This is going to be part data dump, part why-we-were-bad-2019-and-2020, and part why-I'm-high-on-2021.
I know I look like a maniac posting all these numbers and charts all the time, but I swear I programmed my site like 7 years ago and it basically runs itself so it's honestly been pretty low-effort. But recently I started working on something that should hopefully open a whole new world of data: I'm tying the recruiting data in my database to actual depth charts. Meaning I'll be able to see how recruiting impacts teams on-the-field.
I just finished inputting all the depth charts in the Big Ten from 2015-2020. This had to be done manually so that it would line up with my existing recruiting database, and not gonna lie, this was a major, major pain in the ass. The next step will be importing actual game data so that I'll be able to see things like how does increased WR recruiting impact passing stats, does increased OL recruiting prevent sacks, etc. But for now just with having the depth charts I think there's some interesting things to note.
(If anyone is curious why I start at 2015, modern recruiting data starts at 2011. So I can't tie 2014 rosters to my database because there will be 2010 recruits who do not exist. So this has to start at 2015.)
Purdue Starters 2015-2021
So there's two things I can look at now: The average recruit rating of the players actually starting on the field each year rather than just entire recruiting classes, and also how many years they've been out of high school. (I call this "experience" but "age" might be a better title.) I think we're all aware that Brohm has elevated Purdue recruiting to a new level, and that's exciting. But as you can see in the above chart it's not really translating into wins. Experience seems to play a much larger role than you may have thought, and that's something I'm going to explore A LOT once I start importing actual game data: I think a team benefits more from an increase in experience than an increase in talent.
I mean, you tell me which relationship is stronger.
Real quick on what I'm NOT saying: "Talent doesn't matter and just go with experience." Rutgers isn't going to start beating Ohio State by playing their seniors. What I am saying is that I think a modest boost in Rutgers recruiting isn't going to have as big of an impact as a modest increase in experience. And luckily for teams like Rutgers, you may not ever be a common destination of 5-star talent, but every team is capable of keeping their teams old. Just takes good program management.
Back to Purdue: The story of the Brohm era so far has been that the first two years have been outperforming expectations, to an honestly shocking level, and then the following two years have been underperforming expectations. It's hard to not notice that the two outperforming years were Purdue's two most-experienced teams in this 6-year window while the two underperforming years being Purdue's two least-experienced teams. 2019 being the third-least-experienced Big Ten team overall in that entire 6-year span. To break down Purdue's starters each of those years even further let's look at what average Big Ten starting depth charts look like:
Big Ten Starters by Experience
The way to read this is someone with 0 years experience is a true freshman. 1 year experience is a redshirt freshman or true sophomore. And so on. 5 is the rare 6th-year senior. Unsurprisingly Big Ten teams are mostly playing their older players, although once you get to redshirt seniors they drop off, either because they have left for the NFL at that point, transferred out, gotten injured, etc.
Now comparing those numbers to Purdue:
Brohm inherited not a very talented team, but one filled with a bunch of upperclassmen. 2018 is probably the most normal roster he's had in which the experience levels were distributed very close to the Big Ten average. Then 2019 happened where we brought in a bunch of talented freshmen, but they're still freshmen. And a lot of upperclassmen got injured on top of that. Over a quarter of the team's starting players being true freshmen was an extreme outlier. 2020 was similar, although of course everyone then shifts down one. And for 2021 I'm projecting over half of the starters being juniors or redshirt sophomores, an extreme outlier on its own, but one that should be beneficial to Purdue because a) that ages Purdue up a lot more than we've been the last couple of years, and b) those are the class of 2019 recruits, easily Jeff Brohm's highest-rated class. And as you might have seen a few charts up, 2021 is projected to be Jeff Brohm's most talented team, and the second-most experienced one since he's been here. I think Purdue could surprise some pundits who don't, well, do all this but I'm still holding my breath because injuries could really quickly force Purdue to turn to less experienced players who maybe aren't ready.
One last thing about Purdue is how we got to be so disastrously young in 2019 and 2020. Here is a fun little breakdown of the 2015 and 2016 recruiting classes in the Big Ten, ordered by percentage of signed recruits who wound up being starting players for those teams. (I had to start at 2015 for the same reasons throughout all of this. I have to end at 2016 because class of 2017 players could technically become starters this year, so the jury is still out on them.)
