Someone posted a few links where fans of other teams in the Big Ten were whining that OSU can spend more money and therefore recruit better. It is not the coaches fault because they don't set recruiting budgets. Well, someone did a nice little article showing exactly what each team spent the last two year... the results are suprising:
http://thegazette.com/2013/02/07/urban-meyer-effect-b1g-football-recruit...
Ohio state spent only second to last in the Big Ten to recruit the #2 recruiting class overall.
If you do a quick efficiency equation on how much money each one spent to gain just one spot in ranking:
| Team | Efficiency ($ per rank) |
| Wisc | 2.36k |
| OSU | 2.76k |
| Mich | 4.04k |
| MSU | 4.48k |
| Ind | 4.68k |
| Iowa | 5.60k |
| Pur | 6.22k |
| Neb | 7.24k |
| Ill | 7.58k |
| Minn | 8.92k |
| NW | - |
| Penn | - |
You can see OSU + Urban = HUGE benefit on how much is required to get results. Just crazy... and other Big Ten fans are whining about $$$!?
EDITED TO ADD:
Big Ten schools still don't spend as much on recruiting as Tennessee, which budgeted nearly $1.5 million in 2011. Since that program recruits coast to coast, it's understandable. Defending national champion Alabama spent $980,000 on recruiting, while Auburn spent $950,000. By contrast, Boise State spent only $71,290 on recruiting in 2010. Yet the Broncos manage to do just fine on the football field.
Eyeopening!
I assume that these are all direct expenses such as plane tix. The spread is actually pretty bunched up which you would expect.
But remember also, that assistant coaches are essentially a cost of recruiting.
The article notes it, they are direct expenses. There are obviously recruiting advantages not being accounted for like coaches salary, facilities, etc, but that doesn't stop other schools with less facilities whiping the other Big Ten schools like toilet paper with worse facilities. It does cost more for say Nebraska to fly to other places than OSU to make a drive around OSU as well. But that shouldn't be such a drastic different and it certainly is not a budget/money problem by this data.
At first, these numbers made no sense to me... How on earth could Ohio State pull in such an amazing recruiting class and spend so little money by comparison?
And then I remembered: Ohio State has the highest percentage of in-state talent of any team in the B1G: 68%. Because Ohio is such a fertile ground for football talent, Ohio State is the only team in the conference to feature >50% in-state talent on its roster.
On the other hand, Nebraska's roster is the most geographically diverse, with 24 states represented in the 2012 campaign. As they say in business, location really is everything, it seems.
Yup, it is a big factor. OSU has a great talent base... but it still addresses the unsupported claims that the other schools don't have the $$$ to recruit better.
By comparison, look at schools like Washington which only have 4 of their 22 recruits from their state, yet they are ranked ahead of 10 of the 12 Big Ten teams. I just want to note that it isn't an excuse for the results. They are spending the money to get the resuts and they are failing at it.
Others of note:
ND -> 1 of 24 recruits from Ind
USC -> 4 of 12 from CA
Oklahoma -> 4 of 24
Oregon -> 3 of 19
All similar tradition to Nebraska with the same costissue with better results.
Oklahoma State -> 0 of 23 recruits
Vanderbelt beat out 9 of 12 Big Ten teams and recruit nationally... VANDERBELT!
I just think it is an excuse for doing poorly when all these othe schools are pulling in better talent spending the same or less money to do so. Nebraska has the tradition to pull it off, they just aren't anymore. MSU has had hte success lately to do it, they just don't. Wisconsin as well. To me the excuses are lining up when in fact the results are the issue. They are doign something wrong...
You're 100% correct that the B1G needs to get better at recruiting. My point was simply realted to the question of recruiting costs, and how Ohio State could pull in so many more top guns for the money than a school like Nebraska, that has nowhere near the in-state pipeline as does Ohio State.
Agreed!
Poor, or should I say rich?, Bo Pelini and Nebraska. All that money getting people to and from Lincoln. I'd get the red face if I lost recruits too. Lots of time and money recruiting from Nebraska.
