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How to win without bluechip recruits

Realistically, it's the only option we have. We aren't going to out-recruit people. That simply isn't going to happen with the program in it's current state. So in order to become relevant again, we have little choice but to follow this model. Make no mistake, it's the model we're following, we just haven't seen any tangible results yet. We knew what we were signing on for when we hired MM. Or, at least we should have known.
 
Good read, thanks Nik. It's full of stuff that's gets dismissed by a lot of people here, but it makes enough sense to me. I agree that we're stuck in that model for now, but look forward to adding some blue-chip kids to the mix in the not-too-distant future.
 
This quote caught my eye:

"You only need X amount of difference-makers. Then you need guys who are going to outlast their opponents.

There's a lot of sense in that comment. You need difference makers, but you can't have a team filled with them. You need a team filled with guys who know what they're doing and are always in the right place at the right time doing the things you need them to do. I don't know if we're there yet or not, but in this last class, there are three, maybe four guys who can be classified as "difference makers". Montez, Carr, Falo and Lynott. The team needs those four guys to live up to their potential, but just as importantly, the team needs the other 14 guys in the class to be solid, smart and motivated football players. Once we get that, we'll be on to something.
 
Good QB and some freaks at WR, DE and CB (true studs with God given ability you can't coach).
Everyone else does their job and there is depth and solid play. That would make us a pretty good team.
 
http://m.espn.go.com/ncf/story?storyId=12314536

ESPN profiled TCU, Missouri and Michigan State (with reference to some others). Great read. Philosophically, it mirrors a lot of what we've heard HCMM saying: multi-sport athletes, finding their right position, development, work ethic, team first, staff continuity, etc.
What? I thought by some posts on this board that we're doomed unless we can recruit like USC! The ONLY way to turn around a moribund program is the way it's been done by countless others (including Mac) at other schools. How many blue chip guys want to come to Colorado, or Duke, or KState? Zero or near that. I am all aboard with Mac...just waiting to see the Ws now.
 
I like this quote: "At Michigan State, Missouri and TCU, one of the common denominators is that the same head coach has been in place for at least eight seasons and has been able to maintain a level of staff continuity."

Coach Mac is going into his third season with nearly the same staff, and the replacement staff are a huge step up. I believe RG sees these other programs and realizes the need for continuity while building, so I see Mac going his full 5 years unless the floor drops out from underneath.
 
This quote caught my eye:

"You only need X amount of difference-makers. Then you need guys who are going to outlast their opponents."

There's a lot of sense in that comment. You need difference makers, but you can't have a team filled with them. You need a team filled with guys who know what they're doing and are always in the right place at the right time doing the things you need them to do. I don't know if we're there yet or not, but in this last class, there are three, maybe four guys who can be classified as "difference makers". Montez, Carr, Falo and Lynott. The team needs those four guys to live up to their potential, but just as importantly, the team needs the other 14 guys in the class to be solid, smart and motivated football players. Once we get that, we'll be on to something.
The other thing I like about that comment is that it plays to one of our natural advantages: altitude. Barnett used to talk about knowing that if we were at home and the game was close going into the fourth quarter that he was always pretty confident of pulling out the win, because our guys would simply outlast the other team.

Make no mistake though, you still need X number of difference makers. I think X is larger than 2 or 3, and I'm not sure we're there yet.
 
Interesting article. Not sure I see the parallels to here, but hopefully I am wrong.
 
The other thing I like about that comment is that it plays to one of our natural advantages: altitude. Barnett used to talk about knowing that if we were at home and the game was close going into the fourth quarter that he was always pretty confident of pulling out the win, because our guys would simply outlast the other team.

Make no mistake though, you still need X number of difference makers. I think X is larger than 2 or 3, and I'm not sure we're there yet.

I think having 2-3 difference makers in a class is what he's talking about. Fields is a difference maker (or at least should be), Gillam is a difference maker. Crawley is a difference maker. I agree that we don't have enough, but I believe we're getting closer.
 
What? I thought by some posts on this board that we're doomed unless we can recruit like USC! The ONLY way to turn around a moribund program is the way it's been done by countless others (including Mac) at other schools. How many blue chip guys want to come to Colorado, or Duke, or KState? Zero or near that. I am all aboard with Mac...just waiting to see the Ws now.

