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The mystery of the mind

Overall, an interesting idea.

Need the detail of the research in order to truly appreciate or comment on the book/article.

Was every recruit surveyed? If not, what determined who was and wasn’t surveyed and does that skew results?

If you filter by variables like HS GPA or admittance scoring qualifiers, do results change some?

Do some schools intentionally avoid certain recruits for those types of reasons?

I think character of recruit is generally undervalued by some programs and it bites them in the end.

Does this research filter that in any way? That’s not possible - but it’s an interesting consideration if it were. Maybe prior arrest?

Northwestern, among others, has done a good job of recruiting character athletes and purposely meeting and recruiting immediate or near immediate family members of the recruit.

If it were possible to filter the survey for above average character and grades, would results differ? Maybe? I don’t know.

How is any of this relevant? IMO, Coach Allen is recruiting for character. It seems to be a major consideration. I believe that, combined with a firm, honest and supportive coaching approach, state of the art strength and conditioning and soon to be best in class rehab facilities will result in more recruits from each class contributing, on average, compared to most programs.

I recall a post, maybe by Mac, suggesting ~ 50% of a typical college recruiting class will truly contribute in meaningful ways. Some wash out, don’t qualify, are suspended or invited to leave due to behavioral issues, etc

So - program X is ranked 15th in recruiting and has several 4 stars, maybe a 5, and high level 3’s across the board to fill out. But several are suspect character and several are borderline on grades.

Let’s suppose Indiana and program X bring in 24 recruits each year. It is my opinion that Indians newer recruiting approach, coaching style, S&C program and soon to be state of the art rehab program will result in 3-5 MORE athletes making meaningful contributions to the team, each year. That compared to a typical “program x”.

So in a class of 24, instead of 12 contributing in meaningful ways, we have 15-17.

That’s 3-5 more per year or 9 on the low end and up to 15 more experienced/veteran players that are RS Jr, Jr and Srs per team per year. That does not factor another 6-10 underclassman per team that may also be able to contribute in meaningful ways.

In 2-3 years, if we have 9-15 MORE veteran/experienced bodies to call on that are seasoned and play as a TEAM compared to the opposite sidelines, I think our potential to win increases.

That’s a winding long way to say - I LOVE what IU Football and Coach Allen have going on right now. Perhaps especially with recruiting. Embrace strengths we have.

I look forward to watching continued improvements and beating the program X’s in the seasons ahead.
 
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Knothole gang great explanation and thanks for bring up many good points. 76-1, I am with you and can't wait for our defense, offense, and special teams to compliment each other. I believe this coaching staff will elevate IUFB in the coming years as we need to win more games in the coming years. Now if the B1G changes the conference to a pods schedule so we play every team each two years.
 
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Reactions: 76-1
Overall, an interesting idea.

Need the detail of the research in order to truly appreciate or comment on the book/article.

Was every recruit surveyed? If not, what determined who was and wasn’t surveyed and does that skew results?

If you filter by variables like HS GPA or admittance scoring qualifiers, do results change some?

Do some schools intentionally avoid certain recruits for those types of reasons?

I think character of recruit is generally undervalued by some programs and it bites them in the end.

Does this research filter that in any way? That’s not possible - but it’s an interesting consideration if it were. Maybe prior arrest?

Northwestern, among others, has done a good job of recruiting character athletes and purposely meeting and recruiting immediate or near immediate family members of the recruit.

If it were possible to filter the survey for above average character and grades, would results differ? Maybe? I don’t know.

How is any of this relevant? IMO, Coach Allen is recruiting for character. It seems to be a major consideration. I believe that, combined with a firm, honest and supportive coaching approach, state of the art strength and conditioning and soon to be best in class rehab facilities will result in more recruits from each class contributing, on average, compared to most programs.

I recall a post, maybe by Mac, suggesting ~ 50% of a typical college recruiting class will truly contribute in meaningful ways. Some wash out, don’t qualify, are suspended or invited to leave due to behavioral issues, etc

So - program X is ranked 15th in recruiting and has several 4 stars, maybe a 5, and high level 3’s across the board to fill out. But several are suspect character and several are borderline on grades.

Let’s suppose Indiana and program X bring in 24 recruits each year. It is my opinion that Indians newer recruiting approach, coaching style, S&C program and soon to be state of the art rehab program will result in 3-5 MORE athletes making meaningful contributions to the team, each year. That compared to a typical “program x”.

So in a class of 24, instead of 12 contributing in meaningful ways, we have 15-17.

That’s 3-5 more per year or 9 on the low end and up to 15 more experienced/veteran players that are RS Jr, Jr and Srs per team per year. That does not factor another 6-10 underclassman per team that may also be able to contribute in meaningful ways.

In 2-3 years, if we have 9-15 MORE veteran/experienced bodies to call on that are seasoned and play as a TEAM compared to the opposite sidelines, I think our potential to win increases.

