coaches are good. With winning the talent will come too and before you know it we'll be one of those perennial top-25 teams that pulls in top-25 classes year after year.

[RazorsEdgeAZ]

Suppose this will be a forever debate. It's a good topic to debate (imo). For some reason it reminded me of a well thought out letter/thread that was started towards the beginning of this board: "Being a Wildcat" http://forum.prodigaleyelid.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=531. Was written right after the KM commitment announcement. OKG's and 5 stars etc.

Anyway.

Specifically, at this point I do think there is a correlation between class star AVERAGE rating and being perennial winning programs AND getting to the Rose Bowl. For now, I'll just narrow in on the Pac12. It's obvious you can be a winning program with average class rating of 3 star or less. Arizona is an example of that. There are enough Pac12 level talent out there to go around for most Pac12 teams to have winning records and under current number of bowls, get to a bowl game.

There will always be individual players that are 5 star that don't work out and 2 stars that thrive. Why I look at the AVERAGE star of class ranking. But from what I've seen Rose Bowl teams generally have year over year have the highest averaged star ratings. But it's not just one recruiting class, it's been multiple years (2 or more) with higher AVERAGED star rating Rose Bowl teams have achieved.

It's not just one Scooby breakthrough player that gets a team there. It's takes depth and deep talent at multiple positions (not all) to be perennial or Rose Bowl level. I ASSUME that 4 and 5 star rated players start with the general physical attributes along with known high school program entities. Also ASSUME those higher rated players are assumed to play against better general talent in HS, have access to proven accomplished coaching, known elevated training and HABITS. Generalizing here. Some make it and some don''t.

Coaching makes a difference. I firmly believe Rich Rod and assistants can coach. Coach better than most. To me has proven to produce more with his players. He hasn't produced tons of NFL draft picks (in fact over the years, Casteel players have produced almost as many) but with his scheme, his teams produce.

Looking at the last 12 years PAC12 teams recruiting classes, it seems the year after year top teams average above the 3 star with their recruiting classes. USC, UCLA, Stanford, Oregon. These teams average 3.5 and above for the most part. Washington is next. They don't get there every year but have most years. Arizona, OSU, Cal, Utah and ASSU come in next with sporadic years at/above the 3 star average.

Actually using Rivals, Arizona hit a 3 star average in 2014 class. First time hit the 3 star average since 2006. But they had some stellar transfers that are eligible this year that would have made that average higher had it been calculated in. To some degree why I feel this year Cats are competing high level and will next year as well. But to keep it going, it needs more really good recruiting classes as a WHOLE.

Is it scientific fact? No. But its hard to argue with when talking about how to be the top handful of teams in Pac12 and get to a Rose Bowl. I hope someone can find a PAC12 exception and let us know.

We also need to define successful and winning for a program. Rich Rod and Co. say Rose Bowl and Natty's. I believe they mean that's their expectation. So for now, that's mine as well.

[Merkin]

Very nice post RazorsEdgeAZ.

I keep hoping for the WSU Rose Bowl years as a goal. Down year in the PAC, average players, good coaching, and bringing in NFL caliber QBs. Don't remember the exact number, but I think Mike Price put 5 WSU QBs in the league in the same time UA put 0.

Is there any place more miserable in PAC country than the Palouse? Not as a place to live, just to play football.

[UALoco]

It's amusing what happens on this board when the Cats lose a game.

We are the overreacting kings of the universe

[Merkin]

It's amusing what happens on this board when the Cats lose a game.

We are the overreacting kings of the universe

Happens to every message board for every team.

Of course I didn't see a single "the sky is falling" post over at TOS.

[PieceOfMeat]

I know you said this is over the last 5 years, so it includes the time before RR was here. I'd be interested to see graphic in a couple/three years from now, to really get an idea of what RR is doing with his own guys.

Kinda depressing though that we're right were we "should" be on that graphic. :/ :\

[dmjcat]

You still don't get it.

I'm going to highlight the key parts of what I said above for further reference ...

Rich Rodriguez doesn't give a flying **** about star ratings.

...

Bottom line, you either trust the way RR & his staff go about recruiting, or you don't and use the star rankings as a crutch.

The first part isn't even an argument. It's the truth. Of course they are aware of where a kid is ranked, but that has NO influence on who they recruit. None. Zippo. Zilch. THEY DO THEIR OWN EVALUATIONS. How hard is that for you to understand and appreciate? Also, star ratings matter none once they are on campus. No one is guaranteed anything by their HS rating except an opportunity once they arrive.

Secondly, here's the thing about star rankings - They are for fanboys like you. Aside from the database function they perform - the cataloging of recruits, their physical measurements, and the schools recruiting them - it is largely an exercise in PR. People who want to brag about arbitrarily framed recruiting victories as if they matter as much as the results on the field, "Well, we sure are bringing in some good players, those guys said so! Derpy Derp!!!". Sure, schools will feed into that if they can see it generate season ticket and merchandise sales. And yes, certainly there is significant coincidence and overlap between signing highly ranked players and winning in college, but there are too many outliers to assert a true correlation, and too many other factors that impact results on the field. Yet that doesn't stop you and others from arguing it as if it's some absolute, immutable truth.

You cite a link between Top 25 recruiting rankings (which is basically an opinion poll) and Top 25 team polls each season (again, an opinion poll) over the last 4-5 years. For one, I would point out the sample size issue there as well as the high level of subjectivity involved. More importantly though, take a deeper look past the last 4-5 years, to the history of College Football, while keeping in mind that the writers' and coaches' polls long predate the recruiting rankings, and see how much (i.e., little) turnover there is (and how much institutional memory there is) in the Top 25 from season to season, and decade to decade. Maybe, just maybe, many have the alleged correlation backwards.

No one here - Certainly not I - is saying that you don't need good players to be good, or great players to be great. The teams who are most successful in college FB not only get better players over the long haul, they also coach them up and employs schemes and strategies that best maximize the talents they have and are developing. Therefore, your trite little coda about "the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting" is at best, an entirely incomplete statement, and at worst, flawed reasoning, since the only thing you use to back the idea of "success" up are the recruiting rankings.

