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Recently there have been insinuations and claims that NC State ‘needs’ to qualify and go to a bowl in order to recruit. Bowls have value, no question but not for recruiting. Here is one man’s take on recruiting to NC State. Hopefully this will inspire counter-arguments and/or fresh thought on the subject. Perhaps some attitudes will change as a result of this and what others may have to say.
Highly ranked student athletes are not considering the bowl they might get to go to playing football for NC State. Student athletes, for whom playing in a bowl is a concern, will be looking to many, many other schools before NC State. Some may consider possibilities of playing for a national championship in selecting a school, but that consideration pares the list to a very select group.
Good schools build their programs with what they have to offer that is unique to their school or program. NC State is a very good school with a broad range of academic options. So what it comes down to is simply what does Dave Doeren and his football program have to offer that is more attractive to prospects and their parents. To get the answer to that question one has to dig deeper than I’m able to go. The one more obvious attribute is being part of family, whatever that means and what ever being family entails.
Recruits may consider many things in selecting a school — is it a good academic fit, do they feel comfortable around the program, do they have good relationships with the coach/coaches and much more. The possibility of going to the Belk Bowl is not one of them.
To be perfectly honest UNC at one time had ridiculous inherent advantages in recruiting in North Carolina and they pressed those advantages for many, many years. “Do you want to go to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and play in beautiful 50,000 seat Kenan Stadium in the pines or Cow College in Raleigh and play in 10,000 seat, run-down Riddick Stadium? Hard to believe but State had to suffer the indignity of playing its home games with UNC in Chapel Hill for many years before Carter Stadium was built, added onto and became Carter-Finley.
Recruiting highly rated student athletes to play for NC State in this environment was almost impossible. Yet some did and did so very effectively. During Earl Edwards tenure as our football coach, State was ranked as high as number 2 nationally. While it was a regular season game in the early 60’s NC State actually played Penn State for the right to be called number 1. In the most heartbreaking loss I have ever experienced watching NCSU football, Tony Barchuk was stopped on the ½ yard line by Penn State All-American LB, Dennis Oncontz (sp) on 4th down late in the game. Penn State took a safety and that was about it. I don’t recall if we went to a bowl or not. In the 50’s and 60’s there weren’t THAT many bowls to go to. School selection by recruits then as well as now was NOT based on whether or not a school went to a bowl.
What we do know is that successful recruiting CAN BE DONE. Earl Edwards was known to have integrity and was a family man. (Sounds a bit like Dave Doeren, doesn’t it?) Some recruits and their families found this to be very attractive. He also surrounded himself with bright assistant coaches. Probably the best was another man of integrity, Defensive Coordinator Al Michaels. Coach Edwards was able to successfully recruit under ridiculous circumstances. NC State doesn’t have those ridiculous circumstances today, Our football program doesn’t have to take a back seat to anybody, least of all some Red Bull swilling under-achiever at the black sheep of the family, EweNCheat .
We can recruit with what we, we being NC State University and Coach Dave Doeren, have to offer. I don’t pretend to know what it takes. Academics and a family atmosphere seem to be a big part of it. Dave Doeren off the top of his head spoke about the families of the recruits last year when the LOIs came in. He relates to the players and the players relate to him. TOB was a good man. He just didn’t know how to recruit. I think he gave up in the face of failure. Kinda like eweNC in Greenville Saturday.
The academic fraud at UNC can be easily explained away to young men who want to be swayed. “This academic fraud doesn’t apply to you. A degree from UNC is still the best there is in North Carolina. A few rogue professors and students isn’t what we are about. Blah, blah, blah.” But the Carolina Way and the value of a “no class” degree is getting harder to “sell” to prospects. There are some who are fundamentally Carowhiners and those will not be swayed. Do we rally want them in the NCSU family? I don’t think so.
We at NC State were winners in the past, we are winners today and we will be winners in the future.
Go State!
This post not written by a tutor.
To answer the original question…not really. But that doesn’t mean that the opposite isn’t true. In other words, if you are not in a bowl most years, then recruiting will suffer.
You can only sell sunshine for so long. Eventually a coach has to deliver results.
To answer the original question…not really. But that doesn’t mean that the opposite isn’t true. In other words, if you are not in a bowl most years, then recruiting will suffer.
So true. It’s just like a lot of things where the presence of something makes no real difference but the absence of the same thing does. Ex: Just having a college degree will not get you a great job but not having one may keep you from landing one.
I think it does aid in recruiting directly by being able to “sell” a program that is at least making post season trips.
It indirectly helps recruiting because it aids greatly in player development in the form of that extra month of practice. Player development aids in winning, winning aids in recruiting.
Everything in college football nowadays is justified by recruiting.
Seems like the extra 20+ practices is the real benefit for a program’s development, but I’d bet the research would show very little correlation.
The days of the Mafia in Riddick, Rossi, Falzarano, Joe Scarpatti, and Tony Kozarsky(who wasn’t Italian, but that didn’t matter). Never have been able to figure out why the games in their were cold and now it’s hot all football season. Must be global warming??? Wearing a coat and tie to a game? You been laughed out of the stands now.
"Whomp 'em, Up, Side the Head"!
Never have been able to figure out why the games in their were cold and now it’s hot all football season.
Stick, Maybe the sun dropped behind that building that generated steam for the campus. We got in the shade a lot quicker in Riddick than The Carter.
Speaking of lower tier bowls… USAToday has us in the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit on 12/26. Michigan recuiting inroads right there, I tell ya!
Now that’s what I call ‘thinking a good thought.’ I gotta feeling that USAToday sees us at 6-6 and with any luck at all we’ll be 7-5 and in a better bowl. Bowl committees do like teams with fan that travel, you know.
Speaking of lower tier bowls… USAToday has us in the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit on 12/26. Michigan recuiting inroads right there, I tell ya!
We would sell maybe 500 tickets, and then I would have to try to find the game on tv while in Costa Rica!
^
No es una problema,se`nor Beej.
Sportsman Lodge in San Jose will satiate your needs for both styles of football(And more.)Bowl games matter,but continual lowest tiers mean absolutely jack squat in recruit considerations.
However,there may be that one or two kids in Detroit that ain’t gonna be a Sparty, or Wolverine….
Hells yeah. Saturday after Xmas.
A snow game for the Steinbrenner Cup would rock.
Maybe even get a shot at pummeling Maryland.
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