I guess I'm of the school of thought that says they're doing it better than 11/14ths of the B1G, as they bagged the #3 class this year. The big problem for UNL is that they haven't put it together consistently enough on the field - if they can keep themselves in contention for B1G titles and win some big-time bowl games and non-conference matchups, they'll be back in the hunt for the top recruits again.
Nebraska is always swimming upstream. Only about half of Nebraska's current roster includes kids from Nebraska, which might be too high as it is.
Back in the day, Nebraska was able to cycle a small army of walkons and 2-star farmboys through their advanced weight training system (wink, wink) and by junior year, some of them had turned into monsters. But they aslo snagged quite a few dynamic skill players (e.g., option QBs) from southern California, Texas, Florida, New Jersey.
I'm not sure that the heyday of Tom Osborn is fully replicable at this point. If Nebraska gets a top-level coach, they will win a lot of football games, but the mid-90s peak is maybe out of reach.
Many other schools have little to no talent from their state. Nebraska is just bringing home top national recruits, they are bringing in the second tier.
I agree. Other schools, e.g. Oregon, also are swimming upstream.
Actually, Nebraska (for five decades between about 1950 - 2000) and Oregon (more recently) have vividly demonstrated that programs can win at the highest levels without having strong home-state talent bases. But they're still fighting an uphill battle to an extent.
Whereas, metaphorically speaking, UGA can "roll right out of bed" and fall into a top 10 recruting class. Unfortunately for them, they've underperformed their recruiting rankings, FWIW.
I always wonder why UGA can't get a coach to make them the SEC powerhouse. Their talent pool is so sickening it's crazy. But schools without this proximity and a large need for travel have shown you can be successful yearr after year. The Big Ten has just failed to do a good job in general, why? I'll leave that up to the experts, but they have the money, they are spending it, they just aren't getting the same results.
One interesting thing to note is that SEC, even with the proximity benefit, still spends way more than any of the Big Ten schools. OSU seems to have the perfect combination now with Urban Meyer, assistant coaches, prestige, and proximity. Spending 1/4th what Alabama did to get almost the same result.
Georgia is like the Sparty of the sec, always has some good players but just seems to always pull a sparty.
Those SEC budgets must include cash payments to family members!
"Because I couldn't go for 3"
Saw the update mentioning Tenn., 'Bama, and Boise... what did Boise's recruiting haul look like this year? (Edit: this was a legitimate, as opposed to a rhetorical, question...)
Boise:
2013 -> 56th ahead of Purdue, Minnesota,
2012 -> 59th ahead of Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin
2011 -> 52nd ahead of Indiana, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue
But their results on the field are better than 50% of the Big Ten easily...
Thanks for digging this up - I hadn't had time to look it up yet myself... It would be interesting to compare this data with their record and pull a strength of schedule comparison to see how "effective" the Broncos are compared to the lower-tier B1G teams, and then look at that in the context of the original discussion on cost of recruiting...
I wish there was, and if there is please point me to it, a way to measure how efficient a team was in terms of money spent on recruiting, recruiting class, and finish at the end of the season. I would also want it more weighted to take into account not wins, but finish in say the BCS standings. People always point to the recruiting rankings, but I think if there was some way to put it all together I think it would be interesting.
Someone please share this with the rest of the BIG TEN fanbases.
"Big Ten schools still don't spend as much on recruiting as Tennessee, which budgeted nearly $1.5 million in 2011. Since that program recruits coast to coast, it's understandable. Defending national champion Alabama spent $980,000 on recruiting, while Auburn spent $950,000."
I guess my question is, where is the other $1 million+ that Tennessee is spending (beyond OSU's $344k) or Bama's extra $630k going, exactly? I'm trying not to be cynical about the $ec and make any unfair assumptions, but you'd like to think someone in the NCAA is tracking what these funds are specifically being spent on--and if so, what exactly is it? What is Tennessee spending money on when it comes to recruiting that can account for that extra $1 million and change?
PAY TO PLAY!
"Because I couldn't go for 3"