Recruiting upswing - Raw data

[chodehawk]

With the recent Yelverton home run, I decided to crunch some numbers this morning as I was interested in zooming in on what appears to be an uptick on the recruiting front. Just providing this for fun, so if this is not your thing, feel free to move along (also, a few names may be misspelled)

Take a look at Iowa's "top ten" data below, per year (please note, I did not cherry pick any names or numbers - simply added the top ten guys based off their 24/7 rankings)

KEY FINDINGS -
2018 class:
- Eight players are rated higher than the highest prospect from 2013 (Wisneski)
- Nine players rated higher than the 2nd highest prospect from 2014 (Weigers)
- ALL TEN are rated higher than the 4th best prospect from 2015 (J Newborg)

2019 class:
- Five players rated higher than the highest prospect from 2013
- All ten are rated higher then the fourth-best prospect from 2014
- ALL TEN are rated higher than the 4th highest prospect from 2015

Conclusion - We can all agree these recruiting ratings don't mean everything...or anything, in many cases. However, the black and white numbers below clearly illustrate that this staff is simply getting better clay to work with then they did five years ago.


2013
J Wisneski .872
C Goebel .868
J Kenny .862
R Spearman .858
S Welsh .857
M Rucker .857
B Gressel .852
S Warfield .851
D WIllies .841
D Mitchell .839

2014
J Scheel .886
T Weigers .872
M Nelson .861
M Taylor .854
L Legrand .848
O Truitt .848
C Hilliard .847
J Enbrey .84
J Outsey .838
A Mends .838

2015
J Daniels .87
Lu Paulsen .875
Le Paulsen .874
J Newborg .856
R boyle .847
J Smith .844
B Reiff .843
A Garbutt .840
M Slater .834
A Nelson .833

2016
C lattimore .869
N Stanley .867
N Fant .866
A Hooker .864
T Akinribade .859
A jackson .859
A Jackson .859
K Taylor .857
M Ragumba .856
R McKnight .856
B Wade .849

2017
A Epenesa .986
M Kallenberger .891
T Wirfs .891
D Colbert .859
P Mansell .858
K Bryan .853
L Duwa .850
M Hankins .849
I K Martin .847
C Harrell .846

2018
D Craddieth .889
J Waggoner .889
T Lindenbaum .886
S Petras .885
J Brents .884
D Johnson .88
J Jenkins .878
D Nixon .873
M Sargent .87
T Tracy .868

2019
J Jacobs .906
E Miller .892
T Endres .890
L Lee .884
J Britt .877
J Campbell .87
T Goodson .87
J hunt .866
D Belton .864
S Castro .86

 

[bojihawk44]

Great post. Last few years there has been a definite uptick in recruiting. Power conference offers seem to have gone way up with our commits. Next few years should be fun.

 

[grayhair81]

Things improved starting in 2016. In fairness, it didn't take much to improve on where they had been. The 14 and 15 classes were weak. Since 2016, the average Rivals Rating for Iowa's signees is 5.58. That average was good for ninth place among B1G schools for the 2019 class. So while it has improved, they certainly aren't killing it.
The pickup Friday was a great thing regardless.

 

[ICTrojans99]

The only weaknesses in our last 4 classes are WR and WDE/Speed rusher. We rarely get any of the higher rated players that we offer at those positions.

 

[Buckwatcher]

Good post. The one thing that stuck out to me was the amount of attrition 2013-2015. Maybe the better recruits in recent years has lead to that. Younger players beating out older guys and they leave.

 

[tdstick]

If you build it they will come

 

[Harbinger273]

The only weaknesses in our last 4 classes are WR and WDE/Speed rusher. We rarely get any of the higher rated players that we offer at those positions.

Right on. We could use more consistency recruiting these positions. What a difference it makes having an AJE or Golston out there. Last year's arrangement was ideal!

