NCAA Football 2021

[saevel25]

Why recruiting matters..

History shows national titles without elite recruiting over 4 years is rare

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It's not rocket science: Good recruiting spawns success. However, the two are more closely related than you might think. What does history tell us, and who are the exceptions?

National Champion teams are littered with mostly 4 and 5 star recruits with possible 1-2 starting 3 star players. 

It's tough. You have 35 5-Star Recruits in 2020, and 330 4-Star Recruits.

The top 3 teams in each recruiting class take about 4 5-star recruits. Every given year, close to half of the 5-star recruits are taken by 3 teams. Those teams also take about 18 4-star recruits. Which is about 16% of the 4-Stars taken by 2.3% of FBS teams. It's worse than that because sometimes 4-star players go to non-FBS teams. 

Its a math problem that can't be solved unless you want to reduce the number of available scholarships again. Each year, depending on who leaves early or who transfers, you have about 22 scholarships available each year per team. 

For me, to get those 4-star recruits to go somewhere else, it would mean a drastic decrease in scholarship size. Currently, there is about 11,000 available scholarships for FBS schools. 4 star recruits make up 12% of the available scholarship spots. The 5-star recruits are going to go to the big name schools. You can't stop that. 

You'd almost have to lower the scholarship count to something like 40 scholarships. The top 10 schools average 13 4-star recruits. If you lower it to something like 40 scholarship in total, or 10 per year on average. Then the 5 stars will take up 2-5 of those spots, and the remaining would be 4-stars. This would push the other 4-stars to be walk-ons or go somewhere else. 

I am not sure I am OK with. I am probably OK with lowering the scholarship limit some amount, but taking away half the scholarships in FBS football would be horrible for the teams who give kids an opportunity to go to college on a sports scholarship. There are some good schools that know they are not going to compete, but are still able to give people a chance to go to college at a big discounted price. 

 

 

[saevel25]

A few college football traditions..

Wisconsin rocking to Jump Around at the start of the 4th quarter...

Virginia Tech entrance to Enter Sandman...

 

[Vinsk]

That’s pretty awesome! Now….gotta hand it to Alabama. OU plays a cupcake and pretty much got beat for 3/4 of the game, OhioSt had way too much trouble with their cupcake against Minnesota, Alabama plays #14 ranked Miami and routs em. Sure enjoyed watching Georgia beat Clemson too. 

[saevel25]

18 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

OhioSt had way too much trouble with their cupcake against Minnesota

I disagree on this one. That is an NFL back that sadly went down with a bad leg injury late in the game. That team was pretty much the 11-2 team from two years ago with all 5-6th year seniors across the o-line that played the time of possession game. I think they are going to give teams trouble this year. The score is definitely closer due to them taking the play clock down to 5 on each play. 

19 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Alabama plays #14 ranked Miami and routs em. Sure enjoyed watching Georgia beat Clemson too. 

I think Minnesota beats Miami. The U is never back.

OU shocked me a bit.

I’m surprised that Georgia offense couldn’t score an offensive TD. 

[Vinsk]

23 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I disagree on this one.

Lol. Of course you do Matt. But let’s face it, OhioSt has gobs more talent than Minnesota and should’ve beaten them much more soundly. They sure as hell did better than OU. Once again….defense is just pathetic.

[saevel25]

1 minute ago, Vinsk said:

Lol. Of course you do Matt. But let’s face it, OhioSt has gobs more talent than Minnesota and should’ve beaten them much more soundly. They sure as hell did better than OU. Once again….defense is just pathetic.

Ohio State ran 48 plays, they averaged 72 plays last year. They averaged 32 minutes TOP last year versus 21 minutes against Minnesota. Minnesota RB had like 25 carries at the HALF! 

Minnesota probably took away 3-4 drives away from Ohio State. 

I lived through Tressel-ball when Jim Tressel was the Ohio State HC. He lived and died by getting 200 yards rushing, owning the time of possession, and owning the field position battle. Which means, he won a ton of games by less than 10 points even if he had more talent. 

 

 

 

[dennyjones]

North Carolina didn't live up to expectations.  Nebraska looks the same.  Walker from Michigan St put up some great numbers (264 yds).   Washington got beat by Montana!

[Vinsk]

@saevel25 Do you think Georgia will hold up? I was quite pleased to see Clemson lose. They’re not used to playing a solid team so soon, lol. Iowa looked really good. They’re always trouble especially at home. I know it’s early, but OU had the same issue last season with defense. They started to improve at the end, but with pre-season hype about them strengthening their defense ….pretty disappointed in their performance. Tulane averaged 5.1yds/carry and their QB all but humiliated the defensive line on multiple occasions. They won’t be able to withstand any team worth a dime playing like that. Regardless of their offensive prowess.

[saevel25]

Just now, Vinsk said:

@saevel25 Do you think Georgia will hold up?

If they can't get the offense going, then no. They will run into teams who will get to 30+ points and I am not sure they can average that. 

Over the past 3 seasons, they have averaged less than 30 points per game versus those ranked by the AP. Never topping 30. 

Compare to Ohio State...Against Ranked Opponents (AP), they averaged 34, 37, and 40.5. I will say Georgia's Defense has been way more consistently elite than Ohio State, but I take offense over defense. 

 

[Hohjoe]

5 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I’m surprised that Georgia offense couldn’t score an offensive TD. 

I'm surprised neither offense could score a TD.

