The point isn’t that there aren’t recruiting disadvantages. The point is that their existence is used as an excuse to not overcome them.

Everyone has disadvantages. Do you think Fink goes to every USC prospect and says, “I know I suck as a head coach, but….”

?

Of course not. He concentrates on the strengths and laughs off the disadvantages… all the way to the bank in his case.

Good salesmen don’t get paid for disadvantages. They get paid despite them. College coaches have to be good salesmen. That’s just a part of their job description.

We know how this works. Every kid eligible for NCAA D1 schools is a lead. We send out questionnaires to those we like, and we wait for them to respond. We then cull those who do not respond from our list of leads and evaluate/call the ones who did respond. And then we move on from there.

So why did we cull the unresponsive?

The bromide is that it’s just a waste of resources.

The truth is that the first “no” is just the start of a good salesman’s work. Why bow to the excuse that our product must suck more than our competitors’ products do because we just got a no?

Look in my eyes, say it three times and click your heels kid. Then I’ll know you mean it.

I guarantee we’re missing out on two or three “elite” recruits (of say 150 or so per year?) because we don’t cast the wide net for just two or three kids. The easier job is to set bait with a trolling rig and just sit on the boat drinking beer until the bell rings… because nets are heav

We’re going to get the kids in our traditional pipelines regardless. But that’s because we play in our comfort zone too much. What I’m saying is that minimal effort expanding the net yields more quality players.

We did it with Texas and Okie after we lucked into James. Suddenly we had another pipeline. We lucked into Yve and Sabby, but we never really followed up on Florida because of the perceived disadvantages of recruiting in that region. Yet we’ll turn over rocks in Montana for one player every five or ten years or so.

What’s the value of a pipeline that produces one mid-level recruit every now and then versus taking a chance in a region where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a prospect? Are there simply because the two star prospects in that region have heard of us, and we don’t have to work to at least explain our product? It’s a pretty big assumption that there aren’t a couple overlooked prospects in the Southeast who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be Beavs.

Some coaches understand that it’s easier to develop players with talent and competitive experience than it is to take your chances with a roster full of hopeful late bloomers. They’re just more willing to put in the work on the front end despite all the disadvantages many of them also have.

Those coaches do not have fans who think their disadvantages rise to the level of importance that we believe they are. I’ve read forums where mid-major fans from podunk boon-dock state directional school on the tundra wonder why the hell one of their prospects would even consider OSU. And i don’t get much of a different vibe from a large segment of our fans either. As a result, we lose some of those same elite prospects (or borderline elite in many cases) that we actually spend resources recruiting to those same schools with absolutely every disadvantage (and more) that OSU has.

And we ho-hum about recruiting disadvantages when we lose those prospects too.

Go ahead and look at the arbitrary rankings of our recruiting classes on some of the pay sites. I think we end up with a mean of about the 50th ranked class. Do we really think there are 50 schools who offer more than OSU? Yes, there are disadvantages compared to some schools when talking tradition, population, campus culture, weather, yadda yadda yadda. I would put that number at about 25-30. So that’s where we should be if all the kids are looking at are our disadvantages.

Now throw in coaching.

Wow… back to 50 with us eh?

Is that because Riley’s not a good coach? I don’t think so.

I also think we’re getting better with pitch men like Brennan and Brasfield on the road for us. So the rant is probably more against the fans at this point since it seems to finally have been recognized by the program itself. But it’s hard to change the culture when the culture fights back at every turn.