Recruiting Rankings | Looking Back at the 2007 Class
by Seth C on Dec 8, 2010 10:01 AM CST
in Texas Tech Football
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PrintThere's no better way to figure out where a team is headed than to look back at where it's been. Fans of every team get excited about how a team is going to find players that other teams have overlooked and each commitment has the potential to be a star. Obviously, that's just not accurate, players don't work out, for whatever reason. And as National Signing Day approaches, it's good to take a look back at the prior recruiting classes.
Since I don't follow other teams closely, it's tough to tell what's a high attrition rate is and what isn't. The best thing that I know to do is to somewhat categorize the players and how much of an impact they had on the team. For this exercise, I also think it's important to take a look at the class overall, and then also take a look at the talent on both the offense and defense, from both a ranking standpoint and an attrition rate and contribution level. Again, these are my opinions and if there's a consensus to how much a player has contributed then we can change that. At the end of this exercise and after everyone's weighed in on players then I'll put together a final table where we grade the grades of the recruiting classes.
The fancy tables and analysis are after the jump.
2007 Recruiting Class
| Commits | Player | O / D / ST | Scout | Rivals | Rivals Rating | ESPN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bobbie Agoucha | D | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 40.00 |
| 2 | Bront Bird | D | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 73.00 |
| 3 | Omar Castillo | D | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 40.00 |
| 4 | Taylor Charbonnet | D | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 68.00 |
| 5 | Sam Fehoko | D | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.70 | 72.00 |
| 6 | Jared Flannel | D | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.60 | 71.00 |
| 7 | Daniel Howard | D | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.30 | 40.00 |
| 8 | Jonathan Hollins | D | 3.00 | - | - | 72.00 |
| 9 | David Neill | D | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 68.00 |
| 10 | De'Shon Sanders | D | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.60 | - |
| 11 | Brandon Sharpe | D | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.40 | - |
| 12 | Tyrone Sonier | D | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 69.00 |
| 13 | Colby Whitlock | D | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 73.00 |
| 14 | Jacob Amie | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.70 | 74.00 |
| 15 | Aaron Crawford | O | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 75.00 |
| 16 | Dominique Delpeche | O | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.30 | 40.00 |
| 17 | Lonnie Edwards | O | 4.00 | 4.00 | 5.80 | 73.00 |
| 18 | Blake Emert | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.60 | 70.00 |
| 19 | Jacoby Franks | O | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 63.00 |
| 20 | Jerrod Gooch | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 77.00 |
| 21 | Rashad Hawk | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 77.00 |
| 22 | Adam James | O | - | - | - | 77.00 |
| 23 | Justin Keown | O | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 40.00 |
| 24 | Lyle Leong | O | - | - | - | 71.00 |
| 25 | Detron Lewis | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.60 | 40.00 |
| 26 | Stefan Loucks | O | 3.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 75.00 |
| 27 | Mickey Okafor | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 71.00 |
| 28 | Tramain Swindall | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.70 | 72.00 |
| 29 | Jonathan LaCour | ST | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 40.00 |
| AVERAGES | 2.38 | 2.45 | 4.91 | 59.34 |
Overall, this is a relatively low ranked class with a fairly pitiful ranking by all of the recruiting services. That's not to say that there weren't some real contributors from this class because by my count, there's a handful of players that made significant contributions to this team, but what you normally want is a team where one of the older recruiting classes makes up the backbone of team. Here's my classifications (again, these are my opinion):
Little to No Contribution | Omar Castillo, Taylor Charbonnet, Jonathan Hollins, David Neill, De'Shon Sanders, Jacob Amie, Dominique Delpeche, Blake Emert, Jerrod Gooch, Stefan Loucks
Hollins and Amie never even made it on campus. That's ten players that made little to no contribution for this team. Neill, Charbonnet, Sanders and Emert probably got some snaps during parts of this year, but haven't made any significant contribution to this team other than depth. Before Charbonnet was injured, he did make some plays on special teams, but wasn't a big contributor otherwise. Neill might be a usable part in the defensive line rotation next year, but if he hasn't been able to get in the rotation this year then he's probably not going to make the rotation next year either. I really can't remember what happened to Delpeche or Gooch. Emert is leaving the team after this year and Loucks transferred the year before last to South Alabama (I think).
