Excellent story, Richard. Coach’s demeanor is one that will help recruiting, but also endears him to so many people even though the winning hasn’t come as quickly as hoped. Still think he’s the best person for the job. Time will tell. Thanks for writing.
This was from my four day with the coaches in the spring. I figured I would wait until it got closer to the season before rolling out some of the stuff.
This was a very nice story with some touching anecdotes, but to be objective about it, I don’t see much evidence that Bielema is that great of a recruiter. We tend to recruit mostly 3 star players, rank between 25-35 in the nation, and rank between 8-12 in the SEC. In other words, he is an average recruiter and produces average teams on the field.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t a great person off of the field because it certainly appears that he is, but I wouldn’t get carried away with his recruiting prowess.
Excellent post. I’ve posted on here numerous times, but star rating and class ranking shows he’s no different that CBP and HDN in regards to recruiting. In year 5 he has all of his guys. Let’s hope the team reflects his outstanding recruiting abilities that we’ve been told about.
I see posters slam CBB on recruiting but I think a fact that many continue to ignore (because it doesn’t fit their agenda) is the complete collapse of Little Rock football and really most of South Arkansas. Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Crossett, …towns that size across Texas and Louisiana produce players, but not here?? And Little Rock? LRSD football is embarrassing. PCSSD is little better save for Joe T. How many stars for Coach Broyles and others from Little Rock and parts south?
The non existence of Safeties is something that really bothers me. I hate to say it, (even though it’s true) I watched the worst safety play last year that I’ve seen in my two decades of really keeping up with the hogs.
The absence of a dominant offensive line lately is also eyebrow raising, why can’t he recruit blue chip OL? That’s what he’s supposed to be known for.
Hopefully this year helps out and the 19’ class is very good. The 18’ class started out incredible, but is back to normal, very average/below average for the SEC.
Richard, you are much more informed in recruiting than I am, so I hate to argue with you, but I do believe that’s not correct.
Dan Skipper was a consensus 3 star according to 247, and what else I could find. Gibson was a walk on, I do believe. Froholdt was a 4 star Defensive tackle, that doesn’t count in my book as a 4 star offensive line. Colton Jackson starter a few, and was a consensus 3 star.
4 stars according to what I’ve kept up with and found, Ragnow, Wallace, and one that we did not recruit out of highschool GT being Jake Raulerson, also not starting all of last year.
The 17’ class had all 3 star OL, and the 18 class had all 3 star OL. While I don’t think ratings are everything, they definitely mean something. I hope these kids turn out to be great, we need them to. But, the reason I worry is because each ear we have gone after the blue chips pretty hard from what the recruiting media shows, but we couldn’t land the big ones.
Last year was no question CBBs worst OL of his head coaching career I do expect it to turn around, but until we are elite along the OL, we will have a tough time with the Bamas, Auburna, and LSU type DL.
You keep adding Froholdt, but he didn’t play OL in highschool, so I wasn’t counting him as a 4 star OL, and was only listed as a 4 star Defensive Lineman.
That was one of the issues many had, that a guy who had never played OL jumped in and started, showing lack of recruitment/good evaluations and depth.
So the 4 stars - Ragnow, Wallace,Heinrich, Merrick, Raulerson (GT)
Froholdt I’m not counting because he wasn’t graded as a 4 star OL.
I don’t have an agenda but I do like to use statistics in decision making and explaining outcomes. Let’s go back and look at our national recruiting ranking from 2005 to the present. This is based on Rivals but you could use any of the services and probably get similar results.
As I stated originally his classes are usually in the 25-35 range, which isn’t dramatically different from the previous coaches. So when we say he is the best recruiter since Frank Broyles I assume there is some other metric being used than recruiting rankings. Hey, I’m not a BB basher at all and I’m not on the recruiting front lines like the insiders are, but based on the stats that us outsiders are privy too, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of BB’s recruiting prowess.
Yup. I like Coach Bielema, hope he stays. But the numbers is the numbers, I’m not much on recruiting stars either, but you can only gauge by past rankings and W-L’s. Neither indicates Bielema is a better recruiter than his predecessors going back to 2005. To me this is much more of an indicator than he beat out 'Bama/LSU for a few kids.
We went back and forth on this awhile back. I know people disagree and that’s fine. I never mentioned recruiting services. I’m primarily talking about Bret’s ability to get highly recruited out-of-state kids. Petrino and Nutt were able to land some. but not at the rate Bret has.
I’ll look for one of my old posts and try and post it here. If Nutt or Petrino went into Texas and beat out Texas for any kids I don’t know about them. Same with Oklahoma, Florida, Florida State and Miami. I would doubt they beat Bama for any kids. If they did it was very few.
I’ve always said in order for Arkansas to get where fans want them to be, they have to be able to recruit top out of state talent. They’re doing a better job under Bret.
So the recruiting ranks have little to no change. But we are recruiting better & recruiting better against the big guys? I see that, I see several players with Alabama offers.
So why can’t CBB win? Petrino and Nutt both won with less talent, I expect CBB to put his big boy pants on and go win some games. The SEC has been dominant especially the west for some time now, so it’s not just because of stiff competition.
Maybe he gets it done this year.
Booger McFarland was just talking in reference to Tennessees coach saying that he hasn’t been able to get in done in 5 years why do Ten fans think he can in the future? I’m in the same boat, if it doesn’t show in the first 5, especially year 5 with an entirely coach recruited team, it may not be happening. Let’s hope CBB breaks through this year, I do like the guy, I just question if he is the guy.