Recruiting Rewind - Who Succeeds with Success?

D1CW (http://d1collegewrestling.net) has an interesting feature by Earl Smith comparing recruiting prospects with their results for the high school class of 2006. The feature, called “Recruiting Rewind” and which can be found at http://d1collegewrestling.net/Recruiting_2006.html, reprises a similar report the site did last year for the high school class of 2005 (http://d1collegewrestling.net/Recruiting_2005.html).

The reports list the top recruits coming out of high school and the top college wrestlers five years later when nearly all the recruits would have exhausted their eligibility. There are two results of note. First for the top 20 collegians in the ’06 class, just six were top 25 recruits. Second, of the top 20 recruits, just seven had outstanding college careers. (This total counts Henry Cejudo, who skipped college, but won an Olympic gold medal.) On the other hand, nearly all the top collegians were top 100 recruits, the exceptions being Anthony Robles, who the recruiting touts may have overlooked for obvious reasons, and Stephen Dwyer of Nebraska.

It’s startling that four top-10 recruits flamed out altogether, including two that attended OK State (Jordan Frishkorn of Oklahoma State; Billy Murphy (Iowa); David Rella (Penn State); Ben Ashmore (Oklahoma State)). The number one overall recruit, David Craig of Lehigh, had some success, but the D1C1 formula, which ranks wrestlers based on their NCAA and conference tournament successes, puts him at #41 in his class. Lehigh also attracted the #12 recruit, Pat Flynn, who had little college success.

The good news for Cornell is that their top recruits all performed well, if some not quite up to their recruiting par. Mack Lewnes was ranked #7 as a recruit and he became the third most successful wrestler in his class, behind two-time NCAA champ Jordan Burroughs and Lance Palmer, who was a four-time All American and, like Lewnes, a national runner-up. Lewnes comes out ahead of Jon Readeare and his fellow NCAA champs JP O’Connor and Robles.

Mike Grey was the #3 recruit. He didn’t fare as well in college, but he did rank #16 in his class, juts behind Mike Thorn and Montell Marion.

Justin Kerber was the #22 recruit. Again, he didn’t quite wrestle up to those expectations, but he is listed as #49 in his class.

The year before, Cornell had three top-50 recruits: Troy Nickerson, Adam Frey and Curtis Roddy. Roddy disappeared, but Nickerson won a NCAA championship. Frey, of course, died tragically, but was successful before that.

I suppose the lesson is that a college program absolutely needs top recruits if it plans to succeed. Nearly all the top wrestlers were top-100 recruits, if not top-20. On the other hand, may of the bluest of blue-chippers are long forgotten. Can it be said that some programs squander top talent more than others. Certainly injuries and academic failings play a part. I am not sure whether to be surprised that so many top recruits never succeed. But it would be interesting to make a study of what programs have done most with the least or the least with the most, or which ones have seen their star high-schoolers perform closest to expectations.