Another thing hurting West Coast recruiting rankings

[Cougsocal]

It in called the Trinity league. It is made up of private mostly catholic high schools, who make up a "super league" for high school football in the LA Area. Anybody who is somebody in high school football in Socal plays in the Trinity league. The league is made up of St. John Bosco, Mate Dei, Servite, J Serra, Orange Lutheran and Santa Margarita. Both Mate Dei and St. Jon Bosco have won national championships recently, SJB twice. They have won every California state "open" championship since 2014. Before a recent playoff game between Servite and Mate Dei the article below boasted that their would be 45 D-1 prospects on the sidelines. Yes, two teams, 45 D-1 prospects, and it didn't include national power SJB, or the other league's other members, that's probably 80+ D-1 prospects all in one 6 team league. This known talent concentration leaves kids on the sideline with D-1 star potential never to have a legitimate shot (to gain a 4 star ranking). Then there are the kids who don't play in the Trinity, in "inferior" leagues, who already have a black mark against them. If you are a hard working P-12 coach who has a good eye for talent, you know these 2 and 3 star hidden gems, that's your full time job, but what about the recruiting services, who evaluate talent nationally, with limited staffing, probably not.

The demise of California football "talent," ranking wise, has a lot to do the Trinity league. While the best high school football in the country is played there, bar none, it creates major problems for for recruiting services, with limited time and resources (and for coaches who don't want to put in the time and effort).

Opera News - Latest News In United States of America-English | Breaking News

Get the latest United States of America-English news at OperaNewsApp.com: Breaking news and videos in United States of America-English , Football news, Politics, Sports, Entertainment, Tech, Business.

www.dailyadvent.com

Thoughts

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

It in called the Trinity league. It is made up of private mostly catholic high schools, who make up a "super league" for high school football in the LA Area. Anybody who is somebody in high school football in Socal plays in the Trinity league. The league is made up of St. John Bosco, Mate Dei, Servite, J Serra, Orange Lutheran and Santa Margarita. Both Mate Dei and St. Jon Bosco have won national championships recently, SJB twice. They have won every California state "open" championship since 2014. Before a recent playoff game between Servite and Mate Dei the article below boasted that their would be 45 D-1 prospects on the sidelines. Yes, two teams, 45 D-1 prospects, and it didn't include national power SJB, or the other league's other members, that's probably 80+ D-1 prospects all in one 6 team league. This known talent concentration leaves kids on the sideline with D-1 star potential never to have a legitimate shot (to gain a 4 star ranking). Then there are the kids who don't play in the Trinity, in "inferior" leagues, who already have a black mark against them. If you are a hard working P-12 coach who has a good eye for talent, you know these 2 and 3 star hidden gems, that's your full time job, but what about the recruiting services, who evaluate talent nationally, with limited staffing, probably not.

The demise of California football "talent," ranking wise, has a lot to do the Trinity league. While the best high school football in the country is played there, bar none, it creates major problems for for recruiting services, with limited time and resources (and for coaches who don't want to put in the time and effort).

Opera News - Latest News In United States of America-English | Breaking News

Get the latest United States of America-English news at OperaNewsApp.com: Breaking news and videos in United States of America-English , Football news, Politics, Sports, Entertainment, Tech, Business.

www.dailyadvent.com

Thoughts

Recruiting services are lazy and give stars based on who recruits them.

There is a huge vacuum in the college recruiting arena, and a legitimate unbiased recruiting service that actually has scouts could make a fortune providing such a service.

 

[Cougsocal]

Recruiting services are lazy and give stars based on who recruits them.

There is a huge vacuum in the college recruiting arena, and a legitimate unbiased recruiting service that actually has scouts could make a fortune providing such a service.

