Eleven Warriors

Most people seem to think that more people equals more talent.  That is to say that talent is random.  They say if there are more people in the south than in the north then there will be more talented players to choose from in the south.  This logic dictates that not only will more people produce more overall talent, they will win more football games.

I'd like to take this time to disagree... Here's why.

Let's take hockey for example.  Most hockey players are Canadian (70%).  A bit strange eh when you consider most hockey teams are in the US.  This seemingly goes against our traditional thought that more people equals more overall talent.  But you could also argue that Canadians like hockey much more than Americans, which is........ very true.  I found that 80% of Canadians watch hockey once a week.  Wait, what? Are you kidding me?  They must all be eating pucks for breakfast.  Impressive.  If only we had that much fervor for college football.

On the flip side Americans have a much lower attention span as pro football is considered our favorite sport at only 36%.  This is followed by baseball, college football, auto racing and somewhere down the line is hockey at 5%.  Ok, so it's not our first or fifth choice but we watch the hell out of it because 23 of the 30 NHL teams are in the US. 

But how many people are actually playing hockey?  If we look at the actual pool of people playing the game (Under 18, youth leagues, ect..) we get a much clearer picture of what's going on.  USA Hockey the governing body in the US states that in 2009-10, 474,592 people were registered as players.  Compare this to Hockey Canada (governing body) 2009-10 stats of 577,077 people registered playing hockey.  These statistics show Canada actually only has 18% or roughly 100,000 more people playing hockey.  So how the hell can Canada have 70% of NHL players and the US only 14%!?! 

If the population theory was true than there would be a much similar number of Canadians to Americans in the NHL.  So what is going on here?  For one possible hypothesis lets take a look at the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  He writes "the biggest misconception about success is that we do it solely on our smarts, ambition, hustle and hard work."  Gladwell looks at many talented people such as Bill Gates, The Beatles, and our Canadian hockey players. But more importantly how they got to be so talented.

His conclusions assert that success depends on the selection process used to identify talent just as much as it does on the athletes' natural abilities.  In the case of the Canadian hockey players psychologist Roger Barnsley noticed that there were a disproportionate amount of star players with birthdays in January, February, and March. The reason is, kids born on January 1st play in the same league as those born on December 31st.  Because kids born earlier in the year are larger, older, and more mature than the younger competitors they are often singled out as better athletes. This leads to more coaching and a higher likelihood of being chosen for all-star games and starting positions. This phenomenon dubbed "accumulative advantage" by Gladwell.  BTW Wayne Gretzky's birthday....Jan.26th.

Accumulative advantage is interesting because it actually explains why some kids rise to the top and others don't.  Gladwell also talks about the Czech Republic having a similar system with the same results. (Jaromir Jagr Feb. 15th) In fact a vast majority of Canadian and Czeck NHL players have birthdays in the first three months of the year.  This anomaly also occurs in American baseball and in European soccer with very similar results.

Another chink in the population theory comes from the top.  Coaching.  I have a B1G problem with the B1G.  For a conference on the whole who is more financially solid than most fortune 500 companies, they act more like dime store bargain shoppers tripping over dollars to get to pennies.  A coach with the right talent can make all the difference in the victory column.  Just ask first year coach Luke Fickell who lost 6 games by a touchdown or less in 2011.  A year later UFM wins 6 games by, that's right, a touchdown or less.  Now, lets take a look at what our B1G conference pays its top men in relation to the rest of the country.

4. Urban Meyer, Ohio State: $4.3 million
6. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa: $3.835 million
12. Brady Hoke, Michigan: $3.046 million
17. Bo Pelini, Nebraska: $2.875 million
18. Bret Bielema, Wisconsin: $2.64 million
38. Bill O'Brien, Penn State: $2.3 million
47. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State: $1.934 million
54. Tim Beckman, Illinois: $1.6 million
72. Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern: $1.3 million
72. Kevin Wilson, Indiana: $1.3 million
72. Jerry Kill, Minnesota: $1.3 million
65. Danny Hope, Purdue: $970,000

22.Gary Anderson  Wisconsin  $2.7 million

67. Darrell Hazell Purdue $1.5 million

And now the SEC coaches.

