How Tennessee’s staff is embracing data and metrics to prevent mistakes on the recruiting trail

#1
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David Ubben

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#1
Thought you guys would enjoy this story on a company that added Tennessee as a client a few weeks ago. Jeremy Pruitt is secretly an expert on track and field, and signed up for a service that uses empirical data from competitive track events to boil down a player/prospect's athleticism to a score on a five-point scale.

"The company uses raw track-and-field data and pairs it with a player's height and weight to boil down a players athleticism to a raw score called the Player Athletic Index, or PAI.

That number is the simplest answer to a complex question: How good of a pure athlete is a player? Coaches can search through raw data and players' PAI scores in the company's database.

A score of 2.0 is average for an FCS player, and 3.0 is average for an FBS player. The scale goes up to 5.0, which is "exceptional." Among those with 5.0 scores: Bo Jackson, Julio Jones, Adrian Peterson ... and Tennessee 2019 signee Darnell Wright."

We also included charts in the story of current players and Vol 2019 signees PAI scores compared to Vols throughout history, like Al Wilson, Jamal Lewis, Travis Stephens, Justin Hunter, Cordarrelle Patterson, Alvin Harper and more. You can also see the average PAI score of the Vols' current roster and last three recruiting classes, along with a comparison to Alabama.

It's really a fascinating company that Tennessee is using to try and avoid mistakes on the recruiting trail.

Here's the full story if you're interested.
 
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#2
#2
What was Derek Barnett's PAI coming out of HS? I bet he was a 3.0. Great measurement for track guys, but how do you measure heart? or wanna-go-get-the-QB? or take-your-head-off? IDK, but I hope they use common sense on most of these guys.
 
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#3
#3
MadWorld said:
What was Derek Barnett's PAI coming out of HS? I bet he was a 3.0. Great measurement for track guys, but how do you measure heart? or wanna-go-get-the-QB? or take-your-head-off? IDK, but I hope they use common sense on most of these guys.
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Fair question. I think the simplest answer is Tracking Football sees itself as a unique tool in a toolbelt, not a ranking system. And there's a lot of data included. Sixty percent of NFL Draft picks since 2008 participated in high school track and field.
 
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#4
#4
This actually isn't new. UT has been using similar consultants for decades to find the right players. The fan focused recruiting sites are just spin offs of what major programs were already doing... and have continued to do much, much better. The fan sites in a way "steal" data from the private consultants by watching which players are being recruited by which schools that employ particular consultants.

If you thought that 247, Rivals, et al give weight to players recruited by particular schools... that isn't your imagination and it isn't because they are fans of those schools. It is because those schools and the consultants they employ have been successful in finding great players.
 
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#5
#5
David Ubben said:
Fair question. I think the simplest answer is Tracking Football sees itself as a unique tool in a toolbelt, not a ranking system. And there's a lot of data included. Sixty percent of NFL Draft picks since 2008 participated in high school track and field.
Click to expand...
Good answer.
 
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#6
#6
David Ubben said:
Fair question. I think the simplest answer is Tracking Football sees itself as a unique tool in a toolbelt, not a ranking system. And there's a lot of data included. Sixty percent of NFL Draft picks since 2008 participated in high school track and field.
Click to expand...
It's that high? Holy cow.
 
#11
#11
PAI only answers 1 of the 2 questions. Can this player do what he needs to do? But a bigger question is how badly does he want to do it.
 
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#13
#13
David Ubben said:
Fair question. I think the simplest answer is Tracking Football sees itself as a unique tool in a toolbelt, not a ranking system. And there's a lot of data included. Sixty percent of NFL Draft picks since 2008 participated in high school track and field.
Click to expand...

Barnett wrestled if my memory hasn't failed me and in Tennessee that overlaps with track and field season.
 
#16
#16
Grudenhaslanded said:
We have great athletes ( see JG). What we really need are football players (look away from JG).
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For myself, I find these rankings 300% more appropriate them the fanbased recruiting services. For the heart determination you pretty much have to depend on the coaching staff and their personal evaluations on the subject.
 
#17
#17
David Ubben said:
Thought you guys would enjoy this story on a company that added Tennessee as a client a few weeks ago. Jeremy Pruitt is secretly an expert on track and field, and signed up for a service that uses empirical data from competitive track events to boil down a player/prospect's athleticism to a score on a five-point scale.

"The company uses raw track-and-field data and pairs it with a player's height and weight to boil down a players athleticism to a raw score called the Player Athletic Index, or PAI.

That number is the simplest answer to a complex question: How good of a pure athlete is a player? Coaches can search through raw data and players' PAI scores in the company's database.

A score of 2.0 is average for an FCS player, and 3.0 is average for an FBS player. The scale goes up to 5.0, which is "exceptional." Among those with 5.0 scores: Bo Jackson, Julio Jones, Adrian Peterson ... and Tennessee 2019 signee Darnell Wright."

We also included charts in the story of current players and Vol 2019 signees PAI scores compared to Vols throughout history, like Al Wilson, Jamal Lewis, Travis Stephens, Justin Hunter, Cordarrelle Patterson, Alvin Harper and more. You can also see the average PAI score of the Vols' current roster and last three recruiting classes, along with a comparison to Alabama.

It's really a fascinating company that Tennessee is using to try and avoid mistakes on the recruiting trail.

Here's the full story if you're interested.
Click to expand...
In what track and field events did Darnell Wright participate?
 
#18
#18
weird how these metrics don't explain any of our basketball team...maybe it can't be used for basketball. Conversely, in football, we can't seem to get any of our 3* guys to play above their rankings, and can't get any of our 4-5* guys to play up to their rankings...guess coaching actually has something to do with it too. We should get some answers this year, as to what kind of coach we've got. Easier to be a good coach when you've got the athletes, but good coaches can make something out of nothing. Last year was a grace period...and that's over now. Time to rock.
 
#19
#19
Those metrics are important, but the real kicker is what’s their hobbies?

The answer can reveal a lot about their work ethic.

Gotta make good use of their free time.
 
#20
#20
David Ubben said:
Thought you guys would enjoy this story on a company that added Tennessee as a client a few weeks ago. Jeremy Pruitt is secretly an expert on track and field, and signed up for a service that uses empirical data from competitive track events to boil down a player/prospect's athleticism to a score on a five-point scale.

"The company uses raw track-and-field data and pairs it with a player's height and weight to boil down a players athleticism to a raw score called the Player Athletic Index, or PAI.

That number is the simplest answer to a complex question: How good of a pure athlete is a player? Coaches can search through raw data and players' PAI scores in the company's database.

A score of 2.0 is average for an FCS player, and 3.0 is average for an FBS player. The scale goes up to 5.0, which is "exceptional." Among those with 5.0 scores: Bo Jackson, Julio Jones, Adrian Peterson ... and Tennessee 2019 signee Darnell Wright."

We also included charts in the story of current players and Vol 2019 signees PAI scores compared to Vols throughout history, like Al Wilson, Jamal Lewis, Travis Stephens, Justin Hunter, Cordarrelle Patterson, Alvin Harper and more. You can also see the average PAI score of the Vols' current roster and last three recruiting classes, along with a comparison to Alabama.

It's really a fascinating company that Tennessee is using to try and avoid mistakes on the recruiting trail.

Here's the full story if you're interested.
Click to expand...
Are you by any chance affiliated with this company? Not being a DBag, serious question....
 
#21
#21
Another great article, David!

I would love any more stories involving our use of analytics. I'm also curious if we have any staff that is devoted to analytics. Especially playcalling pattern analytics...hopefully they have read the Bill Connelly's work on why running on 1st down is a poor decision, after all those poor 1st down runs from last year. :)
 
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#23
#23
sjt18 said:
This actually isn't new. UT has been using similar consultants for decades to find the right players. The fan focused recruiting sites are just spin offs of what major programs were already doing... and have continued to do much, much better. The fan sites in a way "steal" data from the private consultants by watching which players are being recruited by which schools that employ particular consultants.

If you thought that 247, Rivals, et al give weight to players recruited by particular schools... that isn't your imagination and it isn't because they are fans of those schools. It is because those schools and the consultants they employ have been successful in finding great players.
Click to expand...

You're right we've been using similar services forever and so has every other major college football program. This particular service is still fairly new. Pruitt was asked about it in his spring practice day 5 presser. He just said we use a lot of services and this is just one of them. We are a recent addition to their client list but they're gaining steam in growing their business so us being one of the bigger players it's no surprise we sign up. I think this service costs about $15k/year for the works.

Here is their website:

https://www.trackingfootball.com/

And here is their twitter announcement about landing us as a new client a couple weeks after NSD in February of this year. We've only been clients for a bit over 3 weeks.



Here is a tweet where they released their PAI scores on some of the top running backs in this year's NFL draft class:

 
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