Who said anything about recruiting with USC? I'd settle for not competing with Weber State for recruits. Those teams listed in the article do win recruiting battles with other P5 teams.
 
Who said anything about recruiting with USC? I'd settle for not competing with Weber State for recruits. Those teams listed in the article do win recruiting battles with other P5 teams.

They do now but did they when the coaches first got there? Maybe....maybe not.....not going to go through the rivals database to find out. Point is a rebuild takes place in stages. First stage was stop sucking so bad and compete in games. Now it is on to the next stage.
 
Who said anything about recruiting with USC? I'd settle for not competing with Weber State for recruits. Those teams listed in the article do win recruiting battles with other P5 teams.

We do too for the premier players in the class. Lynott, Falo and Carr had plenty of other P5 options.
 
Who said anything about recruiting with USC? I'd settle for not competing with Weber State for recruits. Those teams listed in the article do win recruiting battles with other P5 teams.

Your Weber State comments are hyperbolic and overplayed. It's getting really tiring.


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One other thing I would add is posters acting like Shay Fields and Patrick Carr are blue chip prospects need to slow their roll. Both are composite mid 3* players, which underscores how we can/should be getting more players on their level.
 
Who said anything about recruiting with USC? I'd settle for not competing with Weber State for recruits. Those teams listed in the article do win recruiting battles with other P5 teams.
I was exaggerating a bit to make a point, but the WS point was kinda googy. Anyway, looking down our list of recruits, I'm fairly happy. Some guys should be able to contribute immediately, others are projects. I read or heard somewhere that Mac has only lost 3 kids to attrition in his classes. Need low attrition if his plan is to coach some of these kids up in S&C and on the field.

The article mentioned that teams like Oregon and TCU don't routinely have top 10 classes despite their high rankings. They have a system that works and recruit to that system. My belief is Mac has a similar system. It seems everything is heading in the right direction...now the Buffs gotta win baby!!!
 
One other thing I would add is posters acting like Shay Fields and Patrick Carr are blue chip prospects need to slow their roll. Both are composite mid 3* players, which underscores how we can/should be getting more players on their level.

Exactly. Where I believe CU needs to be is to fill its classes with that level of player while sprinkling in some guys the coaches find like a Tupou, Gordon, Gillam or Tuiloma along with landing 1-3 of the 4* types. That's a class in the high 20s or 30s and if CU can do that consistently then we'll be able to play with anyone.
 
Exactly. Where I believe CU needs to be is to fill its classes with that level of player while sprinkling in some guys the coaches find like a Tupou, Gordon, Gillam or Tuiloma along with landing 1-3 of the 4* types. That's a class in the high 20s or 30s and if CU can do that consistently then we'll be able to play with anyone.
Sounds good. And just to be clear, I was not downplaying the ability of either Fields or Carr. Both were legitimate top 100 players in big-time football states. You can win recruiting those types of players regularly.
 
The other thing I like about that comment is that it plays to one of our natural advantages: altitude. Barnett used to talk about knowing that if we were at home and the game was close going into the fourth quarter that he was always pretty confident of pulling out the win, because our guys would simply outlast the other team. And if they didn't Barnett could always blame the freshman QB!

Make no mistake though, you still need X number of difference makers. I think X is larger than 2 or 3, and I'm not sure we're there yet.

FIFY.

The fact that only a handful of programs are highlighted in this article, empasizes the point that not all coaches are great evaluators and not all set up to view each player they would like in person.

When I last coached, I had an assistant who could spot talent unfailingly at try-outs, even among kids. I let him choose my teams at an open draft after try-outs, when I was out of town, on two different occasions. Both times he picked up kids who ended up All Stars, (6 of 8, then 8 of 11), though he was not even a good athlete and could just play the game we were coaching, at a mediocre level. But he sure could break down the skills needed and just knew what to look for on the field.

Guys like him are extremely rare; would seem that MM is like that.
 
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Its a good article, but the schools mentioned are still on a whole other level than we are recruiting-wise. These schools recruit very well, they're just not pulling in top 20 classes to compete with the elite recruiting schools. I don't think this is some justification of our recruiting - none of these schools are recruiting at the bottom of their conference. I think it shows that if you can recruit in then middle of your conference you can win if you get the right guys that fit your system. We're not quite there yet IMO.
 
