Recruiting Western PA over the last 13 years

[Sean Miller Fan]

On Chris's most recent Podcast, he went over some fascinating Western PA Pitt recruiting stats. I advise anybody to listen to it. We talk a lot about how what "percentage" of local players Pitt should keep home. I've said it should be 70%.

So, in the last 13 years, that's only happened once. Using Rivals rankings, Chris said Wannstedt got 8 out of the Top 10 in 2006 (Darrin Walls went to ND and somebody I never heard of went somewhere else). Coincidentally, when these players were in their 3rd and 4th years in the program, we had our best 2 seasons since Gottfried and were knocking on the door of the BCS.

However, 2006 was the outlier. We got 3 or less of the Top 10 in 8 of the other 12 years. We only got 5 or more of the Top 10 3 times in 13 years.

These numbers, in my opinion, are beyond awful. Of course, you can't build a winning team with just local players but you absolutely need to land most of the top-end talent. Pitt isnt going to be on a lot of "lists" for 4 and 5 stars from NJ, DC, Florida, Ohio, etc but they at least make the lists of all the local kids. Blame whatever you want but the fact is, if we want to win the way we want, we have to DOMINATE this region. And if that's not possible, well, neither is winning the way we want.

FWIW, Chris was very very upbeat on the prospects of having an unbelievable local recruiting year. He is as close to recruiting as there is and made it seem like this is going to be the best local Pitt class since Wanny 2006 and he's not necessarily overly positive when it comes to Pitt. He's usually fair and objective.

Maybe Chris has just bought into the hype. Maybe the 412Crew will all go elsewhere but I think the sense is that Narduzzi may land a bunch of these guys who all want to come to Pitt to do something as one unnamed, uncommitted recruit told him......."legendary."

 

[HailtoPitt]

The hard part is that there is only so much one can do to convince that many WPIAL players to commit to Pitt. Even if Pitt is really good (let's assume that the administration can hire and keep a quality football coach for once) you are still going to have some classes where kids just favor other schools for some reason independent of Pitt. i.e. Some 5 star recruit's grandma plays the "I'll be dead soon" card and convinces the kid to attend dear old Notre Dame. Another two recruits' parents went to PSU and are card carrying cult worshipers. Another parent coaches tennis at Pitt and personally knows the AD, so he steers Jr. away.

Some years you will have more of that, and others less. Only so much a coach can do.

 

[vegasgreed]

probably will do well locally.

we are recruiting cali, texas, mizzou and other areas, will be interesting to see what we get out of those states. my guess, in a couple of years(or sooner), the staff will be focused on areas closer to home.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

The hard part is that there is only so much one can do to convince that many WPIAL players to commit to Pitt. Even if Pitt is really good (let's assume that the administration can hire and keep a quality football coach for once) you are still going to have some classes where kids just favor other schools for some reason independent of Pitt. i.e. Some 5 star recruit's grandma plays the "I'll be dead soon" card and convinces the kid to attend dear old Notre Dame. Another two recruits' parents went to PSU and are card carrying cult worshipers. Another parent coaches tennis at Pitt and personally knows the AD, so he steers Jr. away.

Some years you will have more of that, and others less. Only so much a coach can do.

Yes, I agree but on average, I think you have to get 70%. One year you might get 7, the next year 6, the next year 8, etc.

I will say though that the bear minimum for being "acceptable" is 50%. Anything less than that is an abysmal failure. Chryst was landing 2 and 3 of the Top 10.

And remember, Chris's stats are only the Top 10. I'm saying Pitt should get 70% of the Western PA kids they offer. It should be easier to outrecruit RU, Maryland, and WVU for the #14 ranked kid for example. So while they may only get 5 of the Top 10, maybe they get 11-15, which is 67%

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

I think some that Pitt recruit locally don't stay home because they feel they have to get out of the area after hs.
But mostly Pitt has done very little exciting over those 13 years to plead its case. Its given alot of cannon fodder to its compettition though.

 

[Chescat]

Win and they will come. IMO we have to at worst, win at least 7 games this year. More than that would be great, but 7 wins (not including the bowl) will at least show PN has moved the program past the last few coaches and their teams. We can't have another 6-6 year and expect recruits to see improvement, new coaches or not. Chryst if he were here probably would have gotten commitments from a few 2 star guys from the camps by this time. My guess is PN is not offering those types, and the higher rated guys can afford to wait and see how the season plays out before committing. Briggs is a perfect example...low level recruit offered early by Chryst, and he committed. I doubt PN would have made the same offer this early.

