Rankings at this point!

[thatBULL]

chandler is not list in the rivals commits.  It will bump us up

[Reliable Source]

The quality of the kids in this and in past USF classes is not in dispute. We are sending Juniors and Seniors into the NFL and those kids are from recruiting classes which predated our recent meteoric rise. The task of our staff is now threefold. Get these raw talents ready to play BCS football, develop winning gameplans and strategy and coach these teams to their maximum potential. Discipline and execution win many football games. A well disciplined team will exaggerate the talents of a player as much as a poorly coached team will make a great player look overmatched. The reason why the transition in our coaching staff came at such an opportune moment(the manner of the change notwithstanding) is that we have loaded this team with talent from the greatest talent pool in the country. It is no mystery why all of the country's well organized staff seek to exploit our talent pool. For USF, the challenge is to execute the second two components referenced above. We have plenty of talent. What we need to do know is train that talent and coach it. Build a team which feeds on itself and take it over the sidelines and off the field successfully. It is an amazing thing to coach or play for a true "team". Once it has happened for you, you will never forget how amazing that is and what kind of doors open to you when you play as a"TEAM"

[Reliable Source]

One more thought came to me and i wanted to put it out there because it demonstrates my point in a rather dramatic fashion. Tommy Lasorda drafted Mike Piazza in the 62 round of the major league draft as a favor to Mike's family because Tommy was Godfather to Mike's brother. Mike Piazza went on to become perhaps the greatest hitting catcher in Major league history. He was a 12 time All star. After the 9/11 attacks in New York City on September 21, 2001(the first professional sports contest after the attacks) Mike hit a 2-run home run to lift the Mets over the Braves in the late innings of that game. It became an iconic symbol of the rebirth of NYC after the devastation.

All this from a guy who wasn't even ranked. Who got selected as a family favor. Who was selected as an afterthought after 62  rounds of the draft. Players become who they are meant to be, how they are inspired to be, not how they are ranked. At the other end of the spectrum is Ryan Leaf. Selected 2nd in the 1998 NFL draft, only 1 spot behind Peyton Manning and considered by many scouts to be the best talent in that draft. Ryan was out of Pro Football in 4 years and now faces smuggling charges for illicit drugs.

If at the end of draft day you had Mike Piazza on your team or if you had Ryan Leaf. With which one would you be most satisfied. You might say, well those are extreme examples. No, they are repeated over and over again in all sports. All i can attribute this to, is this, you can't measure a man by the nature of his past only by how much he wants to claim his future.

[SaltyBulls]

True, but finding the players with the drive to be great is the trick, followed by coaching them so that they can become great.

[Bullpride08]

One more thought came to me and i wanted to put it out there because it demonstrates my point in a rather dramatic fashion. Tommy Lasorda drafted Mike Piazza in the 62 round of the major league draft as a favor to Mike's family because Tommy was Godfather to Mike's brother. Mike Piazza went on to become perhaps the greatest hitting catcher in Major league history. He was a 12 time All star. After the 9/11 attacks in New York City on September 21, 2001(the first professional sports contest after the attacks) Mike hit a 2-run home run to lift the Mets over the Braves in the late innings of that game. It became an iconic symbol of the rebirth of NYC after the devastation.

All this from a guy who wasn't even ranked. Who got selected as a family favor. Who was selected as an afterthought after 62  rounds of the draft. Players become who they are meant to be, how they are inspired to be, not how they are ranked. At the other end of the spectrum is Ryan Leaf. Selected 2nd in the 1998 NFL draft, only 1 spot behind Peyton Manning and considered by many scouts to be the best talent in that draft. Ryan was out of Pro Football in 4 years and now faces smuggling charges for illicit drugs.

If at the end of draft day you had Mike Piazza on your team or if you had Ryan Leaf. With which one would you be most satisfied. You might say, well those are extreme examples. No, they are repeated over and over again in all sports. All i can attribute this to, is this, you can't measure a man by the nature of his past only by how much he wants to claim his future.

you're comparing pro-analysis of players.  Ryan Leaf or Piazza? 

HS recruiting is on an entirely different plateau.  It's about having physical attributes, being able to do things physically the others cannot.  Leaf was so obviously a physical freak as a QB, but he rose to a level where it took a heightened cerebral level as well as physical to get him by and that's where he hit the wall.

