Mix of Blue Chips- SCrooster

You remember that? Cool!

Yep, you gotta have a mix. There has to be some yin with the yang and it usually works best at key positions.

Tenderloin on the smoker at 1:40.

Let's say you have 10 defensive lineman on scholarship. Two are 5 star, two are solid 4 star, and the rest are 3 and below. Is that a good mix, bad mix, and why? What is the yin yang ratio supposed to be? If DL is a bad example, feel free to pick another unit.

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If I remember correctly its so you don't have so many kids get discouraged and become head cases over playing time and the work ethic a competition keeps the players progressing consistantly

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I can see that for sure. Look at Bama running backs. They've got 10 stud running backs, any of whom could start on most teams in the country. For Bama, though, you get to see who is the best of the best of those guys, play them, and let the rest transfer. So in that sense, it's a good thing for the program to have a bunch of 5 stars battling for playing time. But it also creates problems like Alvin Kamara who was a hot shite recruit out of GA that went to Bama, and now is getting processed in his freshman year, and allegedly telling other bama recruits "psst psst... don't come here, you won't be able to play".

There is also a prima donna factor, so many of these young athletes are big man on campus their whole lives, never waited in line, never had to work harder than anyone else, never had to study too hard, then suddenly they are thrown into an environment where everyone else is just as good or better than they are, and they can't deal with it as quickly. They fall out.

But from a recruiting standpoint, do you really say to yourself as a coach "We've already got two 5 star guys on the roster at DL, we don't need another" or do you continue trying to recruit the highest possible raw talent you can?

In which case, the yin and yang is the after-effect of processing?

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I can see that for sure. Look at Bama running backs. They've got 10 stud running backs, any of whom could start on most teams in the country. For Bama, though, you get to see who is the best of the best of those guys, play them, and let the rest transfer. So in that sense, it's a good thing for the program to have a bunch of 5 stars battling for playing time. But it also creates problems like Alvin Kamara who was a hot shite recruit out of GA that went to Bama, and now is getting processed in his freshman year, and allegedly telling other bama recruits "psst psst... don't come here, you won't be able to play".

There is also a prima donna factor, so many of these young athletes are big man on campus their whole lives, never waited in line, never had to work harder than anyone else, never had to study too hard, then suddenly they are thrown into an environment where everyone else is just as good or better than they are, and they can't deal with it as quickly. They fall out.

But from a recruiting standpoint, do you really say to yourself as a coach "We've already got two 5 star guys on the roster at DL, we don't need another" or do you continue trying to recruit the highest possible raw talent you can?

In which case, the yin and yang is the after-effect of processing?

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What you're talking about with Bama, we all saw happen as well at Southern Cal during the Carroll years: they were stocking 5* talent 4 and 5-deep, and a lot of those players ended up transferring out...

I think that most of these 5 star players aren't just hype. They have physcial attributes/measurables that are usually elite for their age/class and then when you watch them on film and see their stat sheet, they have great highlight reels and have the fundamentals usually down pat.

I think when you're trying to rank and place value on the guys ranked i.e 115 or 165, it becomes really subjective. Outside of that elite 5 star level, there are hundred if not thousands of kids in the US that could develop into high caliber/NFL talent each year. Those kids just need the exposure, training and commitment to go after that goal, and the path usually includes playing for a college team.

I think the most important attribute for any of these 5 star or Blue Chip guys is motor, it's all about how hard they want to go every play or in practice or the weight room, etc....

USC has done a great job of finding these Blue Chip guys who may have not been 5 Star Players, and we've talked about them here an on other boards a lot. Jasper Brinkley, Eric Norwood, Captain Munnerlyn, Connor Shaw, etc....they are the guys that weren't highly ranked, but dominated the college game and gave immense effort every practice/every play. I still think that Norwood single handedly took away any hope Andre Woodson had of the Heisman that year.

I like the point earlier in this thread too about Carrol and So Cal in the mid' 00's. They were super-stacked at every position, and they were bleeding 4 & 5 star transfers. That's a great problem for a program to have, I don't think it's a bad problem for a program. What's the difference b/w a 5 or a 3 star transferring really?

Carrol did it, he "won" some titles (but then had to give 'em back, ) Saban does it, he won 3 titles. I think the magic number for 5 star or Blue Chip players is 85. Honestly, if anyone of us could pick 20 recruits a year for 4 years and they would go to our school, I bet the vast majority would be 5 star players (with some 4's thrown in based on position needs.)