Middle of the Road | Bobbie Agoucha, Sam Fehoko, Jared Flannel, Daniel Howard, Brandon Sharpe, Tyrone Sonier, Rashad Hawk, Adam James
For some of these guys, the writing is already on the wall. Hawk is no longer with the team, but last I heard ran track for Texas Tech, but he did contribute a little. I've classified Howard and Sharpe as middle of the road players because they had only one good player with both of these guys. They had really productive years, but to have a player on scholarship for two or three years and he only gives you one good year isn't the best situation. Flannel was pretty good on special teams the year before last, but was injured early in the year and should be a contributor next year. Agoucha, Fehoko, Flannel, Sonier and James are all bit players. Agoucha was kicked off the team and Tuberville has welcomed him back this year. I'm not completely confident that he's going to be a huge part of the team next year. I hope he's a part, but I'm not holding my breath. Fehoko finally got on the field this year and after the last two games, he's played a significant amount of downs at defensive end. He had a decent year this year, but next year has to be his year. Sonier, like Fehoko, had an okay year, but it was his first year to make any sort of contribution and it was okay. I think for some players, it took an entire year for the defensive staff to figure out where players fit. Both Fehoko and Sonier seem to fit that mold.
Solid Contributors | Bront Bird, Colby Whitlock, Aaron Crawford, Lonnie Edwards, Jacoby Franks, Lyle Leong, Detron Lewis, Mickey Okafor, Tramain Swindall
These players either started for a good part of a year or multiple years or have played significant roles on the team. The tough thing here is that there's only two defensive players amongst this group, although it's clear that both Bird and Whitlock were significant players for this team. The good thing about the offensive group is that Crawford, Edwards, Franks, Okafor and Swindall all return next year and should be a significant part of the team next year. I don't know what Crawford's role will be, but he seems like the sort of guy that takes ownership of whatever role he's given, offense or special teams. Teams need players like that. With Edwards, Franks, Okafor and Swindall you might be looking at four starters and that's a good thing for 2011. Leong and Lewis were the stars of the offense this year and now the coaching staff has to figure out who's going to pick up their production.
2007 Recruiting Class | Defense
| Commits | Player | O / D / ST | Scout | Rivals | Rivals Rating | ESPN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bobbie Agoucha | D | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 40.00 |
| 2 | Bront Bird | D | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 73.00 |
| 3 | Omar Castillo | D | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 40.00 |
| 4 | Taylor Charbonnet | D | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 68.00 |
| 5 | Sam Fehoko | D | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.70 | 72.00 |
| 6 | Jared Flannel | D | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.60 | 71.00 |
| 7 | Daniel Howard | D | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.30 | 40.00 |
| 8 | Jonathan Hollins | D | 3.00 | - | - | 72.00 |
| 9 | David Neill | D | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 68.00 |
| 10 | De'Shon Sanders | D | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.60 | - |
| 11 | Brandon Sharpe | D | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.40 | - |
| 12 | Tyrone Sonier | D | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 69.00 |
| 13 | Colby Whitlock | D | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 73.00 |
| AVERAGES | 2.38 | 2.46 | 5.04 | 52.77 |
From a pure numbers standpoint, the problem with this recruiting class is that the average defensive rating is relatively low. And if you look at recent or the current recruiting classes, that Rivals Rating is closer to 5.5 rather than 5.0. And you'll note that there were players that weren't even graded or given a grade of 40, like Sanders and Sharpe, which significantly brings down the ESPN average. At some point I thought that sort of thinking was really unfair, but JUCO players are so hit-or-miss, you're lucky to get one good year from a JUCO player and that just seems like a very risky investment. The staff totally missed on 4 of 13 players, which is about 30%. That's not awful, but to what hurt this group was that they weren't there for 3 or 4 years to develop for players like Sanders, Howard or Sharpe.
