WRAL Sports Fan

When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

Lack of ability to recruit .. gives the pack no chance to win when team has a let down... no athletic enough

RE: When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

The Cucumber longs for three star recruits. He's used to and totally accepts the fact that a majority of his commits are one and two star players.

All jokes aside, you bring up a glaring point. How can unenthusiastic coach that stands there with his arms crossed with a scowling look on his face bring excitement to a program when he competes with ECU and USF for recruits and struggles to win seven games a season? Lets be serious and objective here...

RE: When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

I should probably take a sec to explain how recruiting is really to be judged for some of the people that are reading these posts before I make the following statements. Just because your recruiting class is ranked 10th or 15th in the country that does not mean that people project that team to make that ranking in the polls two or three years from now. Every kid in that 10th ranked class could be defensive, or your team could fail to recruit a quarterback, or kids do not reach their potential for various reasons. People that just put up class recruiting rankings without any attention being paid to the needs of the team is quoting a useless stat. One year of recruiting is meaningless also. You can get your linemen in one year and your running backs the next when available (etc). You have to spend hours evealuating the current players, team needs, and potential of each kid. And stars are not everything. It seems to me that the school that offered (not just recruited) a kid are a better determining factor than their stars. Stars are a mix of their potential future ability and the readiness of a particular athelete to make an imediate impact. When you look at all these factors together you can make some determination of the future talent level of a team. Other factors can still effect this such as JC kids getting into school late and a coach helping a recruit exceed his potenial. But for the people who claim recruiting does not matter...view the top 40 programs. When you take all of the factors that I stated above into account you will not be surprised very often by who is there and who is not.
That said, TOB is one of the greatest coaches I have ever seen except make Grobe at getting the most out of his kids. If the most he can get is to turn a two star kid into a three star one then he has a long way to go. It should also be noted that the kids that are playing well for State currently were highly recruited with the exception of Wolff. (Glennon, Amerson, Crisp, etc.)

RE: When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

And there is nothing at all wrong with 3 star atheletes. They are the bread and butter of every teams recruiting class. Some will exceed the expectations while some will fall short. The real concern is when you see 2 and 0 star atheletes that no one recruited often. There are some great stories out there of lowly ranked kids overachieving but it is most certainly not the norm. And two star kids often happen when you fail at getting the kids that you wanted. They were very rarely a first choice for a program.

RE: When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

the thing that kills me is his reputation for recruiting so called diamonds in the rough. in reality, this is a way to mask his inability to land better rated players. year in and year out the coaching staff offers scholarships to kids that are highly regarded in recruiting circles only to fall by the wayside when these young men trim their school list.

this is the recruiting list for 2014, you can see that he's going after the big fish too but will ultimately have to settle for guys ranked further down the list. the list for 2013 had at least 15 4/5* prospects at one point but that is now down to 5 that still have some interest.

http://northcarolinastate.scout.com/a.z?s=178&p=9&c=4&yr=2014

by contrast, fedora already has verbals from 4 4* recruits in his first year with a team that is undergoing ncaa sanctions/investigation. if nothing changes in 5 yrs, i see unc as a consistent top 25 and state still stuck in neutral hovering around .500 in the last month of the season.

When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

I should probably take a sec to explain how recruiting is really to be judged for some of the people that are reading these posts before I make the following statements. Just because your recruiting class is ranked 10th or 15th in the country that does not mean that people project that team to make that ranking in the polls two or three years from now. Every kid in that 10th ranked class could be defensive, or your team could fail to recruit a quarterback, or kids do not reach their potential for various reasons. People that just put up class recruiting rankings without any attention being paid to the needs of the team is quoting a useless stat. One year of recruiting is meaningless also. You can get your linemen in one year and your running backs the next when available (etc). You have to spend hours evealuating the current players, team needs, and potential of each kid. And stars are not everything. It seems to me that the school that offered (not just recruited) a kid are a better determining factor than their stars. Stars are a mix of their potential future ability and the readiness of a particular athelete to make an imediate impact. When you look at all these factors together you can make some determination of the future talent level of a team. Other factors can still effect this such as JC kids getting into school late and a coach helping a recruit exceed his potenial. But for the people who claim recruiting does not matter...view the top 40 programs. When you take all of the factors that I stated above into account you will not be surprised very often by who is there and who is not.
That said, TOB is one of the greatest coaches I have ever seen except make Grobe at getting the most out of his kids. If the most he can get is to turn a two star kid into a three star one then he has a long way to go. It should also be noted that the kids that are playing well for State currently were highly recruited with the exception of Wolff. (Glennon, Amerson, Crisp, etc.) 

- Posted by hovis

good pts...but i think TOB's ability to develop the 2/3* kids is highly overrated...or maybe it's his overall coaching acumen. tcu and boise st have consistently done pretty well with a roster filled mainly with 3* recruits. sure boise st plays in a weak conference but they managed to win a bcs bowl a few yrs ago and are always competitive in their games.

recruiting rankings aside, the proof is in the pudding. 33-39 acc record...1-23 div road games.