 

[cmhawks99]

With the recent Yelverton home run, I decided to crunch some numbers this morning as I was interested in zooming in on what appears to be an uptick on the recruiting front. Just providing this for fun, so if this is not your thing, feel free to move along (also, a few names may be misspelled)

Take a look at Iowa's "top ten" data below, per year (please note, I did not cherry pick any names or numbers - simply added the top ten guys based off their 24/7 rankings)

KEY FINDINGS -
2018 class:
- Eight players are rated higher than the highest prospect from 2013 (Wisneski)
- Nine players rated higher than the 2nd highest prospect from 2014 (Weigers)
- ALL TEN are rated higher than the 4th best prospect from 2015 (J Newborg)

2019 class:
- Five players rated higher than the highest prospect from 2013
- All ten are rated higher then the fourth-best prospect from 2014
- ALL TEN are rated higher than the 4th highest prospect from 2015

Conclusion - We can all agree these recruiting ratings don't mean everything...or anything, in many cases. However, the black and white numbers below clearly illustrate that this staff is simply getting better clay to work with then they did five years ago.


2013
J Wisneski .872
C Goebel .868
J Kenny .862
R Spearman .858
S Welsh .857
M Rucker .857
B Gressel .852
S Warfield .851
D WIllies .841
D Mitchell .839

2014
J Scheel .886
T Weigers .872
M Nelson .861
M Taylor .854
L Legrand .848
O Truitt .848
C Hilliard .847
J Enbrey .84
J Outsey .838
A Mends .838

2015
J Daniels .87
Lu Paulsen .875
Le Paulsen .874
J Newborg .856
R boyle .847
J Smith .844
B Reiff .843
A Garbutt .840
M Slater .834
A Nelson .833

2016
C lattimore .869
N Stanley .867
N Fant .866
A Hooker .864
T Akinribade .859
A jackson .859
A Jackson .859
K Taylor .857
M Ragumba .856
R McKnight .856
B Wade .849

2017
A Epenesa .986
M Kallenberger .891
T Wirfs .891
D Colbert .859
P Mansell .858
K Bryan .853
L Duwa .850
M Hankins .849
I K Martin .847
C Harrell .846

2018
D Craddieth .889
J Waggoner .889
T Lindenbaum .886
S Petras .885
J Brents .884
D Johnson .88
J Jenkins .878
D Nixon .873
M Sargent .87
T Tracy .868

2019
J Jacobs .906
E Miller .892
T Endres .890
L Lee .884
J Britt .877
J Campbell .87
T Goodson .87
J hunt .866
D Belton .864
S Castro .86

This is nice insight and I would agree recruiting has improved greatly over the last several years. As another mentioned, 15 had some issues, but otherwise 13-14 lead to some really good players and football teams.

With that said, as you mentioned, it can all be interpreted many ways....it is an interesting aside to go back and look at the “bottom” 10.

Much higher success rate in several classes.

2013 yielded Wadley, Jewel, Vandy, Leshun Daniels, Boetteger...

Also Shimonek started at TT.

2014 bottom 10 yielded Reynolds, Jackson, Niemann, Hesse, Mends, Render

2015...poor class all around, OJ and Reiff in Bosttom 10..

2016.... this class though was back up again with Banwart, Jackson, Welch, Amani Jones, TJ Hockenson, and Barrington Wade.

Not to mention Devonte’ Young who has been a great teammate and special teamer & Brandon Simon who I’m disappointed transferred out because I thought he was going to be very integral this year

2017... bottom 10 includes Smith, Nixon, ISM and Geno stone.

And interestingly enough as we move forward and we both agree the actual classes are “improving”, we might disagree on how you measure that metric but I digress… The point being as the classes improve we still are having a remarkable amount of lower 10 guys excelling. In 2018 we already saw Merriweather, Riley Moss and Seth Benson make significant Internet chatter & on field contributions.

The number one thing I have realized over the years is, this staff is really good at not letting them selves be “tricked” by an arbitrary rating system. And the reason why I think they’ve improved so much at the “identification” process is they have better processes and systems in place. They have a lot of fire and passion, they had some failures I believe back in the 08 to 11 range that they have learned from and I now believe they know exactly what they’re looking for.