So to sum up, It's not about getting the highly rated guys, it's about getting the right guys. If you think that RR, his coaches and Matt Dudek should just click on over to Scout or Rivals and just recruit by what they say are the top players, then you are the blithering idiot. Clearly, you don't trust the way this staff recruits, despite the fact RR is 21-11 so far, so just admit it and move on.

Or, you can feel free to come at me again. It's like batting practice.

P.S. - Your signature still sucks.

Hard to know where to start with your deluded incoherent ramblings.

Let me make this easy for you (although I doubt anything is easy for you). College football coaches at places like Indiana, Rice, Wyoming, and yes, Arizona love to throw out the standard excuses why they can't sign the 5 star players that the Ohio States, Alabamas, Floridas, etc sign every year (in other words, the college football powerhouses). Telling the alumni that they will never out-recruit USC, etc. won't go over well with the well-heeled alumni so the coaches instead talk about "recruiting their type of guy", or "tough hard nosed kids" or yes, "OKG's). This keeps the gullible and clueless (this is where you come in Rey) happy and content. Despite the large amount of evidence that other posters in this thread have provided to you which proves that consistently recruiting top line talent almost always results in success, you prefer to stick your head where the sun doesn't shine.
Think about this for a minute...why did RRod recruit all of those 4 star players while at Michigan??? Are the "OKG's" in the midwest all 4 Star players while the west coast "OKG"s are 2 star????

But don't let that stop you Rey. Hell, I suggest you go pay a visit to Sean Miller. Give him the benefit of your brilliance and advise him to stop recruiting all of those 5 star players. No, Miller needs to recruit 2 star OKG guys to win the National Title!

Oh, and speaking of "batting practice" I suggest you change the analogy. Instead of batting practice, you need to do a little more basic research on the actual game we are talking about.......football.

Oh goodie, more pus thrown by the site's resident spitballer for me to crush ...

1.) Deluded incoherent ramblings, meet Kettle. The fact that you seem incapable of understanding what I write says much more about you than it says about me, but I'll try to dumb down the rest of my responses just for you.

2.) Gullible and clueless people like yourself rely on the rankings alone to tell them that a player or a recruiting class is good, because they are either too lazy or don't know enough about football otherwise to evaluate the recruits for themselves. But don't get confused - I'm not arguing against UA signing highly rated players, I'm arguing against using the star ratings as the sole and final arbiter of whether Rich Rod is doing a good job of recruiting at UA, and against recruiting highly rated players just for the sake of them being highly rated by a recruiting service.

3.) The "evidence" shared by others above doesn't exactly prove the case you are trying to make, and miss the same point about subjectivity and institutional memory of both the polls and rankings. You want "evidence" though, so here's a list of BCS Bowl Participants over the prior 5 years that consistently outperform their recruiting rankings on the field: Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Kansas State, Baylor, Michigan State, Stanford, TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Northern Illinois. They actually do not "sign the 5 star players that the Ohio States, Alabamas, Floridas, etc sign every year" and that you want UA to do. Yet, somehow, they win titles, bowl games and succeed on the field. Weird. BTW, the list of schools who over the prior 5 seasons constantly underperform their recruiting rankings on the field is just as long. Here's a graphic from Deadspin:



4.) Talk about clueless, here's a news flash: Until UA wins Pac-12 titles and Rose Bowls or BCS playoff games, UA won't be able to out-recruit the USCs and the Michigans of the world, programs with a history of success and academic pedigree that recruits itself to top prospects. I'm secure enough in my UA fandom to admit that, but in addition to your lack of fandom-esteem, you must have a really dim view of boosters and well-heeled alumni, because almost all of the boosters and well-heeled alumni I know realize this very fact. Unlike yourself, they don't need the PR bump that would come from a highly rated recruiting class, nor do they need smoke blown up their ass about the players RR is recruiting. Like them, you know what keeps me "happy and content"? You clearly don't so I'll tell you: Wins on the field. Rich Rod is 21-11 at UA. I'm content and happy so far, and I think the future for UA Football is bright - if you don't that's your problem.

5.) Never mind that Arizona Basketball operates on a different level than Arizona Football relative to their peers. Football recruiting is such a different animal than basketball recruiting, that your red herring about me advising Sean Miller just proves how deficient your arguments are. It's simple math, which is something I'm also starting to think you have a real trouble grasping. Basketball coaches only have to identify, recruit and sign 3-4 good prospects a year, while football coaches have to identify, recruit and sign 20-28 top prospects a year. Top basketball recruits get identified at a much earlier age than football recruits (due to the differing physical requirements and rates of development for each), and their scouting is much more organized due to AAU tournaments and skills camps, so that by their JR years, every coach, and every scout knows who the top players are as well as the realistic targets, making it difficult to fly under the radar. This isn't the case in Football, based on the sheer number of players both scouts and coaches need to evaluate, as well as the relative lack of organized offseason competition and camps that all coaches can attend - one need look no further than Scooby Wright to understand the difference, as if he were a similarly talented basketball prospect, every Pac-12 school and some of the national programs would have seen him play several times and offered him. All of which is to say, Sean Miller probably pays even less attention to the star ratings for basketball players than Rich Rodriguez does to the ratings of football prospects (if it's possible to care less than the 0% RR does), because guess what: MILLER DOES HIS OWN EVALUATIONS TOO.

6.) As long as we're telling each other to advise a UA coach on recruiting, go ahead, tell Rich Rodriguez that he needs to only recruit players on the Scout 300, 4*s and up. Find your cojones, and just admit that you don't trust the way RR & his staff recruits, not only on this board, but to his face. I don't think you have it in ya though, you'd rather lob insults at everyone who disagrees with you.

7.) No, it's still batting practice, because it's just so easy to swat your silly arguments and opinions over the fence. You know jack shit about how recruiting is actually done by the current UA coaches, and your continuing attempts to demonstrate otherwise flail in comparison to the actual and verifiable knowledge being shared here.

P.S. - Your signature still sucks.

