Hoke's Recruiting Impact...On MSU?

A lot has been made of the turnaround by Brady Hoke.  Michigan's 11-2 season, its Sugar Bowl victory, finally beating Ohio State.  The list seems like it go on for days.  One specific area that has received a lot of coverage is on the recruiting trail, where Hoke saved a class in 2011, built a very good class in 2012, and could potentially have the best class in the country in 2013.  This massive improvement has changed numerous things, but one thing that has largely been effected is the recruiting battle between Michigan and Michigan State.

Typically, I don't like to post too extensively on other teams, even if they are one of Michigan's rivals, but this has been a topic that has intrigued me, starting with the rumors of Rich Rod's recruiting strategy.  I had always thought Rich Rod did a pretty good job recruiting for Michigan, but there seemed to be a large faction that felt he "ignored" the state of Michigan.  In a post earlier this summer, I wasn't able to prove Rich Rod "ignored" the state of Michigan, but I was able to show that MSU drastically increased their success recruiting the state and probably had better hauls in the state than Michigan during Rich Rod's tenure.

One thing I touched on lightly was the reversal of this trend under Brady Hoke.  In my analysis, I looked at the top ten in-state recruits for Michigan.  Not only are these almost always the best eventual players from the state, but they is typically a pretty big drop-off from these players to the remainder as well.  Meaning that if a school wins the battle for these ten, odds are they are going to be getting the best players from the state.  MSU won the battles in 2009 and 2010 coming away with 11 players to Michigan's 3, but in Hoke's first two recruiting classes, he reversed this trend, hauling in 11 players to MSU's 5 during the same time period.

This is where both schools are officially.  2013 is well underway, but until the recruits sign and get to campus, there's only so much one can say.  This is also the point where the two fanbases radically diverge.  Michigan fans will gloat about the turnaround, telling their Spartan friends about how it is only a matter of time before Michigan returns things back to "normal".  MSU fans will talk about how recruiting means little and how Dantonio has proven he can do a lot with very little.  To an extent, they are both right.

But this isn't the reason I'm posting today.  What I truly want to evaluate is the impact Hoke's recruiting has had on MSU.  From the stats above, it is clear that Hoke has given Michigan the momentum on the recruiting trail.  This doesn't mean MSU isn't doing a fine job in terms of recruiting, it just means that Michigan has been doing a far better job as of late.  Obviously the 11-5 advantage is pretty significant and things have gotten even bigger in 2013 and beyond (I will look at this below).

So the battle for Michigan is firmly "blue" for now, but how much of an impact is that in reality?  Just look at Kirk Cousins.  He wasn't recruited by Michigan and did some big things at MSU, including beating Michigan and eventually going to the NFL.  There are going to be exceptions, but the thing we have to remember is that we're evaluating classes and recruiting trends.  One over-performer or one under-performer doesn't get rid of the massive trend and that trend is that higher rated players tend to do better than lower rated players.  Michigan is getting the higher rated players on the recruiting trail and therefore, has a better chance at success in the future.

Michigan is getting the better players in the state of Michigan right now, but let's take a look at the not so distant future for MSU.  I would be easy and enjoyable for me to simply say, "there's going to be a big dropoff and MSU is going to return to being 'Little Brother' again".  But that wouldn't be fair to both the readers and to MSU.  If there is a dropoff, which seems likely, it's going to be slight and gradual.  Look at Iowa.  Eventually, recruiting caught up with them and they now seem deadlocked at 7-5 seasons, but it didn't happen in one season, it was gradual.  This is what I expect to happen to MSU and here's why.

Let's start by looking at 2013 recruiting.  Just for the sake of ease, I'm going to be looking solely at Rivals' rankings.  In general, I think they are the best for football recruiting, but I'm primarily using them just because using multiple sites can get really complicated, really fast.  Here are the basics.  I've also taken steps to outline the midwest and how the two schools have done against one another (opposing offers):

2013	Michigan	MSU
Class Rank	#2	#50
Commits	23	11
Opposing Offers	8	1
Top 10 Indiana	0	0
Top 10 Illinois	2	0
Top 10 Michigan	5	2
Top 10 Minnesota	0	0
Top 10 Ohio	3	0
Top 10 Wisconsin	0	1
Total Midwest	10	3

*All information according to Rivals

As I noted above, the trend of 2011 and 2012 has continued into 2013.  Brady Hoke is not only winning the state of Michigan by a 5-2 margin, but he's winning the entire midwest by a margin of 10-3 at this time.  Once again, just a reminder, this is all info coming from Rivals and is only looking at top 10 players.  Not a perfect system, but a pretty good one for what I'm looking for in the rankings.