I just thought Coug fans should be aware of the weird dynamic of high school football in Socal these days. The rich catholic high schools, and Orange Lutheran, are vacuuming up all the talent region wise, and have created a scholarship D-1 feeder league. The old school "man" amongst "boys" talent evaluation dynamic, existing everywhere else, does apply here anymore. LA consists of a super league, and a wash on depleted leagues. There is only one school who can match up (sort of) with the Trinity schools now, Centennial, and it comes up short, always. So if you wonder why Texas and Florida have far more 4 and 5 star kids, than California, its hard to look 5 star impressive when virtually everyone you play against is a legit D-1 prospect, or what you accomplish is diminished by the fact that it was accomplished against largely talent deprived schools. Call it the no middle ground scenario.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

I just thought Coug fans should be aware of the weird dynamic of high school football in Socal these days. The rich catholic high schools, and Orange Lutheran, are vacuuming up all the talent region wise, and have created a scholarship D-1 feeder league. The old school "man" amongst "boys" talent evaluation dynamic, existing everywhere else, does apply here anymore. LA consists of a super league, and a wash on depleted leagues. There is only one school who can match up (sort of) with the Trinity schools now, Centennial, and it comes up short, always. So if you wonder why Texas and Florida have far more 4 and 5 star kids, than California, its hard to look 5 star impressive when virtually everyone you play against is a legit D-1 prospect, or what you accomplish is diminished by the fact that it was accomplished against largely talent deprived schools. Call it the no middle ground scenario.

I mean, that's the tip of the iceberg, really.

Look at all the Texas and SE schools and which kids go where and how many of those 4 and 5 star kids pan out to be the top talent they are billed as. No doubt there are more 4/5 star kids that become contributors/ stars on teams than 2/3 star kids, but it is still imperfect. The difference is that there is a presumed talent level, and why not just give these kids high ratings because they are more than likely going to work out.

What I am saying, again, is that there is no real effort put into ranking these kids, and the blue-blood schools can afford to just pile them up because there are enough kids on the roster ranked 4/5 stars that someone is bound to work out, so just recruit them all, because you can.

 

[425cougfan]

To the extent this is having a material impact, for WSU's sake, I hope it never changes. As you noted, Cougsocal, it presents an opportunity. Napkin-level analysis here, but it is consistent with, if not necessarily the whole story on, why many of these MWC teams (and, relative to their competition in FCS, even Big Sky teams) are pretty good. Also seems that if coaches believe all the talent is at Centennial or in the Trinity league and ignore everyone else, that presents opportunities, too. All that is good for WSU, even if it isn't great for recruiting rankings out west.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Pretty much agree with SoCal. There have been years when the Big VIII league (Corona, Centennial, Santiago, Norco, etc.) was roughly on a par with the Trinity league, but usually Trinity wins more of the face to face match-ups (they regularly play each other in non-league). Big VIII is essentially the Trinity league for the Inland Empire region, though it is public. As with the SEC, though, the top 1/3 of Trinity probably has as many D1 kids as the bottom 2/3 put together. So you are really only talking about 3 or at most 4 schools with a big vacuum cleaner. The other Trinity schools have smaller but very respectable vacuum cleaners. That is probably spread just a bit more evenly in Big VIII.

As for rankings, we all know they are flawed, but they are all that fans and the lazier staffs have to work with. Certainly if you stockpile kids on the sideline, there are kids that won't get exposure. And there is risk in recruiting a kid who got minimal game time, even if the kid is at a premier school. Almost rather take a kid who was a star in a two or three levels down league, whose performance is known. Pro's & Con's either way.

And as for resources, LA and Orange counties combined (the Trinity footprint) is over 13 million folks. That supports Trinity, a secondary parochial league, and at least three pretty decent public leagues. The Inland Empire is more geographically widespread, though over 4 m of its 4.5 million are in the metro area. 4 million will support one premier league pretty well, along with a secondary league (Baseline league; Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, et al) and that is how it works out in the Inland Empire.

When it comes to college recruiting, it does not take a lot of recruiters to just cover Trinity, Big VIII, Mission (the secondary parochial league), Baseline, Foothill (public; north San Fernando Valley), Sunset (Orange coast), and at most 4-6 of the LA city section teams, especially if less than 100% effort is planned. Sure, you could make a case for another league or two, but if you only had 2 recruiters in SoCal that would be where you would want to focus them, and at that they would be spread thin. The LA basin could easily support 4 recruiters, with a 5th in San Diego. I'm always surprised at how few west coast schools put 5 recruiters in SoCal.