A comment on the “Historical Recruiting Comparison” post really got me thinking about PITT’s latest Top 25 recruiting classes and how they will benefit Paul Chryst and staff this upcoming season. To quote:
“Okay I don’t know if anybody already hit on this point, but if Chryst was such a good coach that he made a 60th ranked recruiting classes into quality Top 25 football teams, then he should have no problem turning Pitt’s circa Top 25 recruiting classes into a good football product. Obviously we all don’t think this is going to happen. This is all I could think about throughout this article Reed and I don’t need another reason to be disappointed this year.”
This is a interesting thought so I looked at the 5* and 4* recruits who Chryst & Co. will have on the team because they are literally the players who made those “circa Top 25” classes end up ranked so highly on Scout.com.
This season we’ll have three 5* and six 4* recruits from those three Top 25 recruiting classes, 2007 (8th nationally), 2008 (25th) and 2010 (17th), still on our roster and available to play in 2012.
Here is how it pans out:
From 2007 we will have: Chris Jacobson (5*)
From 2008 we will have: Shayne Hale (5*) and Cam Saddler (4*)
From 2010 we will have: T.J. Clemmings (5*), Anthony Gonzalez (4*), Bryan Murphy (4*), Aaron Donald (4*), Salath Williams (4*) and Todd Thomas (4*).
OK then, first off I responded to the comment above regarding it as a whole especially stating that it is the staffs who coach the players not just an individual HC. That said, it started me think about just which of these players can our new staff could “coach up” to reach their potential. Here are my opinions.
SR Jacobson is already a good OL fixture and the staff won’t have to teach or mold him any longer, as is the case with JR Aaron Donald on the DL. So take those two off the table as far as having to be coached up.
I’m projecting here, but in Chryst’s offense I don’t see rsSR Saddler being a starter no matter what and as this is his last season I’d don’t think he’ll be ‘coached up’ much for grooming.
rsSO Salath Williams, at 6’3” & 195 pounds, may just be the type of WR the staff can see fitting into plans both this season and in the future. JR Bryan Murphy, who I’m dying to see play full time, has very little game experience. Both of these players can benefit from solid coaching and land starting roles sooner than later I believe.
JR Clemmings, rsJR Gonzalez, and rsSO Todd Thomas are all players who have either seen the field sparingly as in Clemmings and Gonzalez’s cases or played as a starter in Thomas’ case. Clemmings needs good coaching and a real spot to call his own. Same holds true for Gonzalez, especially if they want him at QB. Chryst & the new QB coach need to work extensively on his passing for him to start at that position. I doubt he’ll see time at safety while at PITT but again, he’ll need good coaching to make that switch also.
That leaves rsSR Shayne Hale and IMO, I write him off as being recruited over thus not being a strong future contributor. After four years at PITT I don’t think any coaching is going to make a difference in his case.
All that shakes out to this conclusion as to how this new staff can make a strong coaching impact with these highly ranked kids from those Top 25 classes… again, this is in my opinion:
Again, they should leave Jacobson and Donald alone and, if anything, just try to tweak Donald on technique if they really feel they have to. Both have already been strong contributors so let’s say coaching won’t be an impact here.
Williams, Murphy, Clemmings, Gonzalez and Thomas are the key 5* & 4* players who can benefit the most from being ‘coached up’ and if this staff can do that they will all make major contributions. With the exception of Todd Thomas, who is very talented but also needs good coaching, none of the others have had a chance to really show what they can do on the field of play so it will be very interesting to see how they turn out under this staff.
Our two kids from the 2008 class, Hale and Saddler are who they are and both are at the ends of their PITT careers without being consistent starters. I think that holds for 2012 also and coaching won’t matter.
However, if the PITT staff can make the difference that great coaching provides to Williams, Murphy, Clemmings, Gonzalez and Thomas then I think we’ll really benefit on the field. However, and getting back to the original comment remarked upon, I don’t think that you can point to what boils down to five highly ranked recruits and say that it would be Chryst’s fault should we not have a great season solely because those players didn’t progress as we hope they will under this staff. Obviously, not every player responds to coaching no matter how good it may be.
(BTW, if you want to get really depressed look at the 5* & 4* players from those three classes who didn’t work out: Matha, Tucker, Mo Williams, Duhart, Hale, Chris Burns, and Cross)
Maybe now with good coaches (still TBD), those under-recruited athletes will work in Chryst’s system. But as always, the kids have to want to improve and be receptive to coaching. Some kids are just lazy.