One can also get a feel for the drastic difference in quality of the classes as well.  Michigan is ranked 48 spots higher overall and has 8 commits that received Spartan offers.  MSU only has 11 commits at this time, so Michigan almost has as many commits with MSU offers as the Spartans have commits.  That is saying something.  Along with this, don't forget that 18 players in Michigan's class committed before the month of June.  If some of them had held out longer before committing, I think there's a chance more players got offers from MSU.  Of course, this could be argued for both sides, but it is something worth noting.

So Michigan has a better recruiting class.  Haven't they always had better classes and hasn't MSU still beaten Michigan 4 years in a row?  Yes.  For the most part, both of these statements are true.  Why am I highlighting this?  The first reason is that it shows a growing disparity between the two schools.  I have comprised a list of the recruiting class rankings going back to 2008.  You can see Michigan's lead in recruiting class ranking over MSU:

• 2007: Michigan +30 
• 2008: Michigan +37 
• 2009: Michigan +9
• 2010: Michigan +10
• 2011: Michigan +10
• 2012: Michigan +34
• 2013: Michigan +48

Overall, Michigan brought in a "better" recruiting class every year from 2007 onward than MSU and is lined up for another class that's ranked higher in 2013.  However, the thing to note is the difference between MSU and Michigan.  Michigan's class may still have been pretty highly ranked during Rich Rod's tenure, but MSU had drastically closed the gap.  This seems to make perfect sense when it is timed with MSU's team performances over the last few years.  The important thing to note here is that Michigan still had an success, but the whole "diamond in the rough" theory for MSU is massively flawed.  Unless MSU fans want to argue Michigan recruited badly in 2009-2011, which is highly debatable (all 3 classes were ranked in the top 25) they have to admit they had some pretty solid classes during that span.

Along with debunking the "diamond in the rough" theory for MSU, a look at 2013's recruiting also shows us some underlying problems facing MSU in the near future.  Obviously, the talent of their team is going to drop with a drop in team recruiting rankings, but more than that, they are going to have some desperate positional needs that I'm not convinced they will be able to fill adequately.  Take a look at offensive line.  Here is the breakdown of MSU's offensive line hauls recently:

MSU OL Recruits	2010	2011	2012	2013
5* Recruits	0	0	0	0
4* Recruits	1	1	0	0
3* Recruits	1	3	3	0
2* or Below	1	0	1	0
Total Recruits	3	4	4	0

This is pretty interesting.  MSU had a smaller class in 2012, got 4 recruits in both 2011 and 2012, but the quality did drop.  The majority of the class was the same, but the 4* in the 2011 class was replaced by a non-ranked recruit in 2012 who did not appear in the top 30 players in the state according to Rivals.  Not a massive downgrade, but the downgrade can be seen.  2013 is where things start getting dicey.  Yes, there are still several months to bring in some recruits, but with 0 offensive line commits, the pressure has got to be starting to build, especially because uncommitted offensive linemen are running out.  There are only 3 left that are uncommited in the top 30 in Michigan and only 4 left in the top 60 in Ohio.  There is only 1 uncommitted offensive lineman in the top 10 left in Michigan and none left in the state of Ohio.  Meaning that the elite linemen in Michigan and Ohio have just about run out.

The obvious problem with this argument is that the 2013 class hasn't concluded yet.  I'm not saying that MSU won't get offensive line commits.  What I'm saying is that they are going to be in some serious trouble in the near future, if they don't get some good ones soon.  However, the problem is that bringing in some good ones to address this need is pretty unlikely.  The majority of the Spartans' recruiting is going to come from Michigan and Ohio and to be frank, there isn't a ton left.  The bad news for the Spartans is that this is literally happening all over their roster.  As their recruits from the solid 2009 and 2010 classes leave, they are going to be replaced with less talented players.   Unless just about every player ranking is wrong, this is the reality that Dantonio and Spartan fans will have to face.

They are still getting some decent recruits, but they are no longer getting the elite players like they were getting in 2009-2011 and are finding fewer interested at positions of need.  I'm not a firm believer that the Spartans will collapse solely because of recruiting, but things are going to be getting a lot tougher in East Lansing as they get a lot easier in Ann Arbor.  Hoke's recruiting may be helping Michigan, but it is already have a staggering effect on the Spartans.  Fans may not see it in 2012 and maybe not even in 2013, but the effects are already there.  The real question will be whether Dantonio can continue what he has already done with less and whether he can turn the tide back in the favor of the Spartans on the recruiting trail.