I was thinking skewed in the other direction actually, but I agree with your point.
My endgame is that you can't just look at offers and/or stars and make a judgement on a kid or the coach/school recruiting him. You have to use your own eyes and look at the athlete and look at the program/coach that is landing them.
So your take (if we can draw a conclusion from one 4 second clip) is that this is the rule and not the exception?
I thought Zane was a helluva HS player. But, I didn't think he was a D1 RB. I thought his biggest issue was change of direction/stiffness. I thought if Zane had better defensive tape, someone would've offered him as an OLB.
See, I think that would be helpful because we could ask why Georgia doesn't have as high a rate of success with 4-stars as maybe North Carolina. Maybe kids are fine with taking NIL money and are trading a year of playing time? You could at least identify some of the things that are happening with recruiting. I bet a player would appreciate being able to see that data if he were really looking to get on the field sooner.
Dudek did play Division 1 football at running back, and was pretty good in college. Change of direction/stiffness issues are probably going to be a problem on the defensive side of the ball.
He's likely talking about Mike Statham from St. Francis. He was big but couldn't move. They tried to move him inside and it just didn't work out.
I don't think it would be definitive but I think it would tell us some things about the trajectory of these guys.
Ivy league D1 wasn't the picture I was painting. Ivy league football might be a slight step above the Patriot League. In reality, there are d2 teams with much better athletes then many ivy league schools.
That is my thinking as well. The kid is massive and evidently still moves well at that size. He also played at a high level HS program. But even in that league, at his size he can probably still overpower most kids without proper technique, especially in the run game.
I don't disagree about some of the talent you see in D2, but I'd say D1, even FCS, is on average a step above D2. And Dudek played D1 running back, and was a starter and put up solid numbers. Give the kid the credit he is due.
Very few linemen can just make the jump and start. Aren’t many Bill Fralic’s out there.
I think he was a great HS player and could have been an FBS LB type. I think there was a glaring reason colleges didn't think his skillset translated to an FBS level RB. He had one very good season at Yale and seemed to be plagued by injuries and never really replicated that freshman season.
And, Georgia knows they can take the risk in offering a kid who might end up being a stud and also knowing if he doesn't they recruit so much talent that no one will notice if he doesn't make it.
Of course. You have 20 guys in that room plus walk-ons. Can always send him over to the D-line if it doesn’t work. Worst case, you over-recruit him out of the program.
Yeah. They have a little bit of a dumpster fire over there. Not sure why they can’t keep anyone but they have run through quite a few coaches in just about every sport but girls basketball.
Yes, Ivy League is lower tier of FCS, but I think it is not as drastic of a difference as you believe. South Dakota State and North Dakota State and maybe another school or two are standouts at the FCS level in terms of producing NFL talent, but take Montana (who is playing for the national championship this weekend). They have had two NFL draft picks in the past ten years. That's the same number as Yale.
Montana would mercy rule the best Ivy school if there were a mercy rule in CFB.
That's one issue I have with "stars" but I also don't know how they really do the evaluation and measure a 90 versus a 94 on a kid. You look and see that Michigan is on a run with class averages closer to 90. This is why I'm saying a lookback is necessary. There is some sort of statistical error that can be flushed out with better data that looks at performance at the end of a kid's career. Then we could say a kid who is a 90 might be a 92 but he might also be an 88. Might provide better perspective when we look at these things.
I don't disagree with anything you say. Missouri Valley and Big Sky are head and shoulders above other FCS conferences, especially those playing in the northeast. Montana beat Delaware by 30, I think Delaware would beat any Ivy. SDSU beat Albany by almost 60, and Albany would also beat Ivies. But you're right that the FCS level of Ivy/Patriot/NEC is probably better football nowadays than it was 20-30 years ago, whereas PSAC isn't as good over that timeframe. Patriot was non-scholarship and became scholarship over that period. A school like Duquesne was non-scholarship until they joined the NEC. I think a kid like Dudek shouldn't be sold short for playing at that level -- it's D1 football.
The NEC has come a long way in football, St. Francis (Loretto) used to be truly terrible but has had competitive games with MAC schools over the last 3 years.