So if you take that into account and look at the 2019 starting roster, 75.31% of your starters were supposed to be from the 2015-2017 classes. Purdue started only 52.63% because, well, most of the guys from those classes just weren't Big Ten caliber players. Starting nearly 50% true freshmen, redshirt freshmen, or true sophomores is an insane outlier. Meanwhile in 2020 75.31% were supposed to be from the 2016-2018 classes, so there's a decent perceived bump by swapping out the 2015 class for the 2018 class. 2021 should be a sharp improvement as we'll eclipse that 75.31% number all the way to 95.65% (!) and we're now comfortably filtering in more guys from that stellar 2019 class.
Other Oddities:
There appears to be a relation between a team's record and the experience of the starters, which I'll later work on actually quantifying. Purdue being bad in 2019 and 2020 probably had a lot to do with the lack of experience even though talent level is sharply increasing. Our experience level should return to normal for a Big Ten team in 2021, with our talent level continuing to rise, so IMO Purdue could have a much better season than people are expecting.
I know I look like a maniac posting all these numbers and charts all the time, but I swear I programmed my site like 7 years ago and it basically runs itself so it's honestly been pretty low-effort. But recently I started working on something that should hopefully open a whole new world of data: I'm tying the recruiting data in my database to actual depth charts. Meaning I'll be able to see how recruiting impacts teams on-the-field.
I just finished inputting all the depth charts in the Big Ten from 2015-2020. This had to be done manually so that it would line up with my existing recruiting database, and not gonna lie, this was a major, major pain in the ass. The next step will be importing actual game data so that I'll be able to see things like how does increased WR recruiting impact passing stats, does increased OL recruiting prevent sacks, etc. But for now just with having the depth charts I think there's some interesting things to note.
(If anyone is curious why I start at 2015, modern recruiting data starts at 2011. So I can't tie 2014 rosters to my database because there will be 2010 recruits who do not exist. So this has to start at 2015.)
Purdue Starters 2015-2021
So there's two things I can look at now: The average recruit rating of the players actually starting on the field each year rather than just entire recruiting classes, and also how many years they've been out of high school. (I call this "experience" but "age" might be a better title.) I think we're all aware that Brohm has elevated Purdue recruiting to a new level, and that's exciting. But as you can see in the above chart it's not really translating into wins. Experience seems to play a much larger role than you may have thought, and that's something I'm going to explore A LOT once I start importing actual game data: I think a team benefits more from an increase in experience than an increase in talent.
I mean, you tell me which relationship is stronger.
Real quick on what I'm NOT saying: "Talent doesn't matter and just go with experience." Rutgers isn't going to start beating Ohio State by playing their seniors. What I am saying is that I think a modest boost in Rutgers recruiting isn't going to have as big of an impact as a modest increase in experience. And luckily for teams like Rutgers, you may not ever be a common destination of 5-star talent, but every team is capable of keeping their teams old. Just takes good program management.
Back to Purdue: The story of the Brohm era so far has been that the first two years have been outperforming expectations, to an honestly shocking level, and then the following two years have been underperforming expectations. It's hard to not notice that the two outperforming years were Purdue's two most-experienced teams in this 6-year window while the two underperforming years being Purdue's two least-experienced teams. 2019 being the third-least-experienced Big Ten team overall in that entire 6-year span. To break down Purdue's starters each of those years even further let's look at what average Big Ten starting depth charts look like:
Big Ten Starters by Experience
The way to read this is someone with 0 years experience is a true freshman. 1 year experience is a redshirt freshman or true sophomore. And so on. 5 is the rare 6th-year senior. Unsurprisingly Big Ten teams are mostly playing their older players, although once you get to redshirt seniors they drop off, either because they have left for the NFL at that point, transferred out, gotten injured, etc.