 

[cruzer]

Win and they will come. IMO we have to at worst, win at least 7 games this year. More than that would be great, but 7 wins (not including the bowl) will at least show PN has moved the program past the last few coaches and their teams. We can't have another 6-6 year and expect recruits to see improvement, new coaches or not. Chryst if he were here probably would have gotten commitments from a few 2 star guys from the camps by this time. My guess is PN is not offering those types, and the higher rated guys can afford to wait and see how the season plays out before committing. Briggs is a perfect example...low level recruit offered early by Chryst, and he committed. I doubt PN would have made the same offer this early.

Good recruiters sell the vision. Good recruiters convince kids to throw in with their program regardless of wins and losses, particularly in their early years as coach. Franklin is doing it. Others have too. Recruit and the wins will come.

 

[Jeffburgh]

Good recruiters sell the vision. Good recruiters convince kids to throw in with their program regardless of wins and losses, particularly in their early years as coach. Franklin is doing it. Others have too. Recruit and the wins will come.

Franklin just is not a good example. PSU has an attraction and pull to that program that it literally recruits itself to a lot of players, as much as that may pain some Pitt fans to hear or know. Paterno almost literally did not recruit for over a decade, Obrien recruited pretty well, too. Franklin likes himself a lot and mugs it up, but that is just putting flash to it. It would take a pretty bad coach to NOT be able to recruit well there.

 

[Jeffburgh]

Win and they will come. IMO we have to at worst, win at least 7 games this year. More than that would be great, but 7 wins (not including the bowl) will at least show PN has moved the program past the last few coaches and their teams. We can't have another 6-6 year and expect recruits to see improvement, new coaches or not. Chryst if he were here probably would have gotten commitments from a few 2 star guys from the camps by this time. My guess is PN is not offering those types, and the higher rated guys can afford to wait and see how the season plays out before committing. Briggs is a perfect example...low level recruit offered early by Chryst, and he committed. I doubt PN would have made the same offer this early.

Correct - PC might have had more early commits, but that was mostly his style of taking one or two mostly off the grid kids he liked from the camps to mostly fill his class then save the last third or so scholarships to make a run at some more top rated kids to finish the class, like a Boyd.

Now, it may or may not work out, but Nards is being a LOT more expansive, getting more offers out with more players being recruited by other schools. Also, PC did come into a situations where they numbers in the program were low and really packed a lot of kids into his two full recruiting classes and there does not appear to be as much attrition as you might normally get with a coaching change, so this is probably not going to be a super big class.

We will see ...

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Correct - PC might have had more early commits, but that was mostly his style of taking one or two mostly off the grid kids he liked from the camps to mostly fill his class ...

Can't you get those kids at any time though? He mostly got kids with only G5 offers or very low-level P5 offers (Syracuse, Indiana, Rutgers, etc). There was a local kid who committed to Virginia last week who only had offers from Temple and UMass. UVa is a great school but that's the kind of player that I think Chryst would have offered. Narduzzi didn't.

As I've said, this can backfire but I like Narduzzi trying to go after more big dogs. And if he doesn't get them, he can go onto Akron or Kent State's commitment list and just get those kids to flip.

 

[geeman2001]

Franklin just is not a good example. PSU has an attraction and pull to that program that it literally recruits itself to a lot of players, as much as that may pain some Pitt fans to hear or know. Paterno almost literally did not recruit for over a decade, Obrien recruited pretty well, too. Franklin likes himself a lot and mugs it up, but that is just putting flash to it. It would take a pretty bad coach to NOT be able to recruit well there.

Absolutely true. It's their whole Machine that works for them there. The realization that from the custodial worker to the President (at risk of sounding "non-pc", I state it this way because testimony proved that each party knew about Sandusky's rapes and obediently kept quiet, as did everybody in between), football is king there.

Their recruits regularly are quoted as saying things like "I dream of playing for Penn State." (Or Ohio State, or Alabama, or the like). The fact that it sounds nauseating and cornball to us is also precisely why Pitt doesn't do as well. In this sport, you have to be able to sell that fervor, and it really starts with the fanbase.

There have been a number of similar threads like this of late, showing penile-envy over Franklin's results with his 'arrogant' tactics, impatience with Duz for not getting similar results with similar tactics, and mixing in some old mockery of Chryst's basset-hound approach. But I contest that it's more the respective programs and their machinery (or lack thereof). I firmly believe Chryst would be as effective as Franklin in recruiting if he were hired at PSU at the same point time (sanctions dropped, multitudes of PSU "dreamers" out there ready to go whole-hog into 100% football again). Now, on game day, that's the difference...hoping / wishing (and that's all it can be at this point) that Duz is the superior of all of them there. He'll have to be.

