playing Franball isn't so bad

[PCHawk]

Are you absolutely positive about that? Or did other players climb and push JW down? Awfully tough to stay at #16 overall. I'm not sure we can assume it's because of an anti-Iowa bias or something like that.

Not saying you're definitely wrong, but these things aren't static. Some players can really blow up and others maybe peak sooner. I don't follow high school basketball much, though, so I can't really talk about why JW might not have stayed #16.

Not positive that's the entire reason he moved down, but I would have bet my life savings on him moving down after he committed. I also am positive that recruiting rankings have a lot to do with what schools offer. That being the case, it's virtually impossible for a class ranking to be skewed at least some by the name on the front of the jersey.

Take Alabama football for example. Clearly if a kid receives an offer from Alabama, recruiting services will take notice and rightfully assume the kid deserves a higher ranking. Alambama could legitimately fill an entire class with unheard of kids and end up with a top 10 class when all is said and done. That is the extreme example of it. But without a doubt that happens. And knowing that happens, it is pretty apparent that recruiting services have a pecking order of programs, and the team rankings are highly influenced by that pecking order.

 

[1977Hawkeye]

Not positive that's the entire reason he moved down, but I would have bet my life savings on him moving down after he committed. I also am positive that recruiting rankings have a lot to do with what schools offer. That being the case, it's virtually impossible for a class ranking to be skewed at least some by the name on the front of the jersey.

Take Alabama football for example. Clearly if a kid receives an offer from Alabama, recruiting services will take notice and rightfully assume the kid deserves a higher ranking. Alambama could legitimately fill an entire class with unheard of kids and end up with a top 10 class when all is said and done. That is the extreme example of it. But without a doubt that happens. And knowing that happens, it is pretty apparent that recruiting services have a pecking order of programs, and the team rankings are highly influenced by that pecking order.

Come on now, you know that's not quite true. They were talking in our Holiday Bowl that USC's recruiting class in football was only ranked in the 60's. They weren't given a high rating just because they're USC.

I'm sure you're right that there is SOME bias by the recruiting services based on name recognition, but I have trouble believing it's anywhere as extreme as what you just suggested. I'll assume you're exaggerating.

I seem to remember Alford's first recruiting class at Iowa being ranked something like Top 5-10 nationally because it had some top recruits in it. Granted, it didn't exactly pan out. Or KF's 2005 recruiting class was pretty highly rated. Just a couple examples the other direction.

 

[PCHawk]

Come on now, you know that's not quite true. They were talking in our Holiday Bowl that USC's recruiting class in football was only ranked in the 60's. They weren't given a high rating just because they're USC.

I'm sure you're right that there is SOME bias by the recruiting services based on name recognition, but I have trouble believing it's anywhere as extreme as what you just suggested. I'll assume you're exaggerating.

I seem to remember Alford's first recruiting class at Iowa being ranked something like Top 5-10 nationally because it had some top recruits in it. Granted, it didn't exactly pan out. Or KF's 2005 recruiting class was pretty highly rated. Just a couple examples the other direction.

But that's all I'm saying is that there is SOME bias. If there is a small amount of bias for every recruit, a team ranking gets skewed just a bit more. Like I said earlier, it's not like I'm saying we deserved a top 5 ranking in conference. But a bottom 4 ranking can be taken with a pretty big grain of salt.

I also heard that USC had a really small class numbers wise and they needed a lot of lineman and other types of players that don't garner top rankings. I'm not sure how true that was tho. Also, who's to say USC didn't deserve an 80th ranking and got a 60th ranking based on name recognition? Also that 2005 class came after three top 10 finishes. Maybe our name helped us a bit that year.