[saevel25]

5 minutes ago, Hohjoe said:

I'm surprised neither offense could score a TD.

I understand why Clemson couldn't...

75% of Clemson's runs were stuffed (1 yard or less with more than 2 yards to go for a 1st down). 

I am more surprised that Georgia couldn't score an offensive TD. 

Georgia front 7 did really bad things to Clemson's O-line that they probably should have censored the game. 

[Bucki1968]

Ohio State defense hasn't been good in the past few years. Not sure if they are missing on recruiting or it's coaching. We haven't had a good couple linebackers in long time. That being said, Minnesota offensive line was very good and might be the best one we see all year. A bunch of kids (first time starters) against a very veteran Minnesota team. Minnesota is going to win some games this year if they can play a little defense. And having coached football for almost 20 years, I can honestly say, it's hard to win a football game. So many variables. Some make it look easy, but I assure you...it's not. 

[ChetlovesMer]

32 minutes ago, Bucki1968 said:

Minnesota is going to win some games this year if they can play a little defense.

They are really going to miss Ibrahim. I feel bad for the kid, red-shirt senior. It sucks for him. 

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, Bucki1968 said:

Ohio State defense hasn't been good in the past few years.

They were ranked #1 in 2019 for Total Defense (yards allowed), 4th in scoring defense, 7th in plays allowed of 10+ yards. 

From 2014 till 2017 they had a top 15 defense each year. In 2018, they gave up way to many big plays. I think it was mostly due to very young defense and bad play calling. When Urban retired from OSU, and Ryan Day took over, he fired the DC. Basically the same players on defense came back in 2019 and became the best OSU defense in over a decade. Though, I think there was more talent on the defense from 2015 to 2017. Especially at DB. 

Which made me happy to see Combs back at OSU. He was the DB coach from the start of Urban's tenure at OSU. He is the one that recruited and trained all those DB's that went into the first round every year from 2012 on. He left for the NFL after the 2017 season. In 2018, they had one of their worst defensive teams in a while. Especially on defending passes and giving up big run plays. 

So, if Combs has his hands in training the DB's, I think we are good there. I am not sure about his play calling ability. Completely different animal to go from position coach to DC. 

In the first game, the top two projected DB's were out with injury. 

1 hour ago, Bucki1968 said:

We haven't had a good couple linebackers in long time.

Basically offensive play calling has almost killed the LB position in college. The RPO concept puts the linebacker in run/pass option bind. Since the offensive line in college can get way more down field with blocking on pass plays, its really over powered in college football compared to NFL. To combat the spread offense, and RPO, teams are getting away from a 4-3 offense. There are some teams that like a 3-4 due to having more athletic linebackers. A lot of teams are going to a 4-2 nickle coverage and having that extra DB be more of safety type of player. The old fashioned, middle linebacker, that is this 255 freight train running down hill, that doesn't exist much for elite defenses because you can just put them in a bind with modern passing concepts. I think those type of players almost become 3-4 players who play edge rushers or outside linebacker now. 

Yea, we had a really bad linebackers coach, who was a friend of Urban for a while. He didn't develop or play the best players. You can see that with how some of those recruited after we fired him are starting to take more snaps. 

If you look at the 2020 Clemson v Ohio State comparison at each position...

We recruited really well at LB. It's all about poor development. 

1 hour ago, Bucki1968 said:

That being said, Minnesota offensive line was very good and might be the best one we see all year. A bunch of kids (first time starters) against a very veteran Minnesota team.

Also when they start running the ball with 7 offensive lineman on the field. They basically went old school on us. Not many teams can do that, or practice that. It really shows that when college football went to all these spread concepts, as soon as the defenses adjusted, older play calling can be effective. 

[Vinsk]

HOW SWEET IT IS!!!! Wow! Damn good thing OhioSt is in the Big 10…they’ll still be considered for the playoffs…any one else…done. But what a beauty of a game! Down goes the Big 10 champs! Blub..blub….blub….

[saevel25]

Well, my last statements about our D/C are out the window. All three Oregons first TD's came off the same run play. We refuse to get out of single high safety, man coverage, where our Linebackers are just abused by good play callers. When your FRESHMAN QB, who is in his second full time start, goes 35/54 (65%) 484 yards and 3TD's, you kind of expect a team to put up some more points? Give Oregon credit, then didn't break enough on defense to have us put 50 on them. Still, the offense did enough to win the game, the defense just go abused all game and finally showed up when Oregon was trying to play field position and run out the clock. Didn't pressure their QB at all. 

Fire the D/C, and put the linebackers coach on the hot seat. At Ohio State, a defense that can hold a team to less than 3-TD's on average should be a very low standard to hit. 

 

[Vinsk]

17 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Fire the D/C, and put the linebackers coach on the hot seat.

Totally agree. 

 

18 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

All three Oregons first TD's came off the same run play.

Yes. I was yelling that they ran the same damn play then they go and score. I’m not sure what the hell the DC was telling his team on those. 

[saevel25]

39 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Totally agree. 

Yes. I was yelling that they ran the same damn play then they go and score. I’m not sure what the hell the DC was telling his team on those. 

Its a well designed play against that specific base defense. The TE, on the edge, who is covered by the outside linebacker blocks the outside linebacker and produces a pick/rub route situation where the inside linebacker has way to much congestion to run through to catch the RB. That is the issue with man coverage. You can run NBA isolation plays on man. This was basically a clear out play for the RB. No DB's on that side because they were all in man coverage on the right.