HOWEVER, while having a bunch of 5 Star guys sounds great and history shows, that it does help with hardware, it can also be noted that a team can be successful without them. Look at you mid 00's Boise St story, Kansas St in the late 90's - early 00's (bunch of JUCO's on KSU), and what SC is doing now. We haven't had a Top 10 ranked class since '07, yet for the past 3 years after that class "left" we've been ranked in the Final AP in the Top 10. They had that Rivals-Redo Class ranking for the 2010 classes this past year and our 2010 class was re-ranked #2 in the country. (One of y'all posted the link to that article on here a few weeks ago.)

So ... the most successful teams in college football history have always had near perfect mixes of blue collar and blue chippers.

Blue-collar over-achievers are oft-times more coveted among D1 big time college coaches that know what they are doing than are unknown, over-rated blue chippers.

Supposedly, it is easier to recruit blue-collar over-achievers en masses when your program is doing very well ... but I've always been of the opinion that it has far more to do with a coach's eye for talent than it does players beating your door down to walk-on at your program - although that certainly helps.

You really want blue-chip skill players - and that's one of the reasons why the recruiting services usually give more points to skill players than they do the big uglies. But if you recruit the big time blue chip skill players, then you can mix and match in the trenches and work the chemistry from the inside out until you tweak-it-up just right.

Skill players play within their own heads. Trenchers have to rely on their buddies next to them and behind them ... both sides of the ball, LBs and DEs included. So you want your real blue-collar over-achievers at LB, Spur, DT and on the OL. You want a real blue collar over achieving Center and and Middle LB if you can find them ... smart players with mean dispositions who know and understand the game.

You gotta find just the right mix. It's not easy. But if you get it right then you know when it happens.

I really like the way SCAR is shaping-up for 2014 but I've seen it coming for a couple of years now so I've been saying since 2012 that 2014 was going to be a big year for SCAR simply because that mix was happening with some true freshmen in 2011 and 2012 while we were bringing-in some good players to fill crucial needs in 2013. This 2014 class will put the final couple two or three pieces in place.

I've always thought Richt recruited too many blue chippers and not enough blue collar.

Saban has it down to a science and his is a methodology that naturally builds good chemistry although I thought this past season, 2013, was the least chemical bunch of the Saban era. But Saban evidently believes some of that had to do with coaching - we'll see.

Dooley was the master. Dooley had the best mix of blue collar and blue chippers I can ever remember. Danny Ford was another guy who used to do it very well. Tom Osborn may have been the best in my lifetime, but it was not unusual for Osborn to turn walk-ons into All-Americans under his system back in the day.

Spurrier does pretty good. I gotta give it to the HBC. He's doing more of it now then he had to do back when he was at UF, although his blue collar guys were often under appreciated by the fans and the media. But he's mixing it up about as well as he ever had right now and I think a lot of that has to do with Shaun Ellis, GA Mangus and Bubba.

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I'm liking what the Seahawks have going on now: a positive, high character leader driving the offense and the NFL's l'enfant terrible defining the defense. Sort of a Lattimore/Swearinger duo.

I think that's a great mix.

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Good point. I think your defensive leader should be a brash, cocky a-hole (on the field/mic only...). I think some of the problems with this years defense was we didn't have a natural brazen go getter. Clowney seemed like he was going to take that lead with his comments at media days, and Hampton could be cocky at times, but neither seemed to really own it. I hope someone next year can step up to take up the mantle.

We'll also need someone to take over Shaw's calm demeanor on the offensive side as well. If we get those figure heads established it could be a fun year.

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Swearinger was the heart and soul of that defense and that's why we struggled so much at the beginning of the year on defense

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That is incorrect.

Swearinger was the mouth piece, a hard hitting fearless guy who too often played a little too recklessly.

Shaq Wilson was the blue-collar guy in the middle and the QB of the D. Losing Shaq hurt far more than losing DJ.

The guy I am hearing who may step into that role is Moore - but he's a blue chip guy with a blue collar work ethic. Those are the rarest of the rare players. Marcus Lattimore will always be the epitome of that class of player IMHO.

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You're right, I kinda overlooked shaq because he was on staff this year and around the linebackers.

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He even told me it's different being a field general versus being a sideline guy ... and that he understood better why the coaches were always saying, "we can't do it for you once the ball is in play."

I've always said what makes Peyton Manning so good is that he is a field general. He's not a likable person in person - he's really an arse. He doesn't have a great arm and he sure as hell is not a scrambler. But the guy is a field general.

Connor Shaw was a blue collar, field general type, QB for us.

If we really stop to think about it, we could probably name our All-Time blue collar team. It would be more apparent at every position than you can imagine ... the only debate being who is blue collar and who is blue chipper. But, as stated earlier, the fact at of the matter is that players like Marcus Lattimore are both blue collar and blue chipper. There's not many of those around but they are out there.

AJ had some good points.