Sports Field Guide

Even though college football recruiting is overhyped, fans love it.

Even though these players have not played a down, fans want to know which school snagged the best recruits.

So that’s what we do, offer information about signed players. And fans eat it up, reading even one-sentence updates from newspapers by the tens of thousands in Atlanta, Dallas and elsewhere.

Check out Bruce Feldman’s Meat Market and Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side if you want to get an unfiltered look at college recruiting. (The book offers far more insights and information than the movie, of course.) For updates on today’s recruiting across the country, though, check out coverage from these college newspaper staffs.

• Several recruits backed out at the last moment, says Georgia coach Mark Richt. As a result, the staff is promoting the idea that this class is more quality than quantity. But is Richt too honest to recruit effectively? That’s the premise of a Red & Black columnist.
• Like last year, the LSU Reveille did a live blog from early morning to early evening, posting updates in signings and commenting on the press conference. The Reveille also had put together a map, showing hometowns for Tiger recruits. (Unfortunately, it does not open for viewing). They take their recruiting seriously in the Bayou where fans pay $45 to attend an all-day party that celebrates each announced signing.
• Western Kentucky’s College Heights Herald offered updates all day on its blog, then posted a story online along with a graphic that maps hometowns for its recruits. (Florida supplies the Hilltoppers with most of the recruits. But, even more notably, only one Kentucky kid signed with WKU.)
• Michigan landed a four-star safety (whatever that term means), according to the Michigan Daily. As you can tell, I am not a fan of branding 18-year-olds.
• The Independent Alligator says it is a miracle that Florida pulled in so many talented players despite the challenges it faced once the season concluded.
• The Daily Illini updated fans on signings by citing them throughout the morning on the sports blog. In addition, the newspaper also offered a story that revealed why a top-rated safety spurned Illinois for Nebraska.
• Boise State quietly signed several players before signing day. Today, The Broncos also landed  a top-rated player from Hawaii. Story is a brief that looks like it came from the SID’s office. With so many players returning, Boise State did not have as many signings this year. But they did lose their defensive coordinator to Tennessee, which is always big news during signing day.
• Oregon lured away some top-rated players on signing day, according to the Daily Emerald.
• Eastern Illinois signed three quarterbacks in an attempt to get past the first round of the Football Subdivision playoffs.
• A week into his tenure, East Carolina coach Ruffin McNeil signed 18 players, reports the East Carolinian.
• While I think it’s a stretch to say Lance Kiffin’s recruiting restored faith in Southern Cal’s football program, the Daily Trojan columnist who argues this point does offer fairly good analysis. The newspaper also offered an overview story that states USC had the nation’s top recruiting class, according to Rivals.com.

I do laugh more than a little when I read comments like this:

The five five-star recruits are more than any other program received. USC’s average recruited player ranking of 4.22 stars was also the highest in the nation.

As I stated, the overall assessment is based upon imprecise evaluations. What are the specific criteria that makes a prospect a three-, four-, or five-star recruit? Based on these sometimes fuzzy assessments, sports writers start making sweeping generalizations about each school’s recruits – even putting a specific value to it, like the 4.22 above, as if quantifying it all legitimizes the initial sweeping evaluations.

You can go back to another Michael Lewis book, Moneyball, to see how even veteran major-league baseball scouts calibrated their assessments of young baseball players thanks to sabermetrics, a method that is a little more valid. On the other hand, recruiting is fun – that is, if we do not take it as seriously as a rich oilman in Texas.

Posting these stories at nine or 11 at night, though, diminishes a college newspaper’s value. By the time many of these recruiting stories were posted, the most infectious fans already knew who had signed. Sports staffs like those at the LSU Reveille, College Heights Herald, and Daily Illini got it right by posting updates through the day. Get information to the reader quickly in order to remain relevant. Staffs can then post the overview story later in the night.