To me, Hale was over-rated to begin with. These Hale’s are a dime a dozen in Texas.
I’ve come back off the ledge after Reed and Cnorwoodaz stole my lollipop.
Boils down to two things. Recruiting and coaching (teaching).
Doesn’t matter about being a pro sports town, attendance, etc. etc.
If the coach can recruit, and coach (teach), and get you consistent top 20 finishes and some 10, 11 win seasons back to back, then the money issue comes up. (will we pay to keep him)??
Hopefully the athletic dept. will have this problem in 4 or 5 years.
I think they will (gut feeling only). I’m ready for the ACC again!!!!!
is fixed.
hope we get good news on the QB coach to day
it seams to me that Brooks Bollinger would
be just what we need.
have not heard any thing abought the RB coach have you .
Take 5* & 4* kids from 2005 until 2010 – which is the period of years we’d be able to point at and see actually how they did. Here’s the ones who didn’t really work out:
2005: Bokor
2006: Fields, Collier, M. Mathews, N. Nix, Robinson
2007: Bostick, Matha, Tucker, Williams, Duhart,
2008: Hale, Burns, Cross
2009: B. DeCicco (transfer)
That’s 15 5* & 4* recruits who never consistently, if at all, contributed over their time at PITT. We can look at this list now and think “no big deal” because we now know their actual talent level – but back when they were being recruited it was a different story.
Put it this way, in that same time period Wisconsin had 12 total 5* & 4* kids…total! That’s three less than the 15 who didn’t make the grade at PITT, forget about the ones who did well for us.
Man, if that doesn’t slap us in the face what does?
Say it with me…ABT, ABT!
I would like to think I’m pretty positive on here. Hell, even labled a Graham apologist.
The other day, our finances had me down a bit.
Then I realized, you’ve got to have a coach that can coach and teach, and recruit. Then, down the road finances may become more of an issue.
1. Lets hope they do in 4 or 5 years.
2. According to all magazines and web sites, we got one of the better coaches out there, that was looking for a hc position.
So, I’m pumped for Coach Chryst, spring ball and the ACC. Hope he can do it, seems like a really nice guy.
If he does well enough to command a top, top salary, then we can worry about keeping him then.
Like I said, we’ll be lucky to have that problem.
If he knew that, and doesn’t have a problem, has the coaches he wants, then, sounds good to me.
First of all, Reed I meant no disrespect and I love reading this blog so please don’t think I am am trying to offend you.
But for this particular article, like I said, all I could think about was that Chryst and his coaches should have no problem turning Pitt into a great team because they already have so much more talent (according to the recruiting sites) to work with than Wisconsin did. I am by no means saying he can’t be successful and that it isn’t gonna be a group effort with his coaches.
But the way I interpreted this article, it should be no problem for Chryst and his coaches to make a good football team out of Pitt given the talent available. I understand you were trying to defend his recruiting efforts and telling us not to think much out of his recruiting methods given his previous success with sub par classes. But I just couldn’t help but think that he should be in the driver’s seat right now in terms of him translating the talent he has available into a good football product.
So I am not saying you would be responsible by any means for my disappointment if Pitt shits the bed again next year (that is more of a personal problem for me and most Pitt fans I’d say). I think next year will be an adjustment for him as a first year coach(plus we still have Tino), so I am not expecting too much already. I honestly think people are just plain dumb if they think Pitt “with a new staff, no WVU and a weak schedule we should rack up the wins and a BE championship. ” I am one of those people who “believe we’ll be around .500.”
But if you reread your comment “That Wisconsin, with Chryst, Huxtable and Rudolph on staff, was way more adept at getting results out of their recruiting than PITT has been, even if Wisconsin’s were average classes,” then maybe you can see where I am coming from. But I also believe alot of that was getting “players who “fit in” and contribute,” as you state above.
Pitt was the first major program to recognize his potential. At the end of his senior season rated as first team All-Ohio other programs were interested, Wisconsin and Notre Dame, but he kept his verbal commitment to Pitt
1 chryst will do it his way
2 he does not care if his coachs have ACC ties
3 he will not offer 50 players
4 he will target say 20 player hard
5 he will be glad to get 12 players he wants
6 he wants pitt to sell it self
7 he wants to offer and to have them say yes
8 his OTs will be at least 6 foot 6
9 his OGs at least 6 foot 4
10 to the point his OL will be huge allways
11 this will be wisconsin west and that is ok
abought recruting he said he has a plan and just becuse he is not doeing what the outher schools are our like ohio state is does not make him wrong
i dont think he cares abought ACCties with his coachs becuse he will get most of his players from PA and ohio
we should give him time it might work he is
just doeing what worked in winsconsin i say stop bitching till LOI day we will know then how it turns out.
