Published November 16, 2010 - 10:41pm
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Going into the season, many people thought Herbie was nuts to not pick Alabama to win the west. Pretty good pick. The following video is from before the season started.
Now about that Florida pick….
I remember that pick. Everyone thought he was nuts. And his Florida pick seemed like a safe bet. You never know how it’s going to play out in this conference. Everyone obsesses on recruiting rankings, but there isn’t very much difference in the recruits of any of the top 5-6 teams, and when the players of any of these teams can come together as a cohesive unit, they’re hard for any of the other teams to beat, but all of the talent in the world won’t help you if you can’t find the right chemistry. Auburn has had only one top five recruiting class in the past five years, but has a chance at playing for the BCS Championship, while Florida has as much talent as anyone in the country, but will probably end the season at 7-5.
Johnny:
I agree with you on all of the above. However, I would say that the one player in Cam Newton can make up for less recruiting success versus a team like Florida. For example, Florida has all kinds of talent on defense, more so than Auburn, but it doesn’t matter because the Cam Newton led offense ourscores everybody.
Cam Newton is a player, like a Tim Tebow, that sort of makes some aspects of recruiting rankings irrelevant. A “5-star” designation on such players is almost silly. They need a new category for them – maybe “gamechanger” or “franchise player”
I still follow recruiting, but I don’t put near as much stock in the ratings as I once did. People put way too much credence in where a team places in recruiting rankings, or how many stars a player is rated. I’ve seen five star athletes that never played a down in college, and I’ve seen players that almost no one wanted that ended up being All-Americans.