Remember HS rankings are not based solely on opinions, and feelings.  They're based on physical aspects, and play.  Take a Hans Louis, why was he not ranked higher despite great vids, well he's really about 6ft, and at that height he's running in the 4.6's...evaluators look at that and the ceiling doesn't appear high.  Not high enough to rank higher.  Will he be better?  Well that depends on a myriad of things, does Hans have more speed if he trains better, can he get more powerful, can his lateral quickness and back-pedal be developed.  In some cases like a Hans it is what it is, what we saw is the best we're going to get...and when your Miami, UF, or FSU, who can sign ANYONE...you don't have to take that risk.  If you're USF you do, and many times the kids don't pan out, they end up as career special teamers, and in some rare instances, and you hope the staff has the ability to see those things-- Leavitt did at certain positions-- and recognize a guy that has another level to give.  If a kid like Hans comes in, and having never really run and worked on speed and agility comes in and drops a 100th off his forty time, adds 10lbs of pure muscle, gets that bunch well north of 400lbs, improves shuttle and lateral 10m times....sometimes kids can do this because they've worked out so little in HS....and you see a 5-11 220lbs kid that ran a 4.65, to now a 5-11 230lbs kid that runs a 4.55, and has a 4.1 shuttle, and benches 425lbs....with Hans instincts you might have something.

Stars matter because so much of this is bent on potential.  For coaches who have to look past stars, like a USF coach, they need to look DEEP into the intangibles, look at the player's life, his situation, his coaching, his measurables.  That tells a coach if there is more to this player, or if what they're seeing is as good as it gets.  Kinda like what we did with Chaminade players...Hans is felt to have an extra gear, he switched schools so much he never got proper strength or speed training, he was a bit short so he stayed away from scout camps for fear he would be labeled....the feeling is they can turn this kid into a 6ft/5-11 230lbs 4.5 kid, and he's not that far from being there...where his teammate Narcisse...a bit smaller, a bit slower...he was all miami-dade, and at 6ft 210lbs seems good measurables...but he's closer to 4.7 then Hans.  Just not enough for a staff to build on.

[smazza]

holtz will get hard working football players that want to compete

holtz knows he must be a salesman

[smazza]

The quality of the kids in this and in past USF classes is not in dispute. We are sending Juniors and Seniors into the NFL and those kids are from recruiting classes which predated our recent meteoric rise. The task of our staff is now threefold. Get these raw talents ready to play BCS football, develop winning gameplans and strategy and coach these teams to their maximum potential. Discipline and execution win many football games. A well disciplined team will exaggerate the talents of a player as much as a poorly coached team will make a great player look overmatched. The reason why the transition in our coaching staff came at such an opportune moment(the manner of the change notwithstanding) is that we have loaded this team with talent from the greatest talent pool in the country. It is no mystery why all of the country's well organized staff seek to exploit our talent pool. For USF, the challenge is to execute the second two components referenced above. We have plenty of talent. What we need to do know is train that talent and coach it. Build a team which feeds on itself and take it over the sidelines and off the field successfully. It is an amazing thing to coach or play for a true "team". Once it has happened for you, you will never forget how amazing that is and what kind of doors open to you when you play as a"TEAM"

usf doesnt have plenty of talent

we have been drinking the koolaid on this point for years

you dont finish in bottom half of big east with "plenty of talent"

[smazza]

True, but finding the players with the drive to be great is the trick, followed by coaching them so that they can become great.

you only recruit players that work hard,wants to compete,winners

you must recruit a certain type of kid

you are better off not wasting schollys on kids that dont fit that profile

in the past we did recruit that type of kid

[smazza]

be patient

i told you heath was the man and i am telling you holtz is the man

[Reliable Source]

My earlier post wasn't intended to compare HS rankings with Pros( Certainly Pro evaluators have much more time and spend much more effort in evaluating talent) but yet to  contrast the methodology. Rather than look at size, sped and a solely stat based evaluation you have to look much farther. How would you rank Tim Lincecum, 5-11, 165 lbs. Not exactly the prototype of a major league pitcher. But yet, he was taken, in the draft #10 and has won 2 Cy Young awards by age 25.

That's why the ranking are so fallible, especially after you get into the second or third hundred players. There are always players in those positions that become the best players in College football. Why did no one see the raw talent that they had? Maybe they were injured, maybe they played at a small school, well off the beaten path. Maybe they are a "late developing " kid. Maybe(JPP) they just started playing football. Yesterdays signings en comapass 120 Div. 1 teams with an avg just north of 25 players per team. That's more than 3000 players who were offered and accepted, perhaps another 2000 just off the bubble. You really don't think the scouting services  thoroughly evaluated all those kids do you? It didn't happen. We had kids we were looking at that didn't get ranked until the day before NSD when it became apparent that they were gonna get offered and accept. How detailed do you think those evaluations were? Did someone look at the kids highlight reel on youtube and look at what team he was signing with? You betcha. The coaches that are after these kids do a lot more detailed evaluation because there is so much at stake in selected a kid who can later perform. In order to improve a program(our goal here) a coach must be able to find underated kids who will exceed their ranking. If  a Coach and his talent evaulators are good at that, they succeed. If they aren't they fail.Florida is getting all the kids it wants because of recent success. Hasn't always been that way. FSU and Miami are fighting the perception that they are sliding back a bit. USF is an unknown. But the ranking guys are gonna call all of FL  kids 5 star recruits because if FL  bothers to recruit them they must be special.