That’s a winding long way to say - I LOVE what IU Football and Coach Allen have going on right now. Perhaps especially with recruiting. Embrace strengths we have.

I look forward to watching continued improvements and beating the program X’s in the seasons ahead.
 
Overall, an interesting idea.

Need the detail of the research in order to truly appreciate or comment on the book/article.

Was every recruit surveyed? If not, what determined who was and wasn’t surveyed and does that skew results?

If you filter by variables like HS GPA or admittance scoring qualifiers, do results change some?

Do some schools intentionally avoid certain recruits for those types of reasons?

I think character of recruit is generally undervalued by some programs and it bites them in the end.

Does this research filter that in any way? That’s not possible - but it’s an interesting consideration if it were. Maybe prior arrest?

Northwestern, among others, has done a good job of recruiting character athletes and purposely meeting and recruiting immediate or near immediate family members of the recruit.

If it were possible to filter the survey for above average character and grades, would results differ? Maybe? I don’t know.

How is any of this relevant? IMO, Coach Allen is recruiting for character. It seems to be a major consideration. I believe that, combined with a firm, honest and supportive coaching approach, state of the art strength and conditioning and soon to be best in class rehab facilities will result in more recruits from each class contributing, on average, compared to most programs.

I recall a post, maybe by Mac, suggesting ~ 50% of a typical college recruiting class will truly contribute in meaningful ways. Some wash out, don’t qualify, are suspended or invited to leave due to behavioral issues, etc

So - program X is ranked 15th in recruiting and has several 4 stars, maybe a 5, and high level 3’s across the board to fill out. But several are suspect character and several are borderline on grades.

Let’s suppose Indiana and program X bring in 24 recruits each year. It is my opinion that Indians newer recruiting approach, coaching style, S&C program and soon to be state of the art rehab program will result in 3-5 MORE athletes making meaningful contributions to the team, each year. That compared to a typical “program x”.

So in a class of 24, instead of 12 contributing in meaningful ways, we have 15-17.

That’s 3-5 more per year or 9 on the low end and up to 15 more experienced/veteran players that are RS Jr, Jr and Srs per team per year. That does not factor another 6-10 underclassman per team that may also be able to contribute in meaningful ways.

In 2-3 years, if we have 9-15 MORE veteran/experienced bodies to call on that are seasoned and play as a TEAM compared to the opposite sidelines, I think our potential to win increases.

That’s a winding long way to say - I LOVE what IU Football and Coach Allen have going on right now. Perhaps especially with recruiting. Embrace strengths we have.

I look forward to watching continued improvements and beating the program X’s in the seasons ahead.
I agree with your point and will add that it depends in large part on the support system and environment as to whether or not you should recruit character. If you’re a coach or program that is biased and can’t support a kid with issues (think Northwestern) by all means please do not recruit a kid with character concerns. If you’re on the opposite side of the spectrum (think Baylor) and are negligent, then REALLY DO NOT recruit a kid with character concerns.

However, there are some programs that we see that can get away with recruiting kids with character concerns because there is a strong support system, and a coach who cares and can mold men. I’ve seen this with many athletes where the difference in whether they made it or not was who was the coach, and what was the environment like. If you take a kid like Jordan Fuchs who ended up getting kicked off, but place him in a different environment with a different kind of system, he can likely be successful. For example, the attitude at Kansas State leads me to believe Bill Snyder would’ve totally given him the resources and encouragement to succeed. That’s a model program that takes guys with questionable character, combines them with guys with great character (Like a Collin Klein) and supports them, so it’s rare a kid ever slips through the cracks there. But all of that takes a great deal of wisdom (knowing how to handle a kid with character concerns) and a great deal of work (being ready to be on call at any moment and have resources readily available). I’d say that for Allen it’s simple. If he can’t handle guys who are character concerns don’t recruit them. That’s better for the kid and for IU if the kid goes to a place like Kansas State, and IU can recruit a kid that’s ready made. That’s the positive. The flip side to that is that success is limited to your options, and obviously saying “player X has a character concern and we can’t handle it”, limits your options marginally.

So I tend to agree with you, and would just add that if Allen can handle guys with character concerns it can be rewarding, adds more options, and IU could acquire a great player who turns things around. If it’s a Demario Belcher or Antonio Allen situation where these guys are roaming back to their hometown every weekend to do questionable things and no one is intervening to say “I won’t let you do this, this isn’t going to happen” then you can’t recruit those guys. It would’ve taken an above and beyond effort to keep Antonio Allen on track, and Wilson wasn’t the man to handle a kid in that situation, or various other guys. Bill Snyder may have been able to. Antonio was the type of guy where you needed coaches to drop by and check, alternative options for him, and major treatment for him to have an opportunity to live a different lifestyle. Absent of that, it wasn’t going to work. But give him those resources and the marginal benefit is enormous because he could ball, and the resources would have kept him on track. That’s the challenge for taking guys with character issues. The return on investment can be great, but absent of the resources and desire to make that investment, you’ll never get a good return.
 
