[NU Sports] Some Crucial Stats

[Jeff Beamsley]

I just looked through the list too and there are also none of those top 100
committed to Stanford, Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, the ivy's or any of the other
schools that put academics ahead of football either.    

The kids on that top 100 list aren't interested in any of those schools
because they are planning on a pro football career, not a career that depends
on what they learn in school.  That's not to say that they aren't good
students and won't someday make use of their college education.  It's just
that we are never going to get the kid that wants to put his football career
first.  BTW, I don't necessarily blame those kids who have been successful in
football wanting to pick a school that gives them the best shot at a pro
career.  It's just that they are taking a huge risk.   

If you look compare the NU and Stanford lists, though, it looks like we are
both going for a lot of the same kids.  That's really my measure of whether
or not PF is doing a good job getting the word out.  We should get a few more
kids from the Midwest.  Stanford is going to get more kids from the west
coast.  We'll arm wrestle over the rest.   

The bottom line is that we don't need top 100 recruits to win.  ND gets way
more of them than we do every year and couldn't even muster a winning record
against the service academies.  We just need 20 or so of the 100-150 kids
every year that are good enough students to graduate from Northwestern and
good enough football players to win the in the BT.

We are never going to be OSU or Michigan in this league, but we should expect
to go bowling 75% of the time (just missed it this year) and every four years
or so make a run at the BT Championship (next year should be one of those
years).  Then maybe every 16-20 years or so we'll be blessed with a special
BT Championship team that has a shot at being ranked high enough to play in
the BCS bowl.  That would be good enough for me.

BTW the obvious parity on the BT is going to make winning the BT easier in
the coming years than it has been in the past.  The fewer doormats, the more
likely that, like this year, the BT champs are going to have at least one
loss.  If we won all of the games that we had in hand in the fourth quarter
this year, we would have entered the Illinois game with an opportunity to
play for the BT championship.  We aren't that far away.

Jeff


  




-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Dennis W. Brandt
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 5:45 PM
To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Some Crucial Stats


> We stop finishing t the bottom of  Divison I-A in defense when we get 
> a new defensive coordinator.
>
> John DeGroat

I don't agree, but it won't hurt to try (except Greg Colby, of course)  I
find it hard to believe the defensive scheme limited Corey Wooten to one sack
and our entire team to recovering two fumbles all season.

P.S.  Not one of the top 100 recruits for next year have Northwestern on
their interest list, this from recruiting.scout.com.  That has got to change
and soon. 

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