Rob's Horn Recruit Corner-- Comments Re 2000 Class

RECRUITING COMMMENTS

(Last updated 7/30/00; Go to Main)

A new recruiting season is upon us. This page is reserved for good ole fashioned uninformed opinion (feel free to e-mail me to discuss or just flame):

Comment Topics (click on to go to topic)

(1) Austin Named #1 College Town in USA and #2 Overall City in USA
(2) UT Thoroughly Beats Recruiting Rivals In Academic Rankings
(3) UT Rated In Playboy's Top 5 Colleges For Women
(4) Rob's Plea To Texas Coaches: Recruit California Hard!!
(5) Texas On The Rise Under Mack Brown
(6) Texas Defense Undergoes An Amazing Transformation
(7) Texas Leads the Big 12 in TV Coverage
(8) Texas Leads The Big 12 In Fan Support
(9) Texas One Of Strongest In Football Tradition In The Nation
(10) Academics of Texas Players Among Best In the Nation
(11) The Recruiting Gurus Have Become Surprisingly Accurate

(1) Austin Named #1 College Town in USA and #2 Overall City in USA - Helping Mack Brown further in recruiting is that Austin has long been viewed as one of the top places to live in the nation, and its national acclaim is rising in national services which rate college towns and cities.

In September, as reported by Newspapers across the country, Austin was named the #1 college town in America by the well-followed Princeton Review of Colleges.

In October, as also reported by newspapers across the country, Austin was rated the #2 City in the Nation (San Francisco was #1) to live in by the well-followed Money Magazine lifestyle ratings.Fortune Magazine also rated Austin the #3 Business City in America.

Recruits are not only considering where to go to school and play football, but also where to live for 4-5 years -- including summers if they participate in off-season workout programs.

Austin's fantastic night life (great bars and clubs), huge music scene, scenic beauty (great hill and lake areas), fantastic recreational choices, learned population (one of the most educated cities in America) and vibrant culture are very attractive to those looking for a location to live for an extended period of time.

Austin was also recently rated the #1 Boomtown in America by Fortune Magazine

(2) UT Thoroughly Beats Recruiting Rivals In Academic Rankings - Oh goodie, the class of 1999-2000 US News & Wold Report Academic Rankings are out. Now I can debate with my friends the merits of Pomona-Pitzer's letters & arts department versus the prestige of Williams College's liberal arts program . Or I could talk about the REALLY important societal issue raised: what the high school football recruits and coaches think about the rankings. Being a civics minded web site, we'll go with the latter.

Make no mistake about it, I have serious problems with the US News rankings (for example, academic reputation, SAT median and class/size ratio should be about 85% of the rankings, instead of 32%). That said, they provide some meaningful information.

As noted above FSU is Texas' largest recruiting rival this year. LSU is also in on some high profile boys Texas is targeting, and A&M will probably rise up by year's end and get in on some of the bigger guys in the state.

Overall Undergrad Rankings: With that as a framework, the news seems very good for Texas (though, personally, I'd like to see UT cut down its total size and really kick some serious butt in its academic standing). Texas is the only school in Tier I, which means it is the ONLY top 50 national college of these schools. FSU and A&M are lumped into Tier II (for LSU, see below) and US News didn't rank its Tier II or Tier III colleges. Here are the overall undergrad rankings of Texas and its primary recruiting rivals:

1. Texas - Tier I (which means, top 50 national colleges)- #44 in the nation. #27 in the nation in the all-important academic reputation (as in, what future employers and grad schools think of your degree), nailing a 4.0. Parents always care (and they're smart to do so) about that one and class size also. On class size, we have a whopping 39% of our classes with 20 or under students (18% have 50+ students)

2. FSU - Tier II, not in the top 50 colleges - the second tier schools are all lumped together. FSU recorded a 3.0 on the reputation scale. OUCH. On class size 33% are in classes with 20 students or under (13% in classes with 50+)

3. LSU - WHAMMO - Tier III, not even in Tier II. That one's gotta hurt very bad when hitting a recruit's living room. I actually thought LSU would be ranked a little higher. They do have a nice looking campus. They come in at a paltry 2.8 on the academic rep scale. They have only 17% of classes with 20 or under students (21% with 50+).

4. A&M - Tier II, not a top 50 national college, so there's no rankings because they're lumped in with FSU, etc. . . . A&M pulled a not so great but not bad 3.6 on the academic rep scale. On class size, 31% are in class sizes less than 20 students (so much for the "get stuck in big UT classes" line) (18% in classes with 50+).