Branding at IU will be interesting under Allen. I agree with the article in terms of everyone needing a brand. No matter what you’re doing you need a Brand. Allen’s Brand I believe will be brotherhood and connection. He always speaks of love and family, and you don’t see that at every program to the extent that he preaches it. I’d love to see more of the Brand Wilson brought out which was “We are the state school, we need to win the state.” Initially that worked and got guys like Kennedy, Allen, Latham, and Booth in. I really think that’s part of every schools brand (location), and it’s made easy since the name of the school is “Indiana University”. Guys from Florida night call it “The University of Indiana” because part of their evaluation has nothing to do with location. They simply have no emotional connection to the state, so you’ll have to market to them in other ways (which Allen is, and is doing very well), but to get the kids in state, an emphasis on being the state school can go a long way. In my short life I’ve only really seen Wilson do that kind of branding, and it actually made me want to go to Indiana and not Ball State or Purdue or anywhere else if I was going to stay in state.

Academics to me aren’t a strong appeal. You can get a degree anywhere, and the level of academics have generally declined. If a school makes an extreme effort to push academics, then it can go into the branding (Studies show Northwestern kids have better results because they’re surrounded by other kids who push them to higher results, not the resources). If Allen’s things becomes we will surround you with other people who want to be successful, that can go a long way in branding. As I noted, it’s pretty shocking some studies, but they show it’s not the school, but who you’re surrounded with that predicts results. You can definitely push a brand that you’ll surround kids with likeminded kids who will push them academically (positive peer pressure) and tutors (teach kids how to learn) and that alone can help IU compete with Stanford or Northwestern or Harvard.

Lastly, my branding as an IU grad would be competing. A workmans Brand. You’ll come in, improve, achieved excellence, and have the opportunity to win a title and compete on sundays. Harbaugh had a similar brand and Stanford. He even used to wear a factory outfit around with a name tag haha. But the blue colar brand will get you hardworking kids and kids want that in a program. Allen seems to be pushing that with his intensity, and it’s an underrated form of branding. People want to play for that. They want to be pushed. They want to be molded into men. Allen is doing that right now, which confirms to me why he was chosen to take over.
 
Branding at IU will be interesting under Allen. I agree with the article in terms of everyone needing a brand. No matter what you’re doing you need a Brand. Allen’s Brand I believe will be brotherhood and connection. He always speaks of love and family, and you don’t see that at every program to the extent that he preaches it. I’d love to see more of the Brand Wilson brought out which was “We are the state school, we need to win the state.” Initially that worked and got guys like Kennedy, Allen, Latham, and Booth in. I really think that’s part of every schools brand (location), and it’s made easy since the name of the school is “Indiana University”. Guys from Florida night call it “The University of Indiana” because part of their evaluation has nothing to do with location. They simply have no emotional connection to the state, so you’ll have to market to them in other ways (which Allen is, and is doing very well), but to get the kids in state, an emphasis on being the state school can go a long way. In my short life I’ve only really seen Wilson do that kind of branding, and it actually made me want to go to Indiana and not Ball State or Purdue or anywhere else if I was going to stay in state.

Academics to me aren’t a strong appeal. You can get a degree anywhere, and the level of academics have generally declined. If a school makes an extreme effort to push academics, then it can go into the branding (Studies show Northwestern kids have better results because they’re surrounded by other kids who push them to higher results, not the resources). If Allen’s things becomes we will surround you with other people who want to be successful, that can go a long way in branding. As I noted, it’s pretty shocking some studies, but they show it’s not the school, but who you’re surrounded with that predicts results. You can definitely push a brand that you’ll surround kids with likeminded kids who will push them academically (positive peer pressure) and tutors (teach kids how to learn) and that alone can help IU compete with Stanford or Northwestern or Harvard.

Lastly, my branding as an IU grad would be competing. A workmans Brand. You’ll come in, improve, achieved excellence, and have the opportunity to win a title and compete on sundays. Harbaugh had a similar brand and Stanford. He even used to wear a factory outfit around with a name tag haha. But the blue colar brand will get you hardworking kids and kids want that in a program. Allen seems to be pushing that with his intensity, and it’s an underrated form of branding. People want to play for that. They want to be pushed. They want to be molded into men. Allen is doing that right now, which confirms to me why he was chosen to take over.
Agree with this. I really liked the way CTA was talking to the kids about what kind of man and future father they would develop into at IU. That it is more than about football. I can’t remember who it was but one of the new kids mentioned that as why IU stood out. That could be a pretty good branding approach.
 
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