Oh look, the sun came up and my 6 am shadow appeared........or is that just the village idiot???
By the way, what kind of lunatic answers posts at 3am in the morning?

1.) Deluded incoherent ramblings, meet Kettle. The fact that you seem incapable of understanding what I write says much more about you than it says about me, but I'll try to dumb down the rest of my responses just for you.ROTFLMAO..........YOU, of all people on this board, don't need to worry about "Dumbing down your posts.....they are PLENTY dumb as is!

2.) Gullible and clueless people like yourself rely on the rankings alone to tell them that a player or a recruiting class is good, because they are either too lazy or don't know enough about football otherwise to evaluate the recruits for themselves. But don't get confused - I'm not arguing against UA signing highly rated players, I'm arguing against using the star ratings as the sole and final arbiter of whether Rich Rod is doing a good job of recruiting at UA, and against recruiting highly rated players just for the sake of them being highly rated by a recruiting service. Who ever said we should use star rankings as the sole arbiter??? Go back and read my posts again.......SLOWLY this time. God you have reading comprehension issues

3.) The "evidence" shared by others above doesn't exactly prove the case you are trying to make, and miss the same point about subjectivity and institutional memory of both the polls and rankings. You want "evidence" though, so here's a list of BCS Bowl Participants over the prior 5 years that consistently outperform their recruiting rankings on the field: Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Kansas State, Baylor, Michigan State, Stanford, TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Northern Illinois. They actually do not "sign the 5 star players that the Ohio States, Alabamas, Floridas, etc sign every year" and that you want UA to do. Yet, somehow, they win titles, bowl games and succeed on the field. Weird. BTW, the list of schools who over the prior 5 seasons constantly underperform their recruiting rankings on the field is just as long. Here's a graphic from Deadspin:

Your simpleton analogy fails to take SOS into account. Many of the schools you list (Central Florida/TCU/Boise State/Northern Ilinois annually play weak schedules. The Utah Utes thought they were pretty good back when they were in the MWC and only played 1 or 2 real teams every year. Ask them how thats working out since they joined the PAC12??



4.) Talk about clueless, here's a news flash: Until UA wins Pac-12 titles and Rose Bowls or BCS playoff games, UA won't be able to out-recruit the USCs and the Michigans of the world, programs with a history of success and academic pedigree that recruits itself to top prospects. Wow, I'm impressed that you figured that out all by yourself..........there may be a glimmer of hope for you!! I'm secure enough in my UA fandom ]to admit that, but in addition to your lack of fandom-esteem, you must have a really dim view of boosters and well-heeled alumni, because almost all of the boosters and well-heeled alumni I know realize this very fact. Unlike yourself, they don't need the PR bump that would come from a highly rated recruiting class, nor do they need smoke blown up their ass about the players RR is recruiting. Like them, you know what keeps me "happy and content"? You clearly don't so I'll tell you: Wins on the field. Rich Rod is 21-11 at UA. I'm content and happy so far, and I think the future for UA Football is bright - if you don't that's your problem. Your insecurity, as demonstrated by your overly verbose posts, is quite evident!

5.) Never mind that Arizona Basketball operates on a different level than Arizona Football relative to their peers. Football recruiting is such a different animal than basketball recruiting, that your red herring about me advising Sean Miller just proves how deficient your arguments are. It's simple math, which is something I'm also starting to think you have a real trouble grasping. Basketball coaches only have to identify, recruit and sign 3-4 good prospects a year, while football coaches have to identify, recruit and sign 20-28 top prospects a year. Top basketball recruits get identified at a much earlier age than football recruits (due to the differing physical requirements and rates of development for each), and their scouting is much more organized due to AAU tournaments and skills camps, so that by their JR years, every coach, and every scout knows who the top players are as well as the realistic targets, making it difficult to fly under the radar. This isn't the case in Football, based on the sheer number of players both scouts and coaches need to evaluate, as well as the relative lack of organized offseason competition and camps that all coaches can attend - one need look no further than Scooby Wright to understand the difference, as if he were a similarly talented basketball prospect, every Pac-12 school and some of the national programs would have seen him play several times and offered him. All of which is to say, Sean Miller probably pays even less attention to the star ratings for basketball players than Rich Rodriguez does to the ratings of football prospects (if it's possible to care less than the 0% RR does), because guess what: MILLER DOES HIS OWN EVALUATIONS TOO.

Yes he does his own evaluations.......and then signs 5 star players NIMROD!! The ranking system in basketball is very similar to football in case you haven't figured that out

6.) As long as we're telling each other to advise a UA coach on recruiting, go ahead, tell Rich Rodriguez that he needs to only recruit players on the Scout 300, 4*s and up. Find your cojones, and just admit that you don't trust the way RR & his staff recruits, not only on this board, but to his face. I don't think you have it in ya though, you'd rather lob insults at everyone who disagrees with you. I for one, am quite sure that RRod is very aware that he needs to improve his recruiting............you seem to be the only board genius that hasn't figured that out

7.) No, it's still batting practice, because it's just so easy to swat your silly arguments and opinions over the fence. You know jack shit about how recruiting is actually done by the current UA coaches, and your continuing attempts to demonstrate otherwise flail in comparison to the actual and verifiable knowledge being shared here And yet you keep striking out...........better move over to the baseball board.


By the way, I'm curious. You answered my post at 3am in the morning............You obviously don't work for a living. How do you support yourself. Is it:

1) You are independently wealthy, or:

2) You are still living with your mother and subsisting off her Social Security check

Which is it???

[dmjcat]

I'm glad you brought up Scooby. The Cal coaches told him at their camp that he should try to get a schollie at Sacramento State. Meanwhile he's now our second most effective defensive player as a true sophomore and one of the top young linebackers in the PAC-12. Think Cal wouldn't like to have him on their team this year?

Neither recruiting services nor coaching staffs are infallible. We've had 5-star talent that has flopped (Louis Holmes) and 2-star talent that has excelled. Obviously recruiting services are going to be right more often than they are wrong, but coaches at a place like Arizona have ton more riding on getting the right guy for their teams and schemes. If Scout tells you a kid is a 5-star and he turns out to be a bust, no big deal. If the Arizona coaches pull in a class of future talent that goes out on the field and stinks up the place, it could mean their jobs and the demise of their careers and the program they are trying to build.

