Carried Away

Hope for the Little Guys in Recruiting

As I was watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, I was struck by how few starters on both teams came from major college football powerhouses.  Tomorrow is college football National Signing Day for senior high school recruits, so by way of illustration, only 13 out 48 starters went to colleges that have top 25 recruiting classes for 2007.  It doesn't seem to have been the case in times past.  I wonder why this is so.

Let's pretend that the NFL is meritocratic, that the college game and pro game don't differ materially, that good recruits want to play at the highest profile college football programs, that all college football players want to play in the NFL, that the scouting services are reasonably accurate in their assessments of what the college programs believe about the caliber of their recruiting classes, and that the top 25 recruiting classes for 2007 are about the same as each year recently.  Using these assumptions, I have two favorite reasons why there are so few Super Bowl-starting players from big-time college football programs.

Hypothesis 1.  College football programs are bad at evaluating and attracting talent.
Hypothesis 2.  College football programs are bad at developing talent.

Of course, football is a team sport, so there are a host of non-individual aspects that go into a win or loss, such as leadership, team chemistry, and scheme.  Also, I'm mindful that the mental aspects of the game dominate at the highest levels of the sport.  But all of these factors point to the possibility that a college football program that is good at evaluating, attracting, and developing talent can scale the ranks of college football fairly quickly.  Nothing is written in stone.

As a Notre Dame fan, this is both good news and bad news.  At times recently, Notre Dame has been particularly poor in evaluating, attracting, and developing talent.  If the football program has improved in these areas, then we can expect very good times ahead.  On the other hand, the Idahos of the world are beating down the gate, no matter their recruiting ranking.  They have no special love or respect for the tradition of Notre Dame.

I will have a good time checking on the events tomorrow, but will take the expert evaluations with a grain of salt.

Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl XLI Starting Lineup

Offense

NAME	POS	AGE	EXP	COLLEGE
Peyton Manning	QB	30	9	Tennessee
Joseph Addai	RB	23	R	LSU
Marvin Harrison	WR	34	11	Syracuse
Reggie Wayne	WR	28	6	Miami (FL)
Dallas Clark	TE	27	4	Iowa
Ben Utecht	HB	25	3	Minnesota
Jeff Saturday	C	31	8	North Carolina
Ryan Diem	OT	27	6	Northern Illinois
Tarik Glenn	OT	30	10	California
Ryan Lilja	OG	25	3	Kansas State
Jake Scott	OG	25	3	Idaho

Defense

NAME	POS	AGE	EXP	COLLEGE
Raheem Brock	DE	28	5	Temple
Dwight Freeney	DE	26	5	Syracuse
Robert Mathis	DE	25	4	Alabama A&M
Anthony McFarland	DT	29	8	LSU
Gary Brackett	LB	26	4	Rutgers
Cato June	LB	27	4	Michigan
Rob Morris	LB	32	7	Brigham Young
Jason David	CB	24	3	Washington State
Nick Harper	CB	32	6	Fort Valley State
Antoine Bethea	S	22	R	Howard
Bob Sanders	S	25	3	Iowa

Special Teams

NAME	POS	AGE	EXP	COLLEGE
Adam Vinatieri	K	34	11	South Dakota State
Hunter Smith	P	29	8	Notre Dame

Chicago Bears Super Bowl XLI Starting Lineup

Offense

NAME	POS	AGE	EXP	COLLEGE
Rex Grossman	QB	26	4	Florida
Thomas Jones	RB	28	7	Virginia
Jason McKie	RB	26	5	Temple
Bernard Berrian	WR	26	3	Fresno State
Muhsin Muhammad	WR	33	11	Michigan State
Desmond Clark	TE	29	8	Wake Forest
Olin Kreutz	C	29	9	Washington
Fred Miller	OT	33	11	Baylor
John Tait	OT	32	8	Brigham Young
Ruben Brown	OG	34	12	Pittsburgh
Roberto Garza	OG	27	6	Texas A&M-Kingsville

Defense

NAME	POS	AGE	EXP	COLLEGE
Alex Brown	DE	27	5	Florida
Adewale Ogunleye	DE	29	6	Indiana
Tank Johnson	DT	25	3	Washington
Ian Scott	DT	25	4	Florida
Lance Briggs	LB	26	4	Arizona
Hunter Hillenmeyer	LB	26	4	Vanderbilt
Brian Urlacher	LB	28	7	New Mexico
Charles Tillman	CB	25	4	Louisiana-Lafayette
Nathan Vasher	CB	25	3	Texas
Chris Harris	S	24	2	Louisiana-Monroe
Danieal Manning	S	24	R	Abilene Christian

Special Teams

NAME	POS	AGE	EXP	COLLEGE
Robbie Gould	K	24	2	Penn State
Brad Maynard	P	33	10	Ball State

Moneyball & The Nats Outfield

I am almost finished with Moneyball, by Michael Lewis of Liar's Poker and The New New Thing fame.  It is an excellent read and is useful in thinking about the Washington Nationals front office.

Lewis follows Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland As, through a baseball season and examines why he does the things he does.  Beane's success has been consistent -- over the last 5 years, the As finished no worse than 2nd in its division and have won its division 2 times.  This is despite severe payroll constraints.  Beane and company look primarily at statistics to guide their choices.  For hitting, Beane values most a player's On Base Percentage (OBP).  Beane thinks that a team's success is determined by how many runs it scores and runs are determined by the proficiency in getting on base.

In evaluating the Nationals front office from this viewpoint, some aspects stick out.  In 2005, the Nationals scored the least number of runs of any team in Major League Baseball.   The Nationals played Cristian Guzman at shortstop all year, even though he had an OBP of .260.  In 2005, Ryan Church had the best OBP in the outfield (.353), so what do the Nationals do this year?  They send him down to AAA in New Orleans.  They are paying Alfonse Soriano $10 million this year, even though he has never cracked a .340 OBP during his career and last year had an OBP of .309.

I enjoy going out to the ballpark, so let's hope that Ryan Zimmerman, a local kid, can make up for these shorcomings by having a stellar rookie season, as he well might.

Profoundly Disappointed

I'm sitting here this afternoon, still stunned by USC's victory over Notre Dame yesterday evening.  I am profoundly disappointed -- not in the players on the Notre Dame team, but rather that championship-level play from the Irish was not enough to beat USC in the end.  It was the best football game that I've seen in a decade.

There is only one winning team in a football game and there are no moral victories.  However, if you never have the chance to lose a big game, you will never win any big games either.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained or lost.  It seems as if Notre Dame has been systematically avoiding those big games for several years and has been unable to bring itself to "put the chips down," as Notre Dame greats had done in the past.  If there is any silver lining in this loss, it is that the Notre Dame football team is back to playing in big football games and risking heartbreak.