FYI, OU was Tier III, Arkansas was Tier III, Ohio State was Tier II, UCLA was #25 and Notre Dame was #19.

Business Undergrad and B-School Rankings - An overwhelming number of top recruits want to major in business (BTW, the only other US News undergrad category listed was Engineering, where UT was #10, A&M was #18 and I honestly didn't see FSU or LSU listed). Business grad school rankings are also important to recruits (they may want to continue on with grad school to earn sizable MBA bucks, and may do so on scholarship while they play football if they redshirt or get injured and stay a 5th year). The results:

1. Texas - #5 in the country in undergrad business. Great program. UT is #18 in grad business schools (very good, but I personally hope to see even better). The average UT b-school grad makes $85,000.

2. FSU - #45 in undergrad business. Certainly not stellar. They do not even have a ranked business grad school.

3. LSU - #67 in undergrad business. Not good at all. Like FSU, not ranked business grad school.

4. A&M - Not in the top 20 for undergrad business -- though close -- tied with Maryland-College Park and Florida for #21. They are tied with SMU and Rice for the #36 business grad school (average A&M B-school grad makes $63,000 -- a whopping $22,000 a year below Texas B-School grads).

FYI, OU is #67 undergrad (grad business not ranked), Arkansas is #67 undergrad (grad business not ranked), Notre Dame was # 26 undergrad (grad business not ranked), Ohio State #16 undergrad (tied for #26 grad) and UCLA doesn't offer undergrad business (#10 grad school).

Overall, Texas kicked some serious butt on their main rivals in the academics department. Don't get me wrong: For a lot of recruits, that won't really matter. But for many (and their parents), it does. Like Mack Brown needed more ammo.

(3) UT Ranked In Top 5 In the Nation By Playboy Magazine For "Wonder Women" - Do you think 18 year old boys are interested in women? (that was rhetorical, by the way). I've been told (heh, heh), that Playboy Magazine ranked Texas in the top 5 schools in the country in its "Wonder Women" ratings. Is this one one of the most important factors to examine in picking a college? (that one should be rhetorical, but -- given this page's readers -- I better go ahead and answer it) Absolutely not. Does it figure into the calculus of these 18 year guys? Hell yes.

(4) Rob's Plea To Texas Coaches: Recruit California Hard!! - Not that I think I know even 1/1,000,000,000th as much about recruiting as Brown & Co., but I do think we could hit the left coast -- particularly Southern California -- much harder than we have. I think our general philosophy for recruiting is like that of most big time recruiting schools, a see what sticks to the wall approach: let all the recruits you like know about you, see which express an interest, and go after the best of those. That way you don't waste precious resources going after low percentage recruits, and you don't scare more high percentage recruits away by going after too many players at their position. I generally agree with that philosophy, but NOT for California.

(a) CALIFORNIA PRODUCES KIDS THAT ARE VERY ADVANCED IN MORE OPEN, PASS-ORIENTED PLAY - My take on California in general is, while its a big state, they don't have the same quality of real speed athletes out here.

But they certainly do have more than just a few great athletes, and the high schools, junior highs, summer leagues, 7-on-7 tourneys, etc. . . really get the great athletes to go after the ball and run well. WR's go up for the ball like they were born to do so, and they have hands like fly paper. They're thin, wiry types who DON'T make the mistake of bulking up to 195 or so (they stay around 180) and losing some of their quickness. Ditto for DB's, and they are used to sticking right on a WR, because the QB's can zing it in there. The QB's are used to throwing to guys that are closely covered, and have become excellent at pinpoint leading and precision passing. They're also used to pass-rushing defensive fronts, and learn to speedily read defenses starting in elementary school (so it seems). So great athletes are really pushed to the extreme at their positions.

One need look no farther than the list of NFL Players from California, to see the incredible number of QB's, WR's, DB's and RB's from California have made it to the top level. You'll notice that these kids aren't necessarily the biggest and fastest players, but they are among the best. I think a lot of what the California school and summer training systems end up doing is weeding out kids that would be higher rated in other states. For example, in California, big, athletic QB's with rocket arms, but who don't have the quick mind/peripheral vision to immediately read D's, and don't have a good longball sink quickly out of the picture. In run-oriented HS states like Texas or in the Southeast, you usually don't know whether a kid is capable quickly reading D's and getting down a good longball until he shows up to school -- because they just don't do enough of it in those high schools, and do it often enough at a high enough level, to show anyone anything. As well, the college summer camps are too short to really to true long term evaluation or training. Ditto for WR's: great athletes that don't have good route-running intensity and great hands sink quickly to the bottom in Cali.