I would say the pressure to get it right is all on the coaches and not at all on Scout or Rivals or ESPN. And I highly doubt RichRod & Company are intentionally recruiting to put a product on the field that will eventually get them fired. Just doesn't seem logical.

Scooby Wright was a great get for RRod......but have you looked at what the other 2 star players in his class have contributed??? They include:

Jack Banda
Khari McGee
Jesse Scroggins
RJ Morgan
Philip Wright
Paul Elvira

Bottom line: winning on 1 out of 7 two star recruits just isn't going to cut it. If RRod signed 28 two star recruits with those odds he would wind up with 4 serviceable players.....and that won't cut it. Thats why teams that sign more highly rated players (3 and 4 star.....even 5!) tend to get a better return on their investment.

[azcat49]

You forgot that Scroggins was once a 5 star QB that USC recruited. You also forgot that Nate Phillips ,Turituri,Ippolito, Allah and Sanders have all been 2 star contributors

[Reydituto]

So perennially Top 25 programs get Top 25 recruiting classes.

That's precisely it, in that exact order of occurrence.

I'm a stargazer and believe in recruiting rankings to an extent. There are some positions where you just don't question RR. (Basically everything on offense.), but they haven't recruited well enough on the DL to please me and the DL hasn't performed that well so I think it's ok to question what they're doing at that position. He's had a couple of LB's do well and McCall and Denson are going to be studs at CB. Still a little skeptical at S though

I get what you're saying, catinfl. And yet, you're basically blaming Rich Rod for not finding either a.) the right HS recruits that would be FR or SO right now (or true JR from RR's first hybrid class, 1/2-filled with Stoops leftovers and 2 months left to take DL off the scrap heap) or b.) the right JUCO transfers, that would be good enough to play ahead of the Stoops leftovers that are upperclassmen and/or currently taking most of the snaps at the hardest positions to recruit. Good DL, and especially DT, are the highest in demand and the lowest in supply, and the fact is that most DL need 2-3 years development. I know you know all this, you're too knowledgeable a poster not to get it.

So, it is possible that some of the future answers are already in the pipeline, and that just because those guys are either redshirting or developing while buried on the depth chart, doesn't mean they were recruiting mistakes or won't contribute in the coming seasons.

If in the next 2-3 years, RR's current DL recruits flame out, you will have been proven correct to question it - but not until then IMO, and certainly not based on what Scout or Rivals said about them in HS.

Also, I'm still not convinced Denson stays at CB, but that's another thread ...

There will always be individual players that are 5 star that don't work out and 2 stars that thrive. Why I look at the AVERAGE star of class ranking. But from what I've seen Rose Bowl teams generally have year over year have the highest averaged star ratings. But it's not just one recruiting class, it's been multiple years (2 or more) with higher AVERAGED star rating Rose Bowl teams have achieved.

I think your entire post is a well-expressed opinion RazorsEdge. I highlighted this part to disagree a bit with using the "average" star rating as a measure, as I my best guess is that it actually exacerbates the rating error in each individual player instead of balancing them out, so that the final figure is flawed and somewhat meaningless, but to prove that out requires an extensive data analysis that my obligations (nor those of most people here, maybe if Winger took a 3-month sabbatical) would not allow.

The part in the "venn diagram" where we converge is that it takes several good recruiting classes stacked together to assemble the players required to win championships. Where I diverge with some is how to best determine and assess the success of these recruiting classes.

My argument has always been against the star system as the argumentative basis for prematurely judging a recruiting class (when I truly believe you can't evaluate a class until 3-4 years after signing day with results on the field), and especially with those who do not fully understand the function and purpose of the ratings websites, nor have any actual knowledge of how the UA coaches approach recruiting.

I know you said this is over the last 5 years, so it includes the time before RR was here. I'd be interested to see graphic in a couple/three years from now, to really get an idea of what RR is doing with his own guys.

Kinda depressing though that we're right were we "should" be on that graphic. :/ :\

Yeah, I'll be interested to see what RR does with his own guys too. That period was 3 years of Stoops, and 2 years of RR, mostly with Stoops recruits. If anything, this is the stargazers' best argument - that UA is exactly who they recruit, based on the last 5 years - as the differential between recruiting rankings and on-field performance (measured by poll rankings) is almost 0, and the lowest differential (along with Nebraska) among FBS programs. My observation is that there are so many programs who otherwise under or over perform their recruiting rankings, that relying upon recruiting class rankings to project future success (and to argue incessantly about it as an absolute measure) is a flawed exercise.

Oh look, the sun came up and my 6 am shadow appeared........or is that just the village idiot???
By the way, what kind of lunatic answers posts at 3am in the morning?

1.) Deluded incoherent ramblings, meet Kettle. The fact that you seem incapable of understanding what I write says much more about you than it says about me, but I'll try to dumb down the rest of my responses just for you.ROTFLMAO..........YOU, of all people on this board, don't need to worry about "Dumbing down your posts.....they are PLENTY dumb as is!

You should stop campaigning to be this board's resident "Village Idiot", as you long ago won the position.

2.) Gullible and clueless people like yourself rely on the rankings alone to tell them that a player or a recruiting class is good, because they are either too lazy or don't know enough about football otherwise to evaluate the recruits for themselves. But don't get confused - I'm not arguing against UA signing highly rated players, I'm arguing against using the star ratings as the sole and final arbiter of whether Rich Rod is doing a good job of recruiting at UA, and against recruiting highly rated players just for the sake of them being highly rated by a recruiting service. Who ever said we should use star rankings as the sole arbiter??? Go back and read my posts again.......SLOWLY this time. God you have reading comprehension issues

That's hilarious, since you're too dumb to realize what you're actually saying, in your own argument. When you say, as you did above in this very thread, and I quote: "that the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting (signing 4 and 5 star recruits) ...", that you are for all intents saying star rankings are THE arbiter of success.