Its a good article, but the schools mentioned are still on a whole other level than we are recruiting-wise. These schools recruit very well, they're just not pulling in top 20 classes to compete with the elite recruiting schools. I don't think this is some justification of our recruiting - none of these schools are recruiting at the bottom of their conference. I think it shows that if you can recruit in then middle of your conference you can win if you get the right guys that fit your system. We're not quite there yet IMO.

I look at it more like Pinkel and Patterson had a certain recruiting philosophy they used to build up their respective programs. As they've gotten better, so have the recruiting classes. But they still don't recruit within the elite rankings and have refused to compromise on the principles that have gotten them to their current level.

Where I see the parallel is with philosophy. CU's at a much earlier stage of the build cycle than those programs.
 
I look at it more like Pinkel and Patterson had a certain recruiting philosophy they used to build up their respective programs. As they've gotten better, so have the recruiting classes. But they still don't recruit within the elite rankings and have refused to compromise on the principles that have gotten them to their current level.

Where I see the parallel is with philosophy. CU's at a much earlier stage of the build cycle than those programs.

Totally makes sense. I agree, I don't think even under the best circumstances that CU will ever recruit regularly with the elite programs - I think if we can get to a point where we expect to be in the top half of the Pac12 every year and are pulling in classes ranked somewhere in the 20-40 range every year, that's good enough for us to be a very good football team if we're getting the guys that fit our system. I see schools like Michigan State as a very good model for us.
 
I agree with the general premise, and think we are building that way.

When M2 got here we had a lot of guys on the roster who either didn't have the motivation to be P5 players or didn't weren't athletic enough to keep up with P5 players. A lot of the kids he has been recruiting are guys who may not be the outstanding kids that everyone salivates over but they aren't going to embarrass us either.

We can, should, and are also looking for those standout difference makers as well but for right now it is a major improvement just to have a roster made up of mostly kids who belong on a field against PAC12 athletes. With those guys we can start to win some games which will open the door to recruiting more af the standout type kids.

The program that I look at that I would like to see us model ourselves after for the immediate future is Wisconsin. They get some blue chip kids, especially now that they are often contending for conference championships but the core of their team is made up of kids who they recruit with the intention of playing them 2-3 years in the future. They bring in a lot of linemen who are tall and athletic but 20-40lbs under what other schools want. They put them in the weight room, work on their fundamentals, and a few years later they are in an NFL camp ahead of some kids who had more notice out of HS.

The big hitch to this whole thing of course is that we need to start winning some games. Doesn't have to be lots of them right away but we need enough wins to convince the kids we want that more are coming in the future.

Compared to M2s first year the offense is light years ahead of where it was. As much as we give Neinas grief our special teams have made significant advances, not great but not losing us games either. The big area that we haven't seen that step up is on defense. With a better coaching staff and more and more mature athletes I am hopefull that this year this is where we see the big jump. Just based on last year if our defense had been able to reduce the average points allowed by 7-10 points where would we have ended.

If we do start to win some games I think we will see the staff stick to their recruiting strategy but more of the recruits will be players that our competing schools also were after.
 
Cool article, but while CU's recruiting is upticking a bit, we are not anywhere near the recruiting level of TCU, Missouri, or Michigan State. Im still a huge MM fan and think that things will progress over time, and maybe soon. I especially like the veer towards getting much better in the running game, the hire of Jim Leavitt, and the recent moves towards getting bigger at LB.
 
I was exaggerating a bit to make a point, but the WS point was kinda googy. Anyway, looking down our list of recruits, I'm fairly happy. Some guys should be able to contribute immediately, others are projects. I read or heard somewhere that Mac has only lost 3 kids to attrition in his classes. Need low attrition if his plan is to coach some of these kids up in S&C and on the field.

The article mentioned that teams like Oregon and TCU don't routinely have top 10 classes despite their high rankings. They have a system that works and recruit to that system. My belief is Mac has a similar system. It seems everything is heading in the right direction...now the Buffs gotta win baby!!!

are you buffclass90?
 
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