2007 Recruiting Class | Offense
| Commits | Player | O / D / ST | Scout | Rivals | Rivals Rating | ESPN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jacob Amie | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.70 | 74.00 |
| 2 | Aaron Crawford | O | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 75.00 |
| 3 | Dominique Delpeche | O | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.30 | 40.00 |
| 4 | Lonnie Edwards | O | 4.00 | 4.00 | 5.80 | 73.00 |
| 5 | Blake Emert | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.60 | 70.00 |
| 6 | Jacoby Franks | O | 2.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 63.00 |
| 7 | Jerrod Gooch | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 77.00 |
| 8 | Rashad Hawk | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 77.00 |
| 9 | Adam James | O | - | - | - | 77.00 |
| 10 | Justin Keown | O | 2.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 40.00 |
| 11 | Lyle Leong | O | - | - | - | 71.00 |
| 12 | Detron Lewis | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.60 | 40.00 |
| 13 | Stefan Loucks | O | 3.00 | 2.00 | 5.20 | 75.00 |
| 14 | Mickey Okafor | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.50 | 71.00 |
| 15 | Tramain Swindall | O | 3.00 | 3.00 | 5.70 | 72.00 |
| AVERAGES | 2.40 | 2.47 | 4.77 | 66.33 |
Depending on what service you look at, it wasn't much better than the defense, although there were much few reaches offensively, i.e. no JUCO players. At the very least, each player was graded in some form or fashion and at least the staff had ample time to figure out if the guy was a player or if he wasn't a player. Overall, I think this was a pretty good group of players, and really only missed on 5 of 15 players. About 30% of the offensive players.
Questions:
1. Have I missed anything or graded someone or something incorrectly?
2. Is there anything else that you'd like to see be given consideration?
3. How should we rank the players? What kind of scale (perhaps 1 to 3)?
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I can’t believe Hawk, Gooch and James were the highest-rated according to ESPN.
Kinda funny how ESPN gave James a 77 but he wasn’t even a two-star on Rivals. Hmmmmm.
After all is said and done, more is said than done.
Seriously, Detron was a 40 and James was 77??? Wha????
IMWTx
"We thought we were too good to play Texas f-ing A&M. Now how in the F can that be?" ML
by imisswesttexas on Dec 9, 2010 8:21 AM CST up reply actions
WOW
Suddenly i am very happy we got Tubs recruiting for us now! Not a big change but you can tell Tubs is a hard nose recruiter even with this years incoming class. Of course that could change come Feb.
"A job well done is better than a job well said."
by I bleed Red and Black on Dec 8, 2010 11:52 AM CST reply actions
I think if Tuberville is really strong in one area it’s selling Texas Tech. We need to put lots more emphasis on recruting if we’re going to expect to win in this conference and I’m glad he’s making his staff work hard when it comes to this. This could be a really special class come February if things hold up. Looking back at earlier classes I think we focused on what we could get after the UT’s and OU’s had their pick.
Ranking players 1-3 works good Seth. Grading this 2007 class on that kind of scale seems pretty easy to me.
"You've got to find your inner pirate" - Mike Leach
"We started too late" - Neal Brown
Loucks transferred to North Alabama.
Don’t think he got a chance at football there either.
Tommy Tuberville can bite my shiny metal ass!!!
I wonder
what kind of ESPN ranking you get if your dad works for ESPN?
Whoever said, 'It's not whether you win or lose that counts,' probably lost.
A few things...
On Rivals, in 2006:
Jonathon Hollins is listed as a 3-star DL (5.5 rating)
Nacy James is listed as a 3-star TE (5.5 rating)
Lyle Leong is listed as a 2-star WR (5.2 rating)
I really don’t think you can classify Daniel Howard and Brandon Sharpe as anything other than ‘solid contributors.’ I understand your comment about only one year, but I think that is an invalid criteria (especially for Juco players or transfers). By that criteria, if Cam Newton doesn’t play for Auburn next year, he would be considered “middle of the road.”
"Transition is hard." - TT
A few other things...