So the only players I listed were those 4* & 5* players from 2007, 2008 and 2010 – the three years we were in the Top 25.
Had I been listing all of the 4* & 5* players I would have included all those names you listed, but it wouldn’t have supported the gist of the article and of Timmeh’s comment.
And DRW – way to start the Mark Myers crap so early. Hell, it isn’t even spring ball yet and you’re starting to harp on it and my supposed hatred of him. You should try to read all the things I write about Myers instead of just throwing snide comments like “probably on purpose” in when referring to my writing. Of course, it’s always easier to stick with an agenda and write tripe rather than actually read an article and think before you comment on it.
Again, you are cherry picking rankings to support your premise for Myers. On Scout.com, which I used as a baseline and stated so in the article, Myers was a 3* and Gonzalez was a 4*. But just think! Had I used ESPN Myers would be a 2* and the 103rd ranked QB! I suppose that would have blown the top of your head off.
QB he was viewed as a 3-star.
Pitt was the best school to offer him as a QB. His other offers were as a safety.
Ether – on Scout.com, which I used above, Gonzalez was listed as a QB and awarded 4*s in 2010. There is some confusion in the ranks about this.
Anyway – it makes for good fodder for PITT football.
His over-all responsibilities have increased. This is the key for me irrespective of perceived recruiting strengths and weaknesses. If HCPC does what is required of a good HC, the team could blossom in a year or two. Just in time for the ACC.
Speaking of being in the ACC cannot help but think that more than a few of players from Ohio, WPa, EPa, NJ, MD and others will want to play VT, the U, GT and the occasional FSU or Clemson. Come to think of it if the program succeeds in the ACC, Pitt will start to get recruits from all of the ACC schools’ states.
Do we have anyone on the roster from South Carolina???
Where does this delusional, “Wisconsin has done more with less” line of thinking come from?
Boise State & TCU’s success of the last 10 years prove you don’t have to have a plethora of 4 & 5 star athletes to compete and actually be very good. And when given the opportunity to go against the big boys, beat them.
Wisconsin to a lesser extent since they had some 4’s & 5’s.
What’s needed is getting kids to believe they can win together and beat anyone. Pitt lost 4 games last year by what…12 total points. Even with the crummy qb, those games were easily winnable.
Please though, if you don’t think Wisconsin has thoroughly kicked PITT’s ass in wins and losses, conference championships, BCS bowls, Top 10 or Top 25 finishes then you have blue and gold goggles on.
Hell – we know Wisconsin way out scored PITT in the past six years as their offense was superb but if you average their total defense national rank they shake out at 22nd to PITT’s 30th.
Regardless if Wisconsin has more or less three star kids they were far superior in production on the field of play than PITT was.
But I’d say that same thing with any HC we (realistically) had and if we had a team full of 4* & 5* kids playing every week.
However, I do believe that coaching is the prime mover for any sort of sustained success and certainly in getting the players able to win championships and play in BCS bowls.
It seems to me that over the last 15 years (and before but our recruiting in the last 15 years was good overall IMO) the HCs at PITT just couldn’t get the players to play with solid teamwork in mind and couldn’t instill a winning confidence in the players.
We either got just to the edge of real success and couldn’t get over the top or were way too overconfident and that led to losses and disappointing.
DW’s 2008 season opener is a great case in point. All offseason DW had been preaching that PITT had to “Prove It” as far as the pre-season ranking went… and we lost straight away to Bowling Green. That showed me that no matter what DW said or did the players felt something differently. The Cincy game in 2009 was the same way. Against UCONN in 2010 we were 9-1 and ranked #10 two weeks earlier then went into that game ranked #15 and couldn’t do it, again.
We just couldn’t put two halves together to win when it mattered in that and other important games in what seems like forever.
I’m not intimately familiar with the Wisconsin program over the recent past but from what I’ve read and heard the prime mover in their success has been just those positive qualities. A few standout players but a solid foundation of teamwork and confidence that they would reach their goals.
To me, that is just as important, or more so, than team recruiting ranking success on paper.
was that wisconsins 2 stars were better than are 4 and 5 stars our put it this way that they were a better judge of tallent the point i thought was that star rankings meant nothing our i thought that was what you ment.
it went over my head till you wrote this that what you ment was that wisconsin had better coachs
than pitt now i get it .