3.) The "evidence" shared by others above doesn't exactly prove the case you are trying to make, and miss the same point about subjectivity and institutional memory of both the polls and rankings. You want "evidence" though, so here's a list of BCS Bowl Participants over the prior 5 years that consistently outperform their recruiting rankings on the field: Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Kansas State, Baylor, Michigan State, Stanford, TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Northern Illinois. They actually do not "sign the 5 star players that the Ohio States, Alabamas, Floridas, etc sign every year" and that you want UA to do. Yet, somehow, they win titles, bowl games and succeed on the field. Weird. BTW, the list of schools who over the prior 5 seasons constantly underperform their recruiting rankings on the field is just as long. Here's a graphic from Deadspin:

Your simpleton analogy fails to take SOS into account. Many of the schools you list (Central Florida/TCU/Boise State/Northern Ilinois annually play weak schedules. The Utah Utes thought they were pretty good back when they were in the MWC and only played 1 or 2 real teams every year. Ask them how thats working out since they joined the PAC12??

Never mind the facts that a.) TCU was in the Big 12 for the last 2 of those 5 years measured, playing great schedules as a result and still over-performed, b.) I never mentioned Utah, because in the 5-year period measured by the graphic, Utah did not play in a BCS Bowl, and c.) you discounted 3 other schools, while failing to address the other 7 BCS Conference schools (SEVEN!!!) that demonstrate my point.

It was at this point in your circular incoherence that I realized you were a waste of grey matter that is never going to understand what I am saying, and skipped to the end.

4.) Talk about clueless, here's a news flash: Until UA wins Pac-12 titles and Rose Bowls or BCS playoff games, UA won't be able to out-recruit the USCs and the Michigans of the world, programs with a history of success and academic pedigree that recruits itself to top prospects. Wow, Blah Blah Blah I'm an ahole Blah Blah Blah-Blah BlahBlahBlahI'm secure enough in my UA fandom ]to admit that, but in addition to your lack of fandom-esteem, you must have a really dim view of boosters and well-heeled alumni, because almost all of the boosters and well-heeled alumni I know realize this very fact. Unlike yourself, they don't need the PR bump that would come from a highly rated recruiting class, nor do they need smoke blown up their ass about the players RR is recruiting. Like them, you know what keeps me "happy and content"? You clearly don't so I'll tell you: Wins on the field. Rich Rod is 21-11 at UA. I'm content and happy so far, and I think the future for UA Football is bright - if you don't that's your problem. Blah Blah Blah, dmjcat has low self-esteem that he projects unto others, Blah Blah, Blah Blah, it's quite evident!

5.) Never mind that Arizona Basketball operates on a different level than Arizona Football relative to their peers. Football recruiting is such a different animal than basketball recruiting, that your red herring about me advising Sean Miller just proves how deficient your arguments are. It's simple math, which is something I'm also starting to think you have a real trouble grasping. Basketball coaches only have to identify, recruit and sign 3-4 good prospects a year, while football coaches have to identify, recruit and sign 20-28 top prospects a year. Top basketball recruits get identified at a much earlier age than football recruits (due to the differing physical requirements and rates of development for each), and their scouting is much more organized due to AAU tournaments and skills camps, so that by their JR years, every coach, and every scout knows who the top players are as well as the realistic targets, making it difficult to fly under the radar. This isn't the case in Football, based on the sheer number of players both scouts and coaches need to evaluate, as well as the relative lack of organized offseason competition and camps that all coaches can attend - one need look no further than Scooby Wright to understand the difference, as if he were a similarly talented basketball prospect, every Pac-12 school and some of the national programs would have seen him play several times and offered him. All of which is to say, Sean Miller probably pays even less attention to the star ratings for basketball players than Rich Rodriguez does to the ratings of football prospects (if it's possible to care less than the 0% RR does), because guess what: MILLER DOES HIS OWN EVALUATIONS TOO.

Blah Blah Blah, Yo Gabba Gabba, Nimrod is a neat word, Blah Blah Blah

6.) As long as we're telling each other to advise a UA coach on recruiting, go ahead, tell Rich Rodriguez that he needs to only recruit players on the Scout 300, 4*s and up. Find your cojones, and just admit that you don't trust the way RR & his staff recruits, not only on this board, but to his face. I don't think you have it in ya though, you'd rather lob insults at everyone who disagrees with you. Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah-Blah BlahBlah Blah Blah

7.) No, it's still batting practice, because it's just so easy to swat your silly arguments and opinions over the fence. You know jack shit about how recruiting is actually done by the current UA coaches, and your continuing attempts to demonstrate otherwise flail in comparison to the actual and verifiable knowledge being shared here Yadda Yadda Yadda, I'm tired at this point and really hate that Rey uses baseball analogies Blah Blah, Yadda Yadda

Your posts are proof of the famous Twain quote, "Never argue with stupid people, they drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience." You clearly don't understand the differences between UA basketball recruiting and UA football recruiting - or what each coach actually does as opposed to your fanboy star-rating fantasy - to intelligently discuss them. I am so secure in my knowledge and opinions that I'm won't respond further to your pathetic attempts to discuss the few bits of my posts that had not flown over your head at warp speed. I've hit enough homers in this thread, but since you've now made it entirely personal, I've got a few more swings left ...

By the way, I'm curious. You answered my post at 3am in the morning............You obviously don't work for a living. How do you support yourself. Is it:

1) You are independently wealthy, or:

2) You are still living with your mother and subsisting off her Social Security check

Which is it???

Let's put aside the fact that you're incapable of coming up with more options than those two, most of which would be closer to the truth, none of which you are entitled to.

I've got a better quiz for you. What kind of person asks such an asinine question of another message board poster? Is it:

a.) A troll?
b.) Someone who long before lost the argument and decided to attack the poster instead?
c.) A moron who is too dumb to know he's not that smart?
d.) A person who molests collies?
e.) ALL OF THE ABOVE

The answer should be obvious to everyone ...

