Rating the 2004 recruiting Class based on performance, not stars and 40 times. All SEC coaches should go on the Fulmer diet.

Last month, Dennis Dodd wrote an article on Joe McKnight documenting the problem the young man has encountered ever since he committed to USC in February. The article had one very interesting tidbit: Joe and his family always wanted him to leave Louisiana, and never actually intended for him to go to LSU. While Dodd criticized LSU fans for the their criticism of McKnight, his article’s glaring omission that young Joe strung along LSU, Ole Miss, and Alabama during the entire recruiting process, presumably to enjoy his status in the limelight and take any benefits that may come his way during the recruiting process.

 

Hey, just because you’re Joe-Fucking-McKnight doesn’t mean that you won’t pay the consequences for acting like a prima donna. Welcome to the real world, where honesty usually means less reward while dishonesty, when discovered, means severe social scorn.

 

Between the McKnight saga and reading message board posters rant and rave about PJ Smith’s moves, reasons why Sam McGuffie will ultimately fail, or whether or not Dayne Christ is ready for prime-time, I wonder we (myself included) college football fans care so much what is in some 18 year old kid’s head. As fans, we go nuts debating each other of a 4 or 5 star recruit, but what if that same recruit’s training tactics includes armed burglary and never makes the squad?

 

Dorian Capers – 4 star recruit that “lifted too much” – too many goods that weren’t his, that is. Say goodbye to your scholarship son.

To be sure, recruiting is an integral part of a college football program’s success (I’m looking at you, UCONN), but why should we judge a coach’s recruiting prowess on the basis of an arbitrary star rating or a 40 time, when all we need to do is look at today’s talent and measure it against how the kid was ranked coming out of high school? From now on, I will no longer devote time and discussion to current recruiting; instead, it’s time to look back and rank the class of 2004 to see which coaches came out on top. It’s against my best interests to do so, since that would mean that I would have to give Saban some props, but I really do think you need to wait a few years to judge a recruiting class. The most productive Defensive Tackle (Jamaal Anderson), Defensive Back (Jon Haefney) , Wide Receiver (Sidney Rice) and Running Back (Rafael Little) for the class of 2004 are all 3 stars — except for the most productive Defensive tackle, who was a 2 star. Note that Phil Fulmer was after every single one of these kids, which is why Phil gets our golden star award for recruiting.

Fulmer can out-recruit, and outfox the average donut.

 

Here’s why we need to judge recruiting classes based on performance:

1. It takes a while for a kid to mature to the college level. If a 5 star recruit hasn’t made any impact by the end of his junior or redshirt sophmore season, he probably isn’t as good as advertised. This also allows for teams that are in a reloading phase to be judged equally.
2. We will be able to judge a coach based on real impact his recruits make, instead of some ranking service that has no idea if the recruit will make the grades, get out of shape, change sports, or go to prison. A truly good recruiter needs to have a feel for these things overall. It’s okay to take a risk once in a while, but not all the time.

 

For the purposes of this site’s ranking, class members will be judged on their on the field production vs. the top recruit for that position in their class in the SEC. We included our Les Miles 2004 Okie State Cowboys recruiting class just for shits and giggles. Each player is assigned a point value similar to Yahoo! Fantasy football on offense (yards, touchdowns) and defense (tackles, turnovers). So if the top wide receiver got 1000 points, and the second-best got 950 points, the top wide receiver would get a 10 and the 2nd best would get a 9.5.

 

Offensive linemen get points just for games played, so the offensive lineman with the most games played gets the most points.

 

Here are the SEC Standings for 2004:

Rank Rivals  Coach  School  Points
1 4 Phil Fulmer Tennessee 76.74783637
2 1 Nick Saban LSU  57.33278849
3 7 Houston Nutt Arkansas 56.74357949
4 10 Les Miles Okie State 53.96502279
5 13 Bobby Johnson Vanderbilt 50.30394309
6 5 Mike Shula Alabama  49.33438585
7 2 Mark Richt Georgia  49.212921
8 3 Ron Zook Florida  46.73287342
9 11 Rich Brooks Kentucky 39.59715198
10 9 Steve Spurrier USC  35.13913419
11 6 Tommy TubervilleAuburn  31.88745247
12 14 Jackie Sherrill Miss State 27.95517214
13 8 David Cutcliffe Ole Miss 27.89125118
 

 Three things stand out right away:

1.  Phil Fulmer has an amazing recruiting staff. He is almost 20 points ahead of Nick Saban. It may not seem entirely fair since Nick left LSU, but Les Miles has done a great job with the talent so far.
2. Houston Nutt ain’t so bad after all, and this doesn’t include the springdale debacle that was his 2006 recruiting class.
3. Tuberville should not be on the panel of “america’s got talent”. 

 

Amazingly enough, Bobby Johnson has gotten some good mileage out of his recruits, and Les Miles’ Okie State Cowboys didn’t do so bad after he left. The point remains the same: until a recruit proves he can be the best of his class on the college level, he’s just a statistic from high school.