RE: When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

I should probably take a sec to explain how recruiting is really to be judged for some of the people that are reading these posts before I make the following statements. Just because your recruiting class is ranked 10th or 15th in the country that does not mean that people project that team to make that ranking in the polls two or three years from now. Every kid in that 10th ranked class could be defensive, or your team could fail to recruit a quarterback, or kids do not reach their potential for various reasons. People that just put up class recruiting rankings without any attention being paid to the needs of the team is quoting a useless stat. One year of recruiting is meaningless also. You can get your linemen in one year and your running backs the next when available (etc). You have to spend hours evealuating the current players, team needs, and potential of each kid. And stars are not everything. It seems to me that the school that offered (not just recruited) a kid are a better determining factor than their stars. Stars are a mix of their potential future ability and the readiness of a particular athelete to make an imediate impact. When you look at all these factors together you can make some determination of the future talent level of a team. Other factors can still effect this such as JC kids getting into school late and a coach helping a recruit exceed his potenial. But for the people who claim recruiting does not matter...view the top 40 programs. When you take all of the factors that I stated above into account you will not be surprised very often by who is there and who is not.
That said, TOB is one of the greatest coaches I have ever seen except make Grobe at getting the most out of his kids. If the most he can get is to turn a two star kid into a three star one then he has a long way to go. It should also be noted that the kids that are playing well for State currently were highly recruited with the exception of Wolff. (Glennon, Amerson, Crisp, etc.) 

- Posted by hovis

good pts...but i think TOB's ability to develop the 2/3* kids is highly overrated...or maybe it's his overall coaching acumen. tcu and boise st have consistently done pretty well with a roster filled mainly with 3* recruits. sure boise st plays in a weak conference but they managed to win a bcs bowl a few yrs ago and are always competitive in their games.

recruiting rankings aside, the proof is in the pudding. 33-39 acc record...1-23 div road games.  

- Posted by buckets112

Boise State 2 years ago, TCU last year and 2 years ago, Kansas State this year. These schools do not apply to this conversation. All of these schools do not recruit they just wait for kids to not be accepted to bigger schools or to be kicked out. Kids that are not expected to make the grades for acception to real colleges do not often get star rankings or a real look from major universities since they can never get in. K state in the last 3 years has recruited below 75th. It is not coacjing that is their success. Of their 22 starters, 16 are junior college transfers. Boise St and to a lesser extent TCU are the same way. If all schools had the ability to put their kids into a semi college league for a year and then "draft" them it would not be as hard to build a good team.

RE: When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

Even most of TOB's 3 star players are the lower-ranked ones at their positions.

There aren't but so many 4 and 5 star players at a particular position.
You can feasibly sign the #30 MLB, and he'd be a 3*. But you could sign #75 and he's also a 3*.

Which one would you rather have? And which one is TOB more likely to sign? Just look at the position rankings of his last 3 classes, and you'll have your answer.

Stars and offers

And there is nothing at all wrong with 3 star atheletes. They are the bread and butter of every teams recruiting class. Some will exceed the expectations while some will fall short. The real concern is when you see 2 and 0 star atheletes that no one recruited often. There are some great stories out there of lowly ranked kids overachieving but it is most certainly not the norm. And two star kids often happen when you fail at getting the kids that you wanted. They were very rarely a first choice for a program. 

- Posted by hovis

True.

Another telling stat is the offer lists of our recruits. Most often, we are competing with MAC schools and maybe Maryland or BC for recruits. It's very infrequent that we get commits from players that have offers from several ACC and SEC/Big 10 schools.

And when we do, they are a 'fall back' option for the bigger school, not a primary target.

I don't think we should be able to recruit head-to-head with Florida and UGA and beat them on a regular basis for players, but how about, EVER? You have to get some of the really good ones at least OCCASIONALLY.

RE: When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

Even most of TOB's 3 star players are the lower-ranked ones at their positions.

There aren't but so many 4 and 5 star players at a particular position.
You can feasibly sign the #30 MLB, and he'd be a 3*. But you could sign #75 and he's also a 3*.

Which one would you rather have? And which one is TOB more likely to sign? Just look at the position rankings of his last 3 classes, and you'll have your answer.  

- Posted by Juice E Fruit

This what I am saying in a way. They are not bad at most positions, just average or a little better. As to the 3 star thing you are quite right and you would rather have the #30. Historically however there is not that big a difference. The vast gulf occurs between 2 star and three star.

RE: When you recruit 3 star athletes... O'brien will always fight up hill battle

Even most of TOB's 3 star players are the lower-ranked ones at their positions.

There aren't but so many 4 and 5 star players at a particular position.
You can feasibly sign the #30 MLB, and he'd be a 3*. But you could sign #75 and he's also a 3*.

Which one would you rather have? And which one is TOB more likely to sign? Just look at the position rankings of his last 3 classes, and you'll have your answer.  

- Posted by Juice E Fruit

This what I am saying in a way. They are not bad at most positions, just average or a little better. As to the 3 star thing you are quite right and you would rather have the #30. Historically however there is not that big a difference. The vast gulf occurs between 2 star and three star. 

- Posted by hovis

Also if you have good coaching a three star sophmore does not surpass your junior starter. If he does and he is not all acc or something that would be a sign of a different problem.