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SALT LAKE CITY — Recruiting, at best, resembles something similar to the definition your first-grade teacher gave you when she taught the concept of a hypothesis: It's an educated guess.
For the Alabama's of the college football world or the Kentucky's of college basketball, those guesses don't often require a whole lot of education, even the most untrained of eyes can watch the Crimson Tide's Jonathan Allen or the Wildcats' De'Aaron Fox and know they're witnessing talent at work.
But for the Utah's of the world, the relatively newer, smaller fish finally swimming in a big pond, recruiting takes work, and it doesn't always work out.
"This recruiting is not an easy deal," Utah head basketball coach Larry Krystkowiak said Tuesday. "It's not an exact science. If it were, there wouldn't be two-star kids playing in the NBA, aka Damian Lillard, and there wouldn't be five-star kids that things hadn't panned out that well for. If it was an exact science it'd be a lot easier."
While Utah's star is certainly on the rise in both major men's programs, a deeper dive into their histories reveals plenty about the power, peril, and imprecise nature of recruiting.
The website 247sports.com keeps an updated list of Utah's all-time recruits, and the results vary from the obvious to head-shaking incredulity. The top 12 is home to household names: Garrett Bolles (Class of 2016); Jeremiah Poutasi (2012); Keith McGill (2011); and Travis Wilson (2012) headline some of football's best, while Jordan Loveridge (2012); Jason Washburn (2008); and current Utes Devon Daniels (2016) and Kyle Kuzma (2014) represent some of basketball's cream of the crop.
Those names mark the end of the easy ones, after which follow the trivia-testers. These are the ones you can quiz your buddy with. James Aiono, he of Snow College fame and a two-season Ute who went undrafted in 2012, is the No. 1 all-time recruit in Utah football history. Brekkott Chapman, obviously more known than Aiono but at this point no longer a Ute, takes basketball's top spot on the website.
The real head-scratchers are those players who were either not highly sought after or those were barely recruited at all, yet became stars. Alex Smith, the NFL's No. 1 draft pick in 2005, was a two-star rated recruit, per Rivals.com, and famously held only one offer in high school. Smith was also unranked on 247sports' all-time list. Smith is, at this point, helping the Kansas City Chiefs challenge for a playoff spot and has helped make to them one of this NFL season's top contenders.
Devontae Booker, likewise a sure Ute legend and an NFL draft pick in 2016 was not highly acclaimed coming out of high school or junior college. The back ranked just 101st on 247sports' list, behind other now lesser-known running backs like Alta's Sausan Shakerin (2008) and Princeton Collins (2010).
Basketball's most perplexing rankings? How about Stefan Zimmerman (2003) ahead of Kuzma, or Jordan Cyphers (2008) ahead of point guard extraordinaire and current Utah Jazz assistant Johnny Bryant (2005)?
What is it about recruiting that turns surefire talents like Aiono or Chapman into future benchwarmers, transfers or total busts? Well, to begin, there's the realization that recruiting rankings depend almost always on film, and, in the case of most athletes, on limited exposure.
"Film is big for analysis," Utezone.com's Andrew Gorringe said in an interview with KSL earlier this year. "Most of that film comes from Hudl (a website that allows coaches and recruits the opportunity to upload film of their best games). There's always guys that you can watch once and you can tell, right away, they're great. But exposure is important too. That always helps."
Simply put, all of the data provided to recruiting outlets like Rivals, Scout.com, ESPN, 247sports, and others comes from film most often provided by the athlete, which allows for some manipulation of the system. An athlete can be incredibly skilled but also deeply flawed, but because the film available on that athlete comes from him, the flaws are rarely if ever seen. Even season statistics are at best slightly more objective than film due to the lack of accurate stat keeping in many high school associations.
This has put a priority on in-home and in-game visits from coaches to assess talent and character. The University of Utah puts a premium on players who it views as being the right character fit for its program.
There's also the delicate timing that influences all recruiting. Take Utah's football's 2016 class, for example. The Utes had 20-plus student-athletes at this time last year verbally committed to play in 2016. This season, they've only got 10. That, says Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham, is by design.
"We’re right on track,” he said Tuesday. “We feel what we had to give and where we are now and what we have left to give, we are right where we want to be.”
Basketball, too, has had its share of issues adding too many kids too soon, something that probably led to the departure of Tim Coleman from the program earlier this week. Krystkowiak and his coaching staff have faced criticism for the high number of transfers (13) the program has experienced since 2014.
"We need to do a better job," Krystkowiak said Tuesday. "Internally, some of the lessons, some of the experiences, some of the indicators — I'm just not gonna put it all on the kids. I'm gonna expect our coaches to dig a little deeper and make sure that we're checking a lot more of the boxes, as many of them as we can. I don't want kids transferring. I want it to be a great experience."
NCAA rules complicate recruiting, making the already choppy waters in the big pond more perilous, but for the time being, Utah is swimming right along. As in years past, not everyone is bound to "pan out," as Krystkowiak says. One thing is certain, however, the Utes are going to keep grinding, working to find that next legend.
"Chopping wood," Krystkowiak calls it. If only it was