I enjoy folks offering their shoot from the hip opinions on recruiting,so I did some research from the past. In days gone by,a fellow named Joe Terranova was the ultimate recruiting guru-sold his recruiting letters all over the U.S.A. So I did a little looking at the recruits from the 1980 team(which was the most talented ever in my opinion). If Pitt had recruited those players now,basically the average"star" number would have been a little less than 3.0. Benny Pryor and Carlton Williamson were the top 2 according to Terranova. My point being that--no Hugh Green,Russ Grimm,Rickey Jackson,etc. Keep the faith fans-and thanks for letting me vent.
An old guy looking way back at recruiting--
- Thread starter Evenattheturn
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Sheer nonsense.
Ricky Jackson came from Florida when A) high school football had not exploded in Fla. And B) no one ever had heard of Pahokee.
But make no mistake Ricky Jackson was 1st team all state and one of the top players in florida at the time
Would have likely been a 4 star and possibly a 5
Ricky Jackson came from Florida when A) high school football had not exploded in Fla. And B) no one ever had heard of Pahokee.
But make no mistake Ricky Jackson was 1st team all state and one of the top players in florida at the time
Would have likely been a 4 star and possibly a 5
Just another version of the "stars don't matter" argument.
Stars do matter. The more 4/5* recruits on your roster translates to better talent and more wins on a regular basis. The Donalds and Conners of the world are great and all, but they are very rare. You can't build a championship roster full of "diamonds in the rough."
Stars do matter. The more 4/5* recruits on your roster translates to better talent and more wins on a regular basis. The Donalds and Conners of the world are great and all, but they are very rare. You can't build a championship roster full of "diamonds in the rough."
Maybe I'm mistaken, but hadn't Pitt gotten a player or two out of that specific town (largely due to Sherrill) prior to Rickey? The one who comes to mind is a defensive lineman named Cecil (last name escapes me, may have been Jackson also) who was drafted by Tampa Bay.
Cecil may have been a JC transfer, but there's a reason Pahokee, Florida rings a bell.
It was a different era. The entire landscape of college football has changed. Recruiting gurus have far more film and information about players at the click of a mouse than was ever possible before. They are not always right, but they are a lot better than they were 30 years ago.
There was a Cecil Johnson LB from Miami, played for Majors in the mid 1970,s and was drafted by TB.
Cecil played several positions here before settling in at LB in the pros. He backed up Gray Burley at NT before Al Romano emerged. He played some DT but was undersized there. In the 5-2 we played then, DE was basically an outside LB and that's where he played most.
Carlton Williams, DB who played nickel early in his career was from Pahokee. He was in Majors' first recruiting class and lived on my floor. I believe we signed several other guys from Pahokee and also Bell Glades Central which is just across Lake Okeechobee, in more recent years.
Back then, no internet, few national newspapers, no cable/satellite/ streaming, 3 games on Tv per week, no stats or sophisticated analytics for comparisons, no compatible standards (Joe Schmuck in the northwest might use 3 stars, Bubba Crankshaft in the southeast uses 4, guy in Texas goes by "yee haws"), etc....
Any guru then was likely to know his own region where he hung his hat, degree of error increasing in proportions to the radii of the circles extending past that. Not criticizing, it just would be the restraints of the time. When everything would effectively need observed or corroborated in person, or hearsay, subjectively.
But even working on the assumption that ratings on paper for most of our players being essentially 3 stars then as well as now ... you presumably saw them play then, and see our players of today, can you honestly say you truly think most of those '3 star' guys you cited are only merely about as talented as the 2-3 star guys we go to battle with today? Clearly even the eye test alone would convince that Rickey J is a bit better than say Patrick Jones...
But if really close to equal, it's really an indictment of how woeful the coaching (not recruiting) skills we've had since Sherrill & co... that they made jabronies like Rickey and Hugh into legends. I'm actually not unwilling to get behind that one. I think our coaches, particularly position coaches, haven't exactly mined much gold from the ore so to speak. Witness 2016-17 as merely one example, multiple of our DBs and LB getting legit NFL chances, after some playing on one of the worst college defenses in history. That's coaching underachievement. Those defenses shouldn't have won the NC, but shouldn't have stunk so bad.
As with the political thread now alas removed, nothing is totally black or white. We've been subpar, or perhaps just about par (if par is .500) at recruiting AND coaching.
Any guru then was likely to know his own region where he hung his hat, degree of error increasing in proportions to the radii of the circles extending past that. Not criticizing, it just would be the restraints of the time. When everything would effectively need observed or corroborated in person, or hearsay, subjectively.
But even working on the assumption that ratings on paper for most of our players being essentially 3 stars then as well as now ... you presumably saw them play then, and see our players of today, can you honestly say you truly think most of those '3 star' guys you cited are only merely about as talented as the 2-3 star guys we go to battle with today? Clearly even the eye test alone would convince that Rickey J is a bit better than say Patrick Jones...