(b) CALIFORNIA CAN BE RAIDED MUCH EASIER THAN OTHER RECRUITING HOTBEDS - Amazingly, this state is largely untouched -- relative to Texas -- by out of state recruiters. Almost ALL of the talent out here is located in Southern California. There is a little bit in the East Bay Area, but most of it is between I-10 and the San Diego..

They have historically counted on two large natural barriers: (i) Weather: the best in the country (even better than Miami, because it doesn't get hot in coastal Southern Cal), recruits have never experienced very hard rainstorms (the news freaks out here when they get 1/4" in a day) or weather under 55 degrees and don't want to live in places with bad weather; and (ii) Distance From Other Major Schools: California is 1,500 miles from Austin, and UT is actually one of the closest non-PAC-10 major conference schools to Southern California (Colorado is closest, but still 700+ miles away), and its far enough away such that almost no major non-PAC-10 program has traditional recruiting ties to a particular high school or area in California.

But California is EASY pickins now for a good recruiter selling a place like Austin and program like Texas: (i) PAC-10 Football Facilities Are Sub-Par: the facilities out here are just not very good at all compared to UT's and other big programs (even at USC and UCLA); (ii) Fan Support Is NOT Good At All: the LA Times here barely knows that college football exists, most PAC-10 teams attendance is just wretched and the fans are about as lively as Mr. Magoo on weed, and kids want to go to school a places where they'll be closely followed in the community -- the 80,000+ at every Texas game and intense media attention in Texas is better than anything out here; (iii) The PAC-10 No Longer Dominates Wide-Open Offensive Play: it used to be that PAC-10 schools could sell their open, pass-oriented offensive schemes to great players, but most schools, even OU, have embraced the pass now -- especially Texas under Offensive Coordinator Greg Davis; (iv) Austin Has Very Good Weather: as we remember from the days with Steve Bernstein's San Diego pipeline, Austin's weather doesn't differ THAT much from southern California's; and (v) The PAC-10 Doesn't Have College Town Atmospheres: About the only semi-decent college town atmosphere out here is Eugene, OR, the rest are either big cities or so remote and backwards their not very attractive -- while Austin may be the top-rated college town in the country (plus, instead of a 5-1/2 hour plane ride to Florida or a southeast school, there are cheap 3 hour flights on Southwest to Austin).

Why go to Florida, Georgia or Louisiana to battle other high-intensity programs for awesome players, when you can come to California and battle PAC-10 schools? ESPECIALLY with the PAC-10 stinking the way it does this season. Want more proof? Have another look at the NFL Players from California, and notice just how many of the kids went to Fresno State, San Jose State, San Diego State, Pacific, Long Beach CC, UNLV, Arizona, Oregon, Arizona State, etc. . . -- hardly recruiting juggernauts. Indeed, I counted under 20 players on the whole list that went to a non-PAC-10 school in a major conference. Oregon, Arizona and ASU have all had top 10 ranked VERY GOOD teams at various times over the last 5 years ALMOST ENTIRELY off 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier California talent -- those schools are much more reliant on Southern Cal than OU ever was on Texas talent. Even with a very unaccomplished recruiter in John Mackovic, Texas pulled fantastic talent away from the big PAC-10 schools back in USC's heyday, including NFL top 5 draft picks Ricky Williams and Bryant Westbrook. Still not convinced? Texas Agriculture and Mechanical University landed three great players out of California last year. That was RC Slocum -- not Mack Brown -- and TAMU lured those kids to the Bryan/College Station metroplex -- not Austin. No offense to the TAMU folks, but objectively speaking, I don't think I have to tell you that, if RC Slocum can sell a Southern California kid on Texas Agriculture & Mechanical University in Bryan/College Station, Mack Brown should likely be able to do it . . . well, let's just say with much less difficulty.

Conclusion: with our academics (which are better than, or comparable to, PAC-10 schools), Austin, our fan support, history, very recent highly drafted Cali players at Texas and Mack Brown, we could EVENTUALLY do better than McCartney did with Col in the late 80's. I'll bet we could easily come in and swipe 5-6 top notch QB, WR's, RB's, CB's or even lineman a year. Why not?