Now comparing those numbers to Purdue:
Brohm inherited not a very talented team, but one filled with a bunch of upperclassmen. 2018 is probably the most normal roster he's had in which the experience levels were distributed very close to the Big Ten average. Then 2019 happened where we brought in a bunch of talented freshmen, but they're still freshmen. And a lot of upperclassmen got injured on top of that. Over a quarter of the team's starting players being true freshmen was an extreme outlier. 2020 was similar, although of course everyone then shifts down one. And for 2021 I'm projecting over half of the starters being juniors or redshirt sophomores, an extreme outlier on its own, but one that should be beneficial to Purdue because a) that ages Purdue up a lot more than we've been the last couple of years, and b) those are the class of 2019 recruits, easily Jeff Brohm's highest-rated class. And as you might have seen a few charts up, 2021 is projected to be Jeff Brohm's most talented team, and the second-most experienced one since he's been here. I think Purdue could surprise some pundits who don't, well, do all this but I'm still holding my breath because injuries could really quickly force Purdue to turn to less experienced players who maybe aren't ready.
One last thing about Purdue is how we got to be so disastrously young in 2019 and 2020. Here is a fun little breakdown of the 2015 and 2016 recruiting classes in the Big Ten, ordered by percentage of signed recruits who wound up being starting players for those teams. (I had to start at 2015 for the same reasons throughout all of this. I have to end at 2016 because class of 2017 players could technically become starters this year, so the jury is still out on them.)
- Minnesota: 53.33%
- Michigan: 51.22%
- Michigan State: 48.72%
- Indiana: 47.62%
- Nebraska: 47.50%
- Maryland: 45.95%
- Northwestern: 45.00%
- Ohio State: 44.00%
- Rutgers: 43.90%
- Penn State: 41.86%
- Iowa: 40.00%
- Illinois: 37.50%
- Wisconsin: 37.21%
- Purdue: 28.89%
So if you take that into account and look at the 2019 starting roster, 75.31% of your starters were supposed to be from the 2015-2017 classes. Purdue started only 52.63% because, well, most of the guys from those classes just weren't Big Ten caliber players. Starting nearly 50% true freshmen, redshirt freshmen, or true sophomores is an insane outlier. Meanwhile in 2020 75.31% were supposed to be from the 2016-2018 classes, so there's a decent perceived bump by swapping out the 2015 class for the 2018 class. 2021 should be a sharp improvement as we'll eclipse that 75.31% number all the way to 95.65% (!) and we're now comfortably filtering in more guys from that stellar 2019 class.
Other Oddities:
- From 2015-2020 Purdue started the most number of JUCO transfers than any other Big Ten program at 7. Iowa, Northwestern, Wisconsin, and Michigan did not start any. And that group (besides Iowa) makes sense, I mean, picture some of those Last Chance U kids going to classes at Northwestern, lol.
- Purdue started 7 non-JUCO transfers in that time frame, ranking 5th in the Big Ten behind Rutgers (who had 14!), Illinois (11!), Maryland (9), and Nebraska (8). All of Purdue's starting transfers were from when Brohm took over, and based on how incredibly valuable experience seems to be that was a good move, although that's not a great group of 5 programs to be a part of. These numbers should obviously explode now that players can transfer without sitting out.
- Purdue also ranked 4th in starting 7 walk-ons in that time frame, tied with Minnesota. Unsurprisingly Iowa, Wisconsin, and Nebraska lead in starting walk-ons: 11, 10, and 9 respectively. Ohio State is the only program to have not started a walk-on in the last 6 years. Probably hard for a walk-on to beat out several 5-star guys for a starting position.
- I've always wondered where recruits who are given the "ATH" position on recruiting services actually wind up playing. Since I have now tied them to actual depth charts I now know: 27.08% wind up being LBs, 27.08% wind up being DBs (over 3/4ths of those being safeties rather than corners), 25% wind up being WRs (half of those being slot receivers), 6.25% were QBs, 6.25% were TEs, 4.17% were RBs, while 2.08% and 2.08% were OL or DL respectively.
There appears to be a relation between a team's record and the experience of the starters, which I'll later work on actually quantifying. Purdue being bad in 2019 and 2020 probably had a lot to do with the lack of experience even though talent level is sharply increasing. Our experience level should return to normal for a Big Ten team in 2021, with our talent level continuing to rise, so IMO Purdue could have a much better season than people are expecting.