1.Saban - $5.5M
5.Miles - $4M
Chizik - $3.6M
8.Spurrier - $3.6M
15.Richt - $3M
19.Pinkel - $2.8M
21.Franklin - $2.7M
24.Mullen - $2.6M
28.Mushamp - $2.5M
28.Sumlin - $2.5M
Dooley - $2M
Phillips - $1.9M
62.Freeze - $1.6M
Smith - $0.9M

Bret Bielema $3.2M

The NCAA average head coach's salary is 1.64M.  The SEC has ZERO coaches below that pay grade.  Now if I was a top coach where would I want to go?.....it doesn't take long to figure out that top down dollars equal championships.  And the B1G?  I don't know how Kirk Ferentz wins the Iowa lottery each year but aside from that, Delany must need a new off shore bank account because we pay our coaches like a the MAC.

Bret Bielema now gets paid more than the head coach of Michigan! (whoever that is?) Yes, Michigan the winningest program in the history of college football.  In fact with bonuses, 6 SEC coaches earned more than Michigan's head coach this year.  Oh and what do you know?  An SEC team beat Michigan this year to help them finish a mediocre 8-5.

As for the population myth, don't believe the hype.  Maybe the south gets to practice more hours because of better weather, maybe the advantage of getting more games in better weather has an impact, maybe they are just getting lucky?  But if we want to see the B1G as a whole return to national contention we must start with getting the best coaches, and that means paying them.  Until then.

It's not very often that a recruiting service reviews and reranks recruits, however eSPIN has gotten some good perspective on themselves with this article.  They also go over the top 2009 players and conclude that more times than not, top players fail in their rankings because of off the field issues rather than their lack of talent.  You can make up your own mind on that.

Looking at ourselves, you could almost turn our 2009 class upside down.  Of our 7 top ESPN 150 recruits 5 of them turned out to be busts for one reason or another. 

Jaamal Berry
Video | Scouts Report
#3 RB Miami, FL
Miami Palmetto High School 5'11'' 185  84
OHIO STATE
SIGNED

Dorian Bell
Video | Scouts Report

#4 OLB Monroeville, PA
Gateway Senior High School 6'0'' 220  83
OHIO STATE
SIGNED

C.J. Barnett
Video | Scouts Report
#10 CB Clayton, OH
Northmont Senior High School 6'1'' 175  82
OHIO STATE
SIGNED

Jamie Wood
Video | Scouts Report

#12 S Pickerington, OH
Pickerington Central High School 6'2'' 185  81
OHIO STATE
SIGNED

Melvin Fellows
Video | Scouts Report
#10 DE Garfield Heights, OH
Garfield Heights High School 6'4'' 245  81
OHIO STATE
SIGNED

Jack Mewhort
Video | Scouts Report

#2 OC Toledo, OH
Saint John's High School 6'6'' 285  81
OHIO STATE
SIGNED

Duron Carter
Video | Scouts Report

#18 WR Fort Lauderdale, FL
Saint Thomas Aquinas School 6'3'' 183  81
OHIO STATE
SIGNED

You could easily argue that the lower 7 of Simon, Hyde, Brown,(all B1G selections) coupled with starters Lindsley, Marcus Hall, Jordan Hall, plus Zack Boren, Reid Fragel, and back up Kenny G outweighed the 7 eSPIN 150 stars.  Not so much of an argument there.  But lets look at how past the past classes stack up.

The 2010 class had 4 eSPIN 150's, the 2011 had 7, the 2012 had 5 but the 2013 class has 10....and counting.  Tressel averaged 5 top 150 players from 2010-2012, Meyer has already doubled that in his first full year of recruiting.  (And oh by the way,  Meyer brought in 4 of the 5 150 stars from the 2012 class)  In fact OSU has never brought in this much talent going back to 2006. 

This is in stark contrast to Alabama.  Between the same years of 2010-2012 they averaged 11 top 150 players.  That's more than double Ohio States 5.  They had 13 top 150 alone for 2012.  Forget Saban as the Emperor, forget that he kicks kids off the team, forget the oversigning, forget it.  They have more talent.  We can complain about the nuances of weather and the way they run their program, but the elephant in the room is TALENT.