(5) Texas On The Rise Under Mack Brown - Certainly helping recruiting is Brown's ability to win. Brown took over a struggling team that turned in one of the worst records in UT History, 4-7. In his first year, Brown's Horns went 9-3, including victories over Nebraska, A&M and SEC West Champ Mississippi State in the Cotton Bowl. In fact, over the last four year, Brown is one of the winningest coaches in America:

(1) Bobby Bowden -- FSU - 44-4, .917
(2) Phil Fulmer - Tenn - 43-6, .878
(3) Bill Snyder - K State - 41-7, .854
(4) Steve Spurrier - Florida - 40-7, .851
(5) Lloyd Carr - Michigan 39-9, .813
(6) Mack Brown - Texas/UNC - 38-9, .809
(7) John Cooper - Ohio State - 38-11, .792
(8) Frank Beamer - Va Tech - 37-10, .787
(9) Joe Paterno - Penn St - 37-11, .766
(10) Lavell Edwards - BYU - 37-14, .725

As well, with Brown's huge turnaround and Texas explosion in recruiting, several football analysts have projected Texas to begin to compete for a national championship in 2000 or 2001.

(6) Texas Defense Undergoes An Amazing Transformation - What is also helping to attract recruits is the amazing renaissance occurring on the defensive side of the ball for Texas. Texas defense went from is now #7 defense in the U.S (yds/game). Just two years ago -- the year before Brown arrived at Texas -- Texas was ranked 85th in the nation.

(7) Texas Leads the Big 12 in TV Coverage - Recruits might expect that -- because of its huge alumni base and the massive size of Texas' TV audience -- that Texas would be one of the most televised teams in the nation, and lead the Big 12. They''d be correct: Texas will have seven game televised on National Broadcast Networks, including 3 nation-wide network broadcasts. Texas was also televised on ESPN twice. Another three Texas games were televised on Fox Sports cable network.

(8) Texas Leads The Big 12 In Fan Support - Recruits love to play in front of a crowd, and Texas led the Big 12 attendance at home games this season, averaging well over 80,000 fans per game.. Texas sold out every home game this season, including even those against non-traditional fan draws Rice and Stanford. Plans are in the works to renovate the North End Zone seats in possibly 2001, which would modify the stadium such that it could seat around 90,000 fans.

Texas also led the Big 12 in season tickets sold.

(9) Texas One Of Strongest In Football Tradition In The Nation - Recruits want to attend schools that have a long traditional of success. Texas has one of the most historically successful football teams in the nation. Texas has the fourth most victories of any college football team in history:

(1) Michigan- 795 wins
(2) Notre Dame - 767 wins
(3) Nebraska - 741 wins
(4) Texas - 735 wins
(5) Penn State - 733 wins

Texas also is in the top five in history in winning percentage:

(1) Notre Dame - .754 winning percentage
(2) Michigan - .746 wining percentage
(3) Alabama - .723 winning percentage
(4) Ohio State - .707 winning percentage
(5) Texas - .706 winning percentage

The College Football Hall of Fame also this year (2000) named Texas one of its "Dozen Dynasties" programs. As well, Texas has won three national championships in the last 40 years and won two Heisman trophies in the last 25 years.

Texas also plays in some of the most intense rivalries in the game. The annual Red River shootout with OU is played in a neutral location (the Cotton Bowl) and is widely recognized and perhaps the most intense rivalry in the game. The stadium is filled 50-50 with Texas and OU fans with the stadium split between burnt orange and crimson right across the 50 yard line. Texas' annual rivalry with Texas A&M is also one of college football's great rivalries, and is played every year the day after Thanksgiving on National TV. Finally, Texas is beginning to to build a rivalry with Nebraska. Texas has met the Huskers in two of the four Big 12 Championship games (1-1) and has beaten the Huskers twice in a row in regular season play.

(10) Academics of Texas Players Among Best In the Nation - Not only are Texas academics themselves very good, but its players also have had lot of academic success in high school. An analysis by Rice University, a small but elite academic institution in Houston which requires very high academic merits in its recruits, explains:

"And in fact, the SMU group shows more than its share of talents and awards. But not so many, surprisingly, as does the University of Texas. Coach Mac[k Brown]'s group is more in the Stanford or Cal mold than one might imagine, with a comparatively high degree of both on-field and off-the-field plaudits. Must sit well with the Board of Regents, who envision The University as a sort of sum-total of Ann Arbor plus Berkeley added together. Texas A&M's group suffers by comparison. No messing around with well-rounded student athaletes here. These guys are being brought to College Station for on-field business, period."

(11) The Recruiting Gurus Have Become Surprisingly Accurate - For a variety of reasons (camps, more money in recruiting analysis, advancement in the field, etc . . ) gurus have become more accurate at guessing which players will excel at the high Div. I-A level. Hornfans poster The People's Elbow has done an anlaysis of the 1996 and 1997 classes.

Number of Hits Since 8/20/99: