Football is an incomplete. You can’t give Doeren extra credit for “doing it with low-rated recruiting classes” because recruiting is part of the job description.
BJD95,
This is a long answer to what recruiting is like near the top. Recruiting is a BFD in the P-5 programs and those successful programs aren’t built overnight.
Recruiting is part of the job description but being able to perform miracles on the recruiting trail and produce top 25 recruiting classes is NOT a part of the job description. Not right away at least. We are getting “better” ranked classes and sometimes we have to sacrifice “ranking” for needs.
There are two ways to recruit. Starting from where NC State started, getting all D-1 ready recruits may not be a feasible way to go. The other way is to recruit 2 and 3-star recruits with good frames, good attitudes and good aptitudes and “grow our own.” We can get some of the former now but not enough. We have to have some of the latter. As long as this is the case we will not have highly ranked classes.
I understand that class ranking is the way fans evaluate how recruiting is going, but there are other factors that determine how a program is doing with recruiting. Football recruiting is not a one year function. Assistant coaches start building relationships with recruits one to two years before their senior year in HS.
Most of us seem to think it’s the assistant coaches and the HC going out and talking to a handful of 4 & 5-star recruits and “talking them into coming to NC State” instead of Clemson, FSU, Tenn, SC, UNC, VT, UGA, GT, the U, plus MD, PState, and other BIG teams and SEC teams that these recruits have established relatonships with. Because of some of our coaches connections we are able to occasionnally grab a prized recruit.
Doeren knows what it takes in terms of staff and facilities and is putting staff and facilities in place. Yow knew this when she referred to DD as a “good recruiter.” And she is backing him with the funds for that staff and those facilities. A lot is in place now and there is more to come.
We have a large contingent of 2018 and a few 2019 recruits coming in the weekend. The planning, managing, making arrangements to feed and house the large number of recruits, escorting them around, pairing them up with host players, scheduling face time with the coaches, etc., etc., etc. takes staff and contact people and a whole crap load of communication, confirmation and follow up. This is the hidden underbelly of recruiting. Successful football recruiting is 10 percent evaluation, 90 percent perspiration.
We’ve renovated the locker room at Murphy Center to make us more attractive to recruits. The IPF, if the truth be told, while used a lot is a recruiting tool. That hi-tech video facility that Debbie mentioned will be staffed partly by a video director and assistants who work exclusively for DD for producing videos to be used for recruiting. Imagine that. Video being more impressive than a mailing.
When DD got here he was from 1.5 to 2 years behind in the recruiting process. It cost another 1.5 to 2 years scrambling to catch up. NC State is just now getting caught up.
The talent level of the football program when DD took over was arguably the worst in the ACC and Glennon’s 18 man Sr class was exiting the program. Top this off with the fact that TOB didn’t recruit well at all his last 2 years. (If you don’t want to take my word for it, go pull up those classes and take look.) IOW the cupboard was bare, very bare when Doeren got here.
Some people like saying TOB had a 4-4 record in 2012 so Doeren should have won games in 2013. Given the background stated above that makes no sense. And that doesn’t include the QB situation he had to deal with — a converted WR beating out a transfer who wasn’t good enough to start at Colorado State. If that wasn’t bad enough, his WR convert QB was injured in the first game and had to use the “cupcake season” to rehab. When he returned we were into the conference schedule and by then 0-8 was a better bet than 2-6.
So how is Doeren doing recruiting? At this time we aren’t able to compete with the already established programs for quality, football ready linemen. As I said before we are recruiting quality, football ready recruits where we can, but to supplement quality, football ready recruits, we recruit boys who can grow into their bodies — meaning tall with big frames and length and “good feet.” Doeren may be sacrificing Class rankings for needs at times. A red shirt year plus the R-Fr year and the S & C staff has “home made” 4-star recruits and depth.
You can call all this excuses or you can see it as the reality of big-time college football recruiting. It would be foolish to think a coach is coming in and suddenly start having top 25 recruiting classes in football.
Doeren is building the structure to start regularly attracting top classes. Our friends over on the hill had the benefit of Butch Davis knowing what it takes and the deep pockets to provide whatever they needed. Fraudora inherited it. For years I wondered how the heck could EweNC out recruit us like they do. They have long-standing relationships with HS recruits and those recruits trust the holes and believe what they tell them. That is changing.
Bottom line? The structure is being put in place and the pipelines will be filled in the near future. Mean time we must have a few winning seasons starting in 2017.
