The Bodda Getta

Sorry this is so long....hopefully some of you are bored on a Friday afternoon...

I've been thinking about our roster, and it seems pretty confusing thing heading into 2013. We've been led to believe that we've been recruiting pretty darn good since 2010. Of course, quite a few recruits are no longer around. Some left early, some chose to rob people at gunpoint, some were lost to injury, some made other choices that led to their dismissal.

But even with the attrition, the roster is still littered with highly rated 4-star recruits, as well as some that were given 5-stars by different services (Shon Coleman, Kris Frost, etc).

So what do we make of all of these highly recruited players? Were they ALL disappointments? Did that previous staff just miss on 90% of them? I'm going to say no. Mostly because our staff wasn't the only staff hot on the tails of guys like Therezie, Greg Robinson, Mike Blakely, and Gabe Wright. Most coaches in the SEC were just has impressed with the guys we signed as our staff was.

Through several recruiting ranking studies that have been done, there is no question that the higher ranked the recruit by recruiting services, the more likely they are to succeed. It's not a sure thing down to each individual recruit, but there are odds at play that give us guidelines.

For example....based on the rankings from 2006 to 2009, and the All-Americans that came from those classes, a 5-star recruit from that time frame had a 1 in 15 chance of becoming an All-American. A 4-star recruit from that time frame had a 1 in 54 chance. A 3-star recruit had a 1 in 147 chance. A 2-star or "unranked" player had a 1 in 358 chance.

The higher rated the player, the more likely they are to succeed. It's not accurate down to the individual player...no guarantees, but the rating does indicate the odds of succeeding at high, moderate, or low levels.

So at this point....I'm going to take the liberty to make up some percentages on the odds of different rated players getting to different levels of success. This is considering the player stays in the program for 4-5 years. So these percentages aren't from the total signed, as they don'[t reflect the guys lost to injury, transfer, guns, drugs, etc. If you took those losses into consideration, the percentages would be quite a bit lower.

But this is considering a kid comes in, stays with it, and makes it through 4 or 5 years in the program. The intention is to just create a ball-park range that realistic...a little off up or down is fine. Just looking for a ball park.

For a highly rated 4-star player, in 4-5 years in the program:
Chance they become very, very good to All-SEC caliber player - 25%
Chance they become a pretty darn good to a very good player - 50%
Chance they become at least a contributor, SEC worthy player - 75%

For a 3-star player, in 4-5 years in the program:
Chance they become very, very good to All-SEC caliber player - 10%
Chance they become a pretty darn good to a very good player - 20%
Chance they become at least a contributor, SEC worthy player - 40%

If you factor in all the kids lost through the years, those numbers would probably be cut in half. But I feel pretty good about saying that half the highly rated 4-star players that make it 4 to 5 years through a program become at least pretty good players. I feel good about saying 2 out of 10 3-star players that make it all the way through become pretty darn good players....not great, but pretty darn good (2 out of 10 isn't many).

So there are those numbers. Nothing scientific about it. And they could be off a little high or a little low...but I think they are at least in a realistic ball park with which to evaluate our roster.

I may have missed a guy here or there, but I think I have everyone accounted for on the 2013 Auburn roster as it stands now (not counting the 2013 class of course).

We have 33 players that were rated 4-star or higher.

We have 25 players that were rated 3-star or higher.

Applying the general, ball-park percentages discussed earlier....

33 Four-Star players:
33 x .75 = 25 at least contributors, SEC-worthy players
33 x .50 = 16 that are pretty darn good to very good players
33 x .25 = 8 really, really good to All-SEC players

25 Three-Star players:
25 x .40 = 10 at least contributors, SEC worthy players
25 x .20 = 5 that are pretty darn good to very good players
25 x .10 = 2 really, really good to All-SEC players

So the current roster contains at least 35 players that should qualify as at least being SEC-worthy contributors. (That's 25 of the remaining 33 4-star players, and 10 of the 25 remaining 3-star players).

Of those 35, 21 should be in the range of at least pretty darn good to very good or better (5 of the 25 3-star guys and 16 of the 33 4-star guys, 21 total).

Of those 21 that should be at a minimum "pretty darn good", 10 of them should be "really, really good" up to All-SEC. That's 8 of the 33 4-star guys and 2 of 25 3-star guys.

Don't get too caught up in the exact numbers. The idea is to paint a general idea that this roster, as bad as it looked going 3-9 last year, SHOULD have some talent. I just refuse to believe that 90% of those kids were misses on evaluations by the recruiting services, as well as by all of the other SEC staffs that also recruited them.

So I wonder. When this new staff hits the field with these kids. Are they really going to be rebuilding a "3-9" program? Or are they going to be waking the beasts inside some of these kids? Are they going to be uncovering the talent that was suspected to be there?

It won't happen in all of them, but I feel pretty good about the percentages I'm guessing on. I think we'll find out that 3-star guys like Dee Ford and Nosa Eguea turn out to be our two that are really, really good, possibly All-SEC 3-star recruits. I'm going to expect we see guys like Greg Robinson, Sammie Coates, Joshua Holsey, Avery Young, Erique Florence, Brandon Fulse, Jeff Whitaker, and Quan Bray turn out to be eight 4-star players that are really, really good SEC players, pushing for All-SEC consideration.

Or maybe it's Ricardo Louis, or Gabe Wright, or Angelo Blackson, or Robenson Therezie.

Whoever it turns out to be, we aren't a 3-9 roster, I'm convinced of it. Not because of what I saw last year, obviously. But because I just refuse to believe that so many coaches in the SEC were so wrong on so many players.

And I don't think we're merely a 6-6 roster either. It will just be up to the new staff to crack the shells and pull out the talent in these guys, many of which may have become jaded and aloof in the last couple years. If the coaches can breath new life back into them....we could see some major turnarounds from a lot of players.