Tag: Statistical Analysis of Recruiting

We can see that Rich Rodriguez intends to keep a strong foothold in the state of Ohio, with 11 of the 27 commitments coming from the Worst State Ever. Michigan has always recruited Ohio, but I don’t know of another class that imported so many players from the Buckeye State. Regardless, such greats as Charles Woodson, Elvis Grbac, Desmond Howard, and Ben Mast (what, no love for Ben Mast?) have come north to wear the winged helmet. Some of these relationships were forged by Rodriguez and his staff when they were at West Virginia, which is also in close proximity to Ohio. That’s one of the advantages of hiring a coach with some local ties. Despite 10 of those 11 players being only 3-star athletes to Rivals (Jerald Robinson was a 4-star), these commitments should give Rodriguez some inroads to start stealing upper echelon talent out of Ohio.

The Wolverines only secured four commitments out of the ten in-state athletes that received offers (including Ricardo Miller, who moved from Florida to Ann Arbor last summer after committing to Michigan). Unfortunately, there isn’t a great deal of talent in Michigan, which is why the state only received the 7th-most offers. I expect that more than ten offers will be given to Michigan players for 2011 (six have already been offered) and I expect that more than four of those offers will be accepted.

Florida and Pennsylvania each contributed three players to the class of 2010. We know that Michigan will continue to hit Florida hard (seven Florida players have received offers for 2011). And with the high rate of success Michigan had in Pennsylvania this past recruiting cycle, the Wolverines will continue to pursue – and catch – Keystone Staters. Pennsylvania might have a bit of a down year in 2011 as far as producing talent, so I don’t expect a ton of offers to go there this year, though.

Louisiana is a talent-rich state, but many players in the deep south have a predilection toward staying close to home. One of the main reasons that Michigan was able to pull Carvin Johnson and Drew Dileo out of Louisiana is that both were lightly recruited, at least early on in the process. Johnson started gaining more attention once he committed to Michigan, and his recruiter, Fred Jackson, said he had to work hard on the eve of National Signing Day to keep Johnson committed. Dileo grew up a Michigan fan and picked the Wolverines over the likes of Tulane; I’d pick four years of cold weather over giant hurricanes, too. Michigan will surely continue to recruit Louisiana, but their best chance for success has to be offering those kids early and/or finding sleepers. If a Louisiana native has the choice between going to LSU or out of state, he’ll pick LSU most of the time.

Maryland, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin each served up one commitment. Other than Wisconsin, each of those states received between nine and thirteen offers. The kids from Maryland and South Carolina typically show cursory interest in Michigan before committing elsewhere. Other than the two commitments from those two states (Josh Furman and Conelius Jones, respectively), nobody else visited, despite the fact that kids like Zach Zwinak, Marcus Lattimore, and A.J. Cann suggested serious inclinations to consider Michigan early in the process. Texas kids have a lot of options near home, so Michigan mostly has to latch onto under-the-radar kids like Tony Drake and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Hopkins. Wisconsin just doesn’t produce much talent, which is why only one kid received an offer – punter Will Hagerup.

Throughout the 2010 recruiting cycle, I did my best to keep a running tab on which players throughout the country were offered by Michigan. The list developed by using recruiting sites (Rivals and Scout) and newspaper articles. Not all newspaper articles and recruiting profiles are 100% accurate, but their validity can be hard to verify.

There are some odd examples that should be identified. For example, Jamaal Jackson is a running back from Newark, Delaware. As of February 9, 2010, he has yet to choose a school, but his Rivals profile lists him as having offers from several BCS programs, including Michigan, Boston College, and Rutgers, among others. There’s also the case of Travis Williams, a cornerback from Cooper City, Florida. He tried to commit to Michigan in the spring of 2009, but was “encouraged” by Michigan’s coaches to weigh all of his options. Williams was never heard from again on Michigan’s radar and ended up signing a letter of intent to Miami-OH, but I kept him on the list, as it appears he had been offered by Michigan before the coaches cooled on him.

And then there’s cornerback Adrian Witty. Witty was a high school teammate of Denard Robinson’s in Deerfield Park, Florida, and committed to Michigan in 2009. However, he failed to qualify and took an evening class in the fall of 2009 in order to enroll for January 2010. He passed the class but was somehow denied admission to Michigan. According to rumor, Rich Rodriguez put in a good word for Witty with new Cincinnati coach Butch Jones, and Witty signed his LOI to play for Cincinnati as a member of the class of 2010. Considering that Michigan’s coaches wanted him at Michigan, I also include him on the 2010 Offer Board.

Back to the analysis:

A plurality of offers were extended to recruits from Florida – 46 out of the 190 total offers, in fact. This makes some sense, as Michigan received 7 commitments from the state of Florida in 2009. However, Michigan only secured 3 recruits from Florida in 2010, which is slightly less than 7% of the offers tendered. If Michigan had that kind of success rate nationally, they would need to offer 415 players in order to get 27 commitments.

The Wolverines also made a significant attempts to recruit in Michigan’s geographic footprint, with 56 offers going to players from Michigan (10), Ohio (30), Pennsylvania (11), Indiana (3), Illinois (1), and Wisconsin (1). As would be expected, the percentage of commitments from those areas are significantly higher than in Florida; 34% of offered prospects in that midwest section accepted their offers.

A total of 25 offers went to recruits from talent-rich states Georgia and Texas. Only one of those recruits accepted.

Meanwhile, Michigan pursued 10 kids from Maryland, a small but relatively populous state that has excellent football programs with the likes of DeMatha and Our Lady of Good Counsel. One (Josh Furman, from Old Mill High School) accepted.

There was a smattering of other offers, as illustrated by the chart above. But we can see that Michigan is going hard after kids in the Deep South (Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina) and in the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania). Beyond those states, Rich Rodriguez seems to only be making cursory efforts in the Great Plains (A.J. Derby from Iowa), the West Coast (12 from California, 1 from Arizona, 1 from Utah, and none from Oregon or Washington), and the Northeast (such as Dominique Easley from New York and Khairi Fortt from Connecticut). The 12 from California might seem like a high number, until one considers that 48 players from the state were rated 4-stars or higher by Rivals; California is a gold mine of football talent.

We know for certain that Michigan will continue recruiting Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania hard. I also expect the Wolverines to offer more than 10 in-state prospects for the class of 2011; six offers have already been extended.

All coaches’ recruiting strategies continue to evolve, and I don’t expect anything different from Rich Rodriguez. He was largely unsuccessful in the deep south. I expect that he’ll try to make some more inroads in Texas, a perennially talent-rich state, but perhaps ignore Georgia recruiting a bit more. Offers will go where the talent is, but it’s a waste of time and resources to recruit heavily in states where the players don’t want to leave home, are afraid of playing in cold weather, or have enough traditionally powerful in-state programs to suck up all the local talent.