Scooby Wright was a great get for RRod......but have you looked at what the other 2 star players in his class have contributed??? They include:

Jack Banda
Khari McGee
Jesse Scroggins
RJ Morgan
Philip Wright
Paul Elvira

Bottom line: winning on 1 out of 7 two star recruits just isn't going to cut it. If RRod signed 28 two star recruits with those odds he would wind up with 4 serviceable players.....and that won't cut it. Thats why teams that sign more highly rated players (3 and 4 star.....even 5!) tend to get a better return on their investment.

Bottom line: You're too stupid to realize that Scooby Wright IS Philip Wright, which would actually make it 1 out of 6 by your highly selective count, so there really is no further point in arguing with you.

You forgot that Scroggins was once a 5 star QB that USC recruited. You also forgot that Nate Phillips ,Turituri,Ippolito, Allah and Sanders have all been 2 star contributors

While no one is saying UA should recruit 2* players above all else, Phillips, Turituri & Scooby are three of the best players in that 2013 class so far, all 2*. He also forgot that Scout had Trey Griffey and William Parks as 2* players, and I would contend both are future pros. Also, Jack Banda and R.J. Morgan may never contribute here, OR they may just develop into contributors down the line since they are both currently Redshirt Freshmen (!). Nor does he know that the coaches love 2* underclassmen like T.D. Gross, Levi Walton and Tony Ellison as future contributors. But in his case, ignorance must be bliss.

[Chicat]

Guys, if we can't keep it civil then posts are going to need to start getting edited. And since I really don't have the time or energy to edit all the childish stuff out of these posts, I may just start deleting them. So all the time you spent coming up with different ways to call each other a brainless asshat will be for nought.

[ANGCatFan]

Guys, if we can't keep it civil then posts are going to need to start getting edited. And since I really don't have the time or energy to edit all the childish stuff out of these posts, I may just start deleting them. So all the time you spent coming up with different ways to call each other a brainless asshat will be for nought.

Chicat,
I'm interested in what the board standard is for civility and where we as a group want to draw the line? I personally enjoy Rey's creative ways for pointing out brainless asshats, but more importantly his arguments have all been primarily supported with football information and not just personal attacks only responses to attacks thrown at him.

In my opinion, as long as a discussion is primarily about football and the responses are reasonably substantive on the football issues it is healthy for the board. When it degenerates into just personal attacks the discussion becomes destructive for the board. The tricky part is identifying when a poster has crossed that line. I call it the Kyle Collins Conundrum.

For me Rey is way on the football side of the line and although dmjcat has tried to drag the discussion down to just personal attacks the other posters have made sure it has remained football centered. Although I am personally tired of the "we can't win because we can't recruit" discussions, I am glad people have to support their theories in the face of strong criticism because it helps to draw out the difference between reality and pure personal opinion.

I am also a little concerned that we will lock active, popular threads because one poster decides to stop talking football and wallow in personal insults. Historically on local message boards moderators have locked threads that have gotten out of hand punishing everyone equally and then the same discussion with the same participants pops up on another thread when the same subject is raised again. We need to identify and punish the bad actors not just lock the discussion to everyone.

I'm also not a big fan of editing because we lose the historical evidence of where someone crossed the line. Have there been previous football threads that have been edited? If a post is edited by the mods will I be able to tell?

I'd love to see a three step process for posters that have crossed the line. First, a direct message from a mod to try and resolve the problem in private that you have crossed a civility line and need to avoid personal attack. Second, only if the problem persists, a public message in the thread stating that this specific poster(s) has been warned in private and now is being warned publicly to avoid personal attacks. Finally, if nothing improves, an appropriate ban from the site. Small for first time offenders, longer for repeat or serious offenders, and banishment for serial, unrepentant asshats.

For this thread, as an example, you certainly could make a case that dmj could have received a private warning, but we have yet to hit the point where there needs to be public action. In my opinion we have had far worse threads with far less football discussion. This is not the type of thread I would like to see locked or edited. If for no other reason, in 2 years when we have a full picture of Coach Rod's history of recruiting at Arizona I would like one side of the argument be able to pull this thread back up and to show they were correct.

[Chicat]

ANG, I posted my thoughts here: http://forum.prodigaleyelid.com/viewtop ... 401#p36401

But just for the record, I wasn't calling out Rey. I just happened to chime in after his latest post. You're right that there is actually good info to consider from both posters. I just don't want to have to wade through the name-calling to find it.

[dmjcat]

So perennially Top 25 programs get Top 25 recruiting classes.

That's precisely it, in that exact order of occurrence.

I'm a stargazer and believe in recruiting rankings to an extent. There are some positions where you just don't question RR. (Basically everything on offense.), but they haven't recruited well enough on the DL to please me and the DL hasn't performed that well so I think it's ok to question what they're doing at that position. He's had a couple of LB's do well and McCall and Denson are going to be studs at CB. Still a little skeptical at S though

I get what you're saying, catinfl. And yet, you're basically blaming Rich Rod for not finding either a.) the right HS recruits that would be FR or SO right now (or true JR from RR's first hybrid class, 1/2-filled with Stoops leftovers and 2 months left to take DL off the scrap heap) or b.) the right JUCO transfers, that would be good enough to play ahead of the Stoops leftovers that are upperclassmen and/or currently taking most of the snaps at the hardest positions to recruit. Good DL, and especially DT, are the highest in demand and the lowest in supply, and the fact is that most DL need 2-3 years development. I know you know all this, you're too knowledgeable a poster not to get it.

So, it is possible that some of the future answers are already in the pipeline, and that just because those guys are either redshirting or developing while buried on the depth chart, doesn't mean they were recruiting mistakes or won't contribute in the coming seasons.

If in the next 2-3 years, RR's current DL recruits flame out, you will have been proven correct to question it - but not until then IMO, and certainly not based on what Scout or Rivals said about them in HS.

Also, I'm still not convinced Denson stays at CB, but that's another thread ...

There will always be individual players that are 5 star that don't work out and 2 stars that thrive. Why I look at the AVERAGE star of class ranking. But from what I've seen Rose Bowl teams generally have year over year have the highest averaged star ratings. But it's not just one recruiting class, it's been multiple years (2 or more) with higher AVERAGED star rating Rose Bowl teams have achieved.

I think your entire post is a well-expressed opinion RazorsEdge. I highlighted this part to disagree a bit with using the "average" star rating as a measure, as I my best guess is that it actually exacerbates the rating error in each individual player instead of balancing them out, so that the final figure is flawed and somewhat meaningless, but to prove that out requires an extensive data analysis that my obligations (nor those of most people here, maybe if Winger took a 3-month sabbatical) would not allow.

The part in the "venn diagram" where we converge is that it takes several good recruiting classes stacked together to assemble the players required to win championships. Where I diverge with some is how to best determine and assess the success of these recruiting classes.

My argument has always been against the star system as the argumentative basis for prematurely judging a recruiting class (when I truly believe you can't evaluate a class until 3-4 years after signing day with results on the field), and especially with those who do not fully understand the function and purpose of the ratings websites, nor have any actual knowledge of how the UA coaches approach recruiting.

I know you said this is over the last 5 years, so it includes the time before RR was here. I'd be interested to see graphic in a couple/three years from now, to really get an idea of what RR is doing with his own guys.

Kinda depressing though that we're right were we "should" be on that graphic. :/ :\

Yeah, I'll be interested to see what RR does with his own guys too. That period was 3 years of Stoops, and 2 years of RR, mostly with Stoops recruits. If anything, this is the stargazers' best argument - that UA is exactly who they recruit, based on the last 5 years - as the differential between recruiting rankings and on-field performance (measured by poll rankings) is almost 0, and the lowest differential (along with Nebraska) among FBS programs. My observation is that there are so many programs who otherwise under or over perform their recruiting rankings, that relying upon recruiting class rankings to project future success (and to argue incessantly about it as an absolute measure) is a flawed exercise.

Oh look, the sun came up and my 6 am shadow appeared........or is that just the village idiot???
By the way, what kind of lunatic answers posts at 3am in the morning?

1.) Deluded incoherent ramblings, meet Kettle. The fact that you seem incapable of understanding what I write says much more about you than it says about me, but I'll try to dumb down the rest of my responses just for you.ROTFLMAO..........YOU, of all people on this board, don't need to worry about "Dumbing down your posts.....they are PLENTY dumb as is!

You should stop campaigning to be this board's resident "Village Idiot", as you long ago won the position.

2.) Gullible and clueless people like yourself rely on the rankings alone to tell them that a player or a recruiting class is good, because they are either too lazy or don't know enough about football otherwise to evaluate the recruits for themselves. But don't get confused - I'm not arguing against UA signing highly rated players, I'm arguing against using the star ratings as the sole and final arbiter of whether Rich Rod is doing a good job of recruiting at UA, and against recruiting highly rated players just for the sake of them being highly rated by a recruiting service. Who ever said we should use star rankings as the sole arbiter??? Go back and read my posts again.......SLOWLY this time. God you have reading comprehension issues

That's hilarious, since you're too dumb to realize what you're actually saying, in your own argument. When you say, as you did above in this very thread, and I quote: "that the most successful programs in college football are the ones who are most successful in recruiting (signing 4 and 5 star recruits) ...", that you are for all intents saying star rankings are THE arbiter of success.

3.) The "evidence" shared by others above doesn't exactly prove the case you are trying to make, and miss the same point about subjectivity and institutional memory of both the polls and rankings. You want "evidence" though, so here's a list of BCS Bowl Participants over the prior 5 years that consistently outperform their recruiting rankings on the field: Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Kansas State, Baylor, Michigan State, Stanford, TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Northern Illinois. They actually do not "sign the 5 star players that the Ohio States, Alabamas, Floridas, etc sign every year" and that you want UA to do. Yet, somehow, they win titles, bowl games and succeed on the field. Weird. BTW, the list of schools who over the prior 5 seasons constantly underperform their recruiting rankings on the field is just as long. Here's a graphic from Deadspin:

Your simpleton analogy fails to take SOS into account. Many of the schools you list (Central Florida/TCU/Boise State/Northern Ilinois annually play weak schedules. The Utah Utes thought they were pretty good back when they were in the MWC and only played 1 or 2 real teams every year. Ask them how thats working out since they joined the PAC12??

Never mind the facts that a.) TCU was in the Big 12 for the last 2 of those 5 years measured, playing great schedules as a result and still over-performed, b.) I never mentioned Utah, because in the 5-year period measured by the graphic, Utah did not play in a BCS Bowl, and c.) you discounted 3 other schools, while failing to address the other 7 BCS Conference schools (SEVEN!!!) that demonstrate my point.

It was at this point in your circular incoherence that I realized you were a waste of grey matter that is never going to understand what I am saying, and skipped to the end.

4.) Talk about clueless, here's a news flash: Until UA wins Pac-12 titles and Rose Bowls or BCS playoff games, UA won't be able to out-recruit the USCs and the Michigans of the world, programs with a history of success and academic pedigree that recruits itself to top prospects. Wow, Blah Blah Blah I'm an ahole Blah Blah Blah-Blah BlahBlahBlahI'm secure enough in my UA fandom ]to admit that, but in addition to your lack of fandom-esteem, you must have a really dim view of boosters and well-heeled alumni, because almost all of the boosters and well-heeled alumni I know realize this very fact. Unlike yourself, they don't need the PR bump that would come from a highly rated recruiting class, nor do they need smoke blown up their ass about the players RR is recruiting. Like them, you know what keeps me "happy and content"? You clearly don't so I'll tell you: Wins on the field. Rich Rod is 21-11 at UA. I'm content and happy so far, and I think the future for UA Football is bright - if you don't that's your problem. Blah Blah Blah, dmjcat has low self-esteem that he projects unto others, Blah Blah, Blah Blah, it's quite evident!