But if really close to equal, it's really an indictment of how woeful the coaching (not recruiting) skills we've had since Sherrill & co... that they made jabronies like Rickey and Hugh into legends. I'm actually not unwilling to get behind that one. I think our coaches, particularly position coaches, haven't exactly mined much gold from the ore so to speak. Witness 2016-17 as merely one example, multiple of our DBs and LB getting legit NFL chances, after some playing on one of the worst college defenses in history. That's coaching underachievement. Those defenses shouldn't have won the NC, but shouldn't have stunk so bad.
As with the political thread now alas removed, nothing is totally black or white. We've been subpar, or perhaps just about par (if par is .500) at recruiting AND coaching.
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Terranova used 4-stars for his top prospects so a class that was slightly under 3-stars is probably top 25 today. He didn't attempt to rate every kid and relied on standard data which wasn't always available. It was a good early attempt.
Lack of national ranking services IS a legit point. All the independent recruiting "experts" were very parochial and very limited in who they got to see and evaluate.
Additionally, that particular Pitt class was almost officially the class which broke the Jim Crow geographic barrier. The SEC began accepting and recruiting the skilled black athlete shortly after that. Guys like Hugh Green were no longer limited to attending schools north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Before that, those athletes were ignored by many local writers in the South.
Recruiting was MUCH different in those days. It was basically condensed into the brief period between the end of the college season until National Letter of Intent day. It was a mad scramble.
Still, there was an anecdote told several times by Jackie Sherril regarding the recruiting class who were seniors in 1980. Apparently, when Majors left for Tennessee and Sherrill was hired, Majors took ALL the recruiting files with him.
When Jackie came back from his "internship" at Washington St., he had only a very short time to put together a list of targets and recruit them.
His new staff decided to work from recruiting magazines and newsletters, with a twist. They called guys who were mentioned as good prospects and asked them WHICH SCHOOLS WERE RECRUITING THEM?
If big schools were recruiting them and had offered, the kids's names were marked for follow-up visits. If only small or also-ran programs were contacting the prospects, Pitt basically dropped them from consideration. So, their recruiting search wasn't bound by Terranova or any one other guru.
Yeah, they looked at films. That's how Hugh Green was discovered. Nobody knew anything about him until Pitt coaches saw him going up against Rooster Jones' Pascagoula team.
But, mostly they basically piggy-backed on OTHER teams' scouting efforts. Having just won the national title made Pitt legitimate in the eyes of recruits.
Clearly, they identified a lot of good prospects.
I remember back in the day of Street And Smiths, they did a great job with basketball and a not so great job in football. For an example, a kid from HS was named on Street & Smith's Honorable Mention HS football team at QB, it was probably 1983 or 1984. One problem. The kid never, ever started a game in high school, and I am talking not even like another position. He was just a dude, like anyone of us, who was tall and played football. And back then, any Western PA QB who was over 6'2" and could throw the ball 20 yards, was considered a D1 prospect (hi Rich Bowen, looking at you) based on the success of the Marino's, Kelly's, Montana's, etc...
But it was fun. Was Vinnie Teranova the guy from Wise Guy or the guy who had that Blue Chips Magazine. Because I remember Elway and Marino being coverboys before their Sr year. Obviously that magazine got it right (also Eric Dickerson was a big fish in that class).
But it was fun. Was Vinnie Teranova the guy from Wise Guy or the guy who had that Blue Chips Magazine. Because I remember Elway and Marino being coverboys before their Sr year. Obviously that magazine got it right (also Eric Dickerson was a big fish in that class).
Not so uncommon. There was a big kid I played against named 3rd team All-State at OT. He didn't get a single vote at our All-Conference banquet.
By the mid-80's, there was a scouting camp held at Mt. Lebo. Had someone's name on it but it was called the "5 star" camp. Sounded weird but it was by invitation. You didn't have to be good to get an invite. Sometimes size was enough (as in my case). It was held in May, I think, and was for Juniors in HS. So you went three days and it was a who's who of coaches in the stands. Jim Sweeny ran my position group (I remember he seemed slightly insane). Man, there were some really good football players there. Was a pretty cool experience. A week later, letters came pouring in from all over the place. Sometimes that was it. Sometimes you got phone calls and visits. I think I kept all of that in a shoebox somewhere, mostly for the autographs of famous coaches.
I would rather have several high 3 stars that want to be here than several low 4 stars that don’t.
One of those recruiting “gurus” from the 80s was Max Emfinger. I’ll always remember this gem from Max-this was the year Emmitt Smith set national HS rushing yardage and TD records and was consensus national HS POY:
"Emmitt Smith is a lugger, not a runner. He's not fast. He can't get around the corner. When he falls flat on his face, remember where you heard it first."
This thread would not be complete without a shout out to Altoona.
Regardless of stars, we’ve got who we’ve got. Now it’s the coaches job to build, teach and scheme them to win. Teams don’t win on talent alone. You need to be at a certain baseline and you need playmakers but we don’t have to recruit exactly like PSU or Clemson to beat PSU or Clemson. We’ve proven that.
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