 

[Jeffburgh]

Absolutely true. It's their whole Machine that works for them there. The realization that from the custodial worker to the President (at risk of sounding "non-pc", I state it this way because testimony proved that each party knew about Sandusky's rapes and obediently kept quiet, as did everybody in between), football is king there.

Their recruits regularly are quoted as saying things like "I dream of playing for Penn State." (Or Ohio State, or Alabama, or the like). The fact that it sounds nauseating and cornball to us is also precisely why Pitt doesn't do as well. In this sport, you have to be able to sell that fervor, and it really starts with the fanbase.

There have been a number of similar threads like this of late, showing penile-envy over Franklin's results with his 'arrogant' tactics, impatience with Duz for not getting similar results with similar tactics, and mixing in some old mockery of Chryst's basset-hound approach. But I contest that it's more the respective programs and their machinery (or lack thereof). I firmly believe Chryst would be as effective as Franklin in recruiting if he were hired at PSU at the same point time (sanctions dropped, multitudes of PSU "dreamers" out there ready to go whole-hog into 100% football again). Now, on game day, that's the difference...hoping / wishing (and that's all it can be at this point) that Duz is the superior of all of them there. He'll have to be.

Again, we will see. But, I think Nards knows and understands all of this, and his point or reference with MSU is a good match. MSU probably had more panache when they took over, but still pretty similar. Not the "dream of playing there" school at the time, but some appeal to work with.

Also, again, IMO, one big factor here is that Nards gets Pitt and WANT TO BE HERE. More so than any coach other than Wanny we have seen with the program for a long time. That accounts for something, too.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

Franklin just is not a good example. PSU has an attraction and pull to that program that it literally recruits itself to a lot of players, as much as that may pain some Pitt fans to hear or know. Paterno almost literally did not recruit for over a decade, Obrien recruited pretty well, too. Franklin likes himself a lot and mugs it up, but that is just putting flash to it. It would take a pretty bad coach to NOT be able to recruit well there.

Look, hate Franklin all you want, but he absolutely is a good example. Sanctions or not, Bill O'Brien was a really good coach, but I don't think a great recruiter. And the Paterno staff was really getting stale. Franklin has used the enormous reach and "bigness" of PSU football and ran with it. Of course, the dude is from PA, he knows the reach and has embraced it.

 

[Jeffburgh]

Look, hate Franklin all you want, but he absolutely is a good example. Sanctions or not, Bill O'Brien was a really good coach, but I don't think a great recruiter. And the Paterno staff was really getting stale. Franklin has used the enormous reach and "bigness" of PSU football and ran with it. Of course, the dude is from PA, he knows the reach and has embraced it.

Even if I hated him, which I don't, I am flat ambivalent about him, my point stands.

Your saying that O'Brien was not a great recruiter proves it.

He was dealing with sanctions, still had the rank odor of Sandusky reeking up the Lasch Building and pulled the 24th ranked class.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

Pitt upped the ante for this staff, alot of whom were former recruiting coordinators.

 

[CaptainSidneyReilly]

Pitt upped the ante for this staff, alot of whom were former recruiting coordinators.

The way I see it, PITT has a great OL and QBs now to have a pretty good Offense in 2015 and 2016 giving Coach Pat & Staff to show they have the muster in coaching to win 8, 9, 10 games with a tough schedule as well as put into place the attitude and system they expect to create and maintain at PITT.

Meanwhile, Franklin is doing what Owtie said, in using Penn State resources with a terrific Staff to recruit the Northeast better than even Paterno ever did?

Pitt's Coach Pat & Staff is not the only one that has to deal with Franklin's personality & large resourcees at PSU, but so does, WVU, Maryland, UVA, Rutgers, BC, Cuse, and VT!

If Franklin has great success at PSU wining 10+ games, I do not see him leaving penn state for a long time. The only way he loses the PSU job is losing and not winning 10 games or having some Players Scandals like he did at Vanderbilt, and I don't think he would permit that this time at PSU or is better to handle it now.

I was worried when PSU took Franklin a few years ago, and I am still worried now, until I see Coach Pat & Staff coach their first season. Right now, PSU's Franklin is taking many recruits and challenging Meyer's Ohio Satte in the Big Ten better than any other school, and that includes Michigan, MSU, & Nebraska?

