Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
[quote=Anonymous]No one said overlooked but perhaps overrated. Not saying that these top players did not have many choices but I know many of these highly ranked players that ended up at ND were not as highly recruited by some of the other top schools as they were by ND.


Agree with this post.

The first mistake any person following this sport makes is embracing the "rankings" of these players.

It's an annual hype-machine where Florida and Notre Dame are up there as the top recruiting classes, only to be stopped in big games by other schools that recruited girls from the (if you ask the know-it-alls) middle of the pack.

Quite honestly, the lack of results (from these two schools in particular) leads us to one of these two:

* the players and recruiting classes are / have been completely overrated

or

* the coaching staffs are incompetent

Pick one.

Because (it seems like) every year the lax magazines have the incoming freshmen heading to those campuses as minutes away from revolutionizing the game. With no follow-up when they fall flat over their four years.

Quite honestly, it's a tired tune.



I disagree only in the sense that it does not need to be either or but might be a combination of both . Perhaps the coaching staffs are not great evaluators of talent and tend to rely on rankings etc when recruiting , I know that many don’t think the rankings matter to coaches but they do to some . The person who just thinks the rankings are a spot on indicator of talent is just ridiculously naive . On a side note Spallina has already started his nonsense , seems in his opinion SBU has the best player in the country every year , sorry but should not even be in the conversation this year other than the relentless Spallina BS machine and the overmatched stat padding while playing a hideous schedule .


It is always a combination of both coaching and talent. The best coaches will not win if they do not have adequate talent and the worst coaches will not win even if they have the most talent.

I do not recall anyone stating that "the rankings are a spot on indicator of talent". However, for the most part the teams that consistently bring in the most highly touted (IL Top 30 - 40 and Under Armour All-Americans) constantly outperform the teams that do not bring in the highly regarded recruits.

The detractors would have us believe that Florida and Notre Dame are floundering programs when that is far from reality. Both Florida and Notre Dame are excellent programs and I would argue that they are both Top 15 caliber programs. The only programs that consistently outperform Florida and Notre Dame are the other programs that also bring in the "Ranked Recruits".

Looking back over the past 8 years only "8" Programs have finished the season ranked in the Top 20 every year.

Maryland
North Carolina
Northwestern
Syracuse
Virginia
Princeton
Penn
Florida

The next group finished 7 of 8 years ranked in the Top 20 at the end of the season.

Notre Dame
Stony Brook
Boston College
Penn State.

These are the most consistent programs, they are competitive each and every year.