It's scary to think what Kerry Coombs eluded to, in his now infamous recruitment speech.  We are winning with somewhat inferior personnel.  Urban knows it, the staff knows it(Fickell and the D this year), and we know it. But if we want to compete with Alabama for a national championship, we need 10-12 top 150 guys a year.  That's why Urban works so hard to get the best guys.  Go Bucks

Top 10 Classes From 2009
Rank Before After Explanation
1.
LSU
Alabama
This class, which included CB Dre Kirkpatrick, RB Trent Richardson, OT D.J. Fluker, LB Nico Johnson and QB AJ McCarron, to name a few, was a part of three national championships. What else needs to be said?
2.
Alabama
LSU
The Tigers got bumped from the top spot, but that's as much for what Alabama's class did as opposed to what LSU's class didn't do. This is still a pretty good class which won an SEC title and played for a national championship. Several key defensive contributors came in this class, including DEs Sam Montgomery and Barkevious Mingo, linebacker Kevin Minter and cornerback Morris Claiborne.
3.
Texas
Notre Dame
Several key contributors to the Fighting Irish's 12-1 2012 season came in this class, including LB Manti Te'o, who was a Heisman finalist and won several national player of the year awards as well as the Butkus Award. This class, which was ranked 14th when we did the class rankings in 2009, also featured Mackey Award-winning TE Tyler Eifert, who is leaving as Notre Dame's all-time leading receiver at the position.
4.
USC
Stanford
The 2008 class, which featured QB Andrew Luck, was an important one for this program, but the Cardinal's 2009 class has proven to be a key one as well in their recent success. This class, which did not finish in our 2009 Top 25, went to four straight bowl games, including three straight BCS bowls, and helped Stanford win its first Rose Bowl since Jan. 1, 1972. Tight ends Zach Ertz and Levine Toilolo were signed in this class, as was workhorse RB Stepfan Taylor, who became Stanford's all-time career rusher.
5.
Florida
Georgia
The Bulldogs' 2009 class featured QB Aaron Murray, who holds the school's all-time career TD pass record and, with over 3,000 yards this season, became the first SEC QB in history to have three consecutive 3,000-yard passing seasons.
6.
Georgia
South Carolina
It would be another class before the Gamecocks signed Marcus Lattimore and another two before they landed Jadeveon Clowney, but this 2009 class brought some excellent in-state talent to Columbia and might have been a key to landing players like Lattimore and Clowney. Included in this class were defensive standouts Stephon Gilmore and D.J. Swearinger as well as WR Alshon Jeffery.
7.
Miami
Florida
The Gators returned to a BCS bowl this season and had key contributors on both sides of the ball that came from this class. Mike Gillislee, who was Florida's first 1,000-yard rusher since 2004, was signed in this class as was Jordan Reed, who led the team in receptions. The class also included three starters along the offensive line. Defensively, linebackers Jelani Jenkins and Jonathan Bostic and defensive back Josh Evans, who led the team in tackles, were a part of this class.
8.
FSU
FSU
Injuries have played a role with a few of the players who came on board in this class, but overall the Seminoles signed some very productive players in 2009. A few of the key pickups include DE Brandon Jenkins, who finished with over 20 sacks and was an All-ACC selection as a sophomore and junior, Xavier Rhodes, who has been a multi-year starter and was All-ACC first team this season, and Dustin Hopkins, who became one of the top kickers in college football and the all-time scoring leader at Florida State and in the ACC.
9.
Ohio State
Ohio State
Jaamal Berry and Dorian Bell are no longer with the program, but DL John Simon, who had nine sacks this past season and was a key cog in the Ohio State defense, is one of the players signed in this class. The Buckeyes also brought in RB Carlos Hyde, who had 16 rushing TDs in 2012, and Corey Brown, who led the team in receptions, in the 2009 class.
10.
Michigan
Michigan
There were a few players in this class who ended up leaving the program, but Michigan had some good pickups as well, including three big ones from out-of-state. Versatile defender Craig Roh made 51 consecutive starts for the Wolverines, OT Taylor Lewan was the Big Ten Rimington-Pace Offensive Lineman of the Year and a first-team All-American this season, and QB Denard Robinson was one of the most electrifying players in college football.