Coach Pat & Staff are at a disadvantage right now until they prove they can do at PITT what Dantonio did at MSU, or Alvarez did at Wisky, and Ferrentz did at Iowa over 10 years ago???

Up to Pitt to rebuild the Pitt Football Program during the New ACC Era and having OSU to West, and PSU to East and WVU in the South, is Coach Pat & Staff challenge!

 

[Ten Thousan Marbles]

On Chris's most recent Podcast, he went over some fascinating Western PA Pitt recruiting stats. I advise anybody to listen to it. We talk a lot about how what "percentage" of local players Pitt should keep home. I've said it should be 70%.

So, in the last 13 years, that's only happened once. Using Rivals rankings, Chris said Wannstedt got 8 out of the Top 10 in 2006 (Darrin Walls went to ND and somebody I never heard of went somewhere else). Coincidentally, when these players were in their 3rd and 4th years in the program, we had our best 2 seasons since Gottfried and were knocking on the door of the BCS.

However, 2006 was the outlier. We got 3 or less of the Top 10 in 8 of the other 12 years. We only got 5 or more of the Top 10 3 times in 13 years.

These numbers, in my opinion, are beyond awful. Of course, you can't build a winning team with just local players but you absolutely need to land most of the top-end talent. Pitt isnt going to be on a lot of "lists" for 4 and 5 stars from NJ, DC, Florida, Ohio, etc but they at least make the lists of all the local kids. Blame whatever you want but the fact is, if we want to win the way we want, we have to DOMINATE this region. And if that's not possible, well, neither is winning the way we want.

FWIW, Chris was very very upbeat on the prospects of having an unbelievable local recruiting year. He is as close to recruiting as there is and made it seem like this is going to be the best local Pitt class since Wanny 2006 and he's not necessarily overly positive when it comes to Pitt. He's usually fair and objective.

Maybe Chris has just bought into the hype. Maybe the 412Crew will all go elsewhere but I think the sense is that Narduzzi may land a bunch of these guys who all want to come to Pitt to do something as one unnamed, uncommitted recruit told him......."legendary."

I think a big issue is that it is not like it used to be: The top 10 or 20 in western PA are all we got here any more. Still a few handfuls of really fine players, but not page after page of them like the 80s and before. Won't come back until the economy comes back, either.

Those handfuls of fine players are going to go to strong programs. Maybe Pitt can become a strong program. For now, though, these top players will be going elsewhere....with only a few exceptions each year.

 

[geeman2001]

The world may not be more 'global' as some would like it, but it's definitely less parochial, and that extends to college recruiting. Especially Western PA. The death of perceived economic loyalty(mainly employers' loyalty to workers) of the old model of the late 20th century, when most industries of the region were blown up, also killed most of the old thinking of staying "loyal" to Western PA for most local recruits and their families.

The information age has added to that as well. It has definitely shrunk the proportions. Parents don't feel as threatened by the thought of not being in touch with their kids if they move to a far away university. Almost every game can be seen on some kind of TV coverage, even if internet. Even Division II games get recorded and probably posted somewhere to be seen within a day at worst. And people are more willing to travel, or even move close to where their kids go to school (if they are a big enough prospect). This Kapp kid from Mt. Lebanon who recentlly was drafted in the first round of the MLB draft is an example. His parents moved to Columbus to be closer to him once he went to Cincinnati. I don't think you'd see anything like that 20 years ago.

 

[9nationalchampionships]

The PITTsburgh economy is fine and has been doing well for quite a few years. IMO the issue is that our workforce is more in education, healthcare and technical jobs and these folks tend to not push their kids into physical sports.

If the fracking plant in Beaver ever gets going, look out for Beaver Co as these are the types of people who encourage their kids to play physical sports. JMHO

I think a big issue is that it is not like it used to be: The top 10 or 20 in western PA are all we got here any more. Still a few handfuls of really fine players, but not page after page of them like the 80s and before. Won't come back until the economy comes back, either.

Those handfuls of fine players are going to go to strong programs. Maybe Pitt can become a strong program. For now, though, these top players will be going elsewhere....with only a few exceptions each year.

 

[Ten Thousan Marbles]

The PITTsburgh economy is fine and has been doing well for quite a few years. IMO the issue is that our workforce is more in education, healthcare and technical jobs and these folks tend to not push their kids into physical sports.

If the fracking plant in Beaver ever gets going, look out for Beaver Co as these are the types of people who encourage their kids to play physical sports. JMHO

Oh my.........

 

[9nationalchampionships]

Are you the elderly lady in the Buick commercial?

Oh my.........