5.) Never mind that Arizona Basketball operates on a different level than Arizona Football relative to their peers. Football recruiting is such a different animal than basketball recruiting, that your red herring about me advising Sean Miller just proves how deficient your arguments are. It's simple math, which is something I'm also starting to think you have a real trouble grasping. Basketball coaches only have to identify, recruit and sign 3-4 good prospects a year, while football coaches have to identify, recruit and sign 20-28 top prospects a year. Top basketball recruits get identified at a much earlier age than football recruits (due to the differing physical requirements and rates of development for each), and their scouting is much more organized due to AAU tournaments and skills camps, so that by their JR years, every coach, and every scout knows who the top players are as well as the realistic targets, making it difficult to fly under the radar. This isn't the case in Football, based on the sheer number of players both scouts and coaches need to evaluate, as well as the relative lack of organized offseason competition and camps that all coaches can attend - one need look no further than Scooby Wright to understand the difference, as if he were a similarly talented basketball prospect, every Pac-12 school and some of the national programs would have seen him play several times and offered him. All of which is to say, Sean Miller probably pays even less attention to the star ratings for basketball players than Rich Rodriguez does to the ratings of football prospects (if it's possible to care less than the 0% RR does), because guess what: MILLER DOES HIS OWN EVALUATIONS TOO.

Blah Blah Blah, Yo Gabba Gabba, Nimrod is a neat word, Blah Blah Blah

6.) As long as we're telling each other to advise a UA coach on recruiting, go ahead, tell Rich Rodriguez that he needs to only recruit players on the Scout 300, 4*s and up. Find your cojones, and just admit that you don't trust the way RR & his staff recruits, not only on this board, but to his face. I don't think you have it in ya though, you'd rather lob insults at everyone who disagrees with you. Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah-Blah BlahBlah Blah Blah

7.) No, it's still batting practice, because it's just so easy to swat your silly arguments and opinions over the fence. You know jack shit about how recruiting is actually done by the current UA coaches, and your continuing attempts to demonstrate otherwise flail in comparison to the actual and verifiable knowledge being shared here Yadda Yadda Yadda, I'm tired at this point and really hate that Rey uses baseball analogies Blah Blah, Yadda Yadda

Your posts are proof of the famous Twain quote, "Never argue with stupid people, they drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience." You clearly don't understand the differences between UA basketball recruiting and UA football recruiting - or what each coach actually does as opposed to your fanboy star-rating fantasy - to intelligently discuss them. I am so secure in my knowledge and opinions that I'm won't respond further to your pathetic attempts to discuss the few bits of my posts that had not flown over your head at warp speed. I've hit enough homers in this thread, but since you've now made it entirely personal, I've got a few more swings left ...

By the way, I'm curious. You answered my post at 3am in the morning............You obviously don't work for a living. How do you support yourself. Is it:

1) You are independently wealthy, or:

2) You are still living with your mother and subsisting off her Social Security check

Which is it???

Let's put aside the fact that you're incapable of coming up with more options than those two, most of which would be closer to the truth, none of which you are entitled to.

I've got a better quiz for you. What kind of person asks such an asinine question of another message board poster? Is it:

a.) A troll?
b.) Someone who long before lost the argument and decided to attack the poster instead?
c.) A moron who is too dumb to know he's not that smart?
d.) A person who molests collies?
e.) ALL OF THE ABOVE

The answer should be obvious to everyone ...

Scooby Wright was a great get for RRod......but have you looked at what the other 2 star players in his class have contributed??? They include:

Jack Banda
Khari McGee
Jesse Scroggins
RJ Morgan
Philip Wright
Paul Elvira

Bottom line: winning on 1 out of 7 two star recruits just isn't going to cut it. If RRod signed 28 two star recruits with those odds he would wind up with 4 serviceable players.....and that won't cut it. Thats why teams that sign more highly rated players (3 and 4 star.....even 5!) tend to get a better return on their investment.

Bottom line: You're too stupid to realize that Scooby Wright IS Philip Wright, which would actually make it 1 out of 6 by your highly selective count, so there really is no further point in arguing with you.

You forgot that Scroggins was once a 5 star QB that USC recruited. You also forgot that Nate Phillips ,Turituri,Ippolito, Allah and Sanders have all been 2 star contributors

While no one is saying UA should recruit 2* players above all else, Phillips, Turituri & Scooby are three of the best players in that 2013 class so far, all 2*. He also forgot that Scout had Trey Griffey and William Parks as 2* players, and I would contend both are future pros. Also, Jack Banda and R.J. Morgan may never contribute here, OR they may just develop into contributors down the line since they are both currently Redshirt Freshmen (!). Nor does he know that the coaches love 2* underclassmen like T.D. Gross, Levi Walton and Tony Ellison as future contributors. But in his case, ignorance must be bliss.

Another response from Rey. Lets see what insight he brings today:

Rey said:

"Blah Blah Blah, dmjcat has low self-esteem that he projects unto others, Blah Blah, Blah Blah, it's quite evident!"

"Blah Blah Blah, Yo Gabba Gabba, Nimrod is a neat word, Blah Blah Blah"

"Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah-Blah BlahBlah Blah Blah"

"Yadda Yadda Yadda, I'm tired at this point and really hate that Rey uses baseball analogies Blah Blah, Yadda Yadda"

Hmmmmmmmmmm, while I must admit that "Blah Blah,Yada Yada" is probably the most intelligent thing you have posted thus far in this thread it doesn't get to the debate at hand.....which is that Star rankings do statistically and directly correspond to both a players and a teams success. The following 7 studies (I could post 7 more) all came to the same conclusion - Star rankings do matter. Note that a couple of these studies were performed by PhD math majors.

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/artic ... ng-winning
http://www.sbnation.com/college-footbal ... chart-wins
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... l/21641769
http://touchdownalabama.net/looking-to-the-stars/
http://winthropintelligence.com/2011/10 ... rformance/
http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewc ... radreports
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/varsit ... pectacular

So please, go ahead and refute this vicious pack of facts.
Until then......Strike Three you are out...........again

You still didn't answer whether you are independently wealthy or living with your parents....I am just curious.

[UAdevil]

Kyle?

[qwertyus]

It's amusing what happens on this board when the Cats lose a game.

I don't think it's amusing. I try and stay away for at least a couple of days after each loss. It gets way too doom and gloom for my tastes.