Nancy + Lacy = Nacy (sorry about that, I really meant Nancy…)
If ESPiN doesn’t rate a few players, it pretty much renders that average meaningless…
It seems that their normal base or unrated number is 40… I think the averages would be more meaningful if you just assumed 40 for those that were unrated…
"Transition is hard." - TT
by Houston Raider on Dec 8, 2010 1:43 PM CST up reply actions
On some level I agree, but on another level I disagree. Sanders should have been a zero as he contributed nothing, while Sharpe obviously out-performed his zero ranking. JUCO’s are shots-in-the-dark and I guess that’s why ESPN ranks some of them that way. I hate to change the grade because we don’t like what ESPN does.
Go Raiders . . .
Double-T Nation
I’ll change the grades later in the week.
What if we compromise on Howard on Sharpe. I think the Cam Newton is an extreme example as neither Sharpe or Howard are even close to that level (BTW, Roger Staubach, O.J. Simpson and Mike Rozier are the only Heisman winners that attended JUCO. Heard this on the radio.)
We can put the players into grades and what if we go with hammyttu’s grades (A, B, C, D and F) and put Howard and Sharpe under C, which isn’t good or bad, but average? I think their grades should be discounted because they only played one good year, but I’d like to know what others think.
Go Raiders . . .
Double-T Nation
I agree that Cam Newton is an extreme example...
I was just commenting that, in my opinion, both Howard and Sharpe were solid contributors to the Texas Tech football team… The grading approach is probably a good way to look at it… But in that model, I would give both Howard and Sharpe a B… I think a Juco guy who starts and is near the lead in the conference in relevant stats for his position merits a B or solid contributor rating, even if it was only for one year… I think you have to grade that out as a good Juco recruit, considering they only had 2 years within which to adjust to new schemes and levels of competition…
"Transition is hard." - TT
by Houston Raider on Dec 9, 2010 9:18 AM CST up reply actions
A quick explanation of grades
Here is how I arrived at my grades. BTW, I graded on a curve.
A: multi year starter or at least All Big 12 (hence Sharpe and Howard)
B: starts for 1 year or solid contributor for multi years
C: contributor, special teams guy
D: on team for 3 or 4 years but doesn’t see field. Much
F: doesn’t make it to campus or past first year
If you want to grade tougher, combine D & F and move others down a letter. Then reserve A’s for players like Crabtree, Harrell, and Wall.
IMHO, if you can get 2 productive years or 1 really productive year out of a recruit, you will be successful. Players that start 3 or 4 years are the exceptions. The ultimate goal of a program should be to just reload every year or two.
by hammyttu on Dec 10, 2010 1:57 PM CST via mobile up reply actions
More complicated version
If you wanted to get more involved, you could give each player a grade based on current season. Then convert grade to 4 pt scale ( 4 for A through 0 for F). Then assign a point system for post season honors ( ex. 1 pt hon mention all big 12, 3 pts 1st team all big 12 plus pts for all american, and different awards) Then total the points from all four years to get overall impact of a player. This way you would have a more subjective way to look at a recruiting class from freshman year through senior year and between classes. This would also give JUCO players a lesser impact since they only have two years to contribute unless the JUCO is a stud and wins lots of awards. Sounds like a lot of work, but would be kind of cool to look at how a highly ranked class pans out.
my rankings
Defense
A team (in order): Whitlock, Sharpe, Howard, Bird
B team: Fehoko, Sonier, Agoucha
C team: Flannel, Charbonet, Neill
Cut: Castillo, Hollins, Sanders
Offense
A team: Leong, Lewis
B team: Edwards, Okafor, Keown, Crawford, Franks, Swindall
C team: James, Emert, Hawk
Cut: Amie, Loucks, Gooch, Delpeche
Although the rankings could change based on if players step up in Sr season.
by hammyttu on Dec 8, 2010 2:23 PM CST via mobile reply actions
Great writeup
I think the key here is this class is down compared to those before and after and might have something to do with this year and next.
Right, each week (or so) I’ll take a look at a particular class and we’ll get a comparison going at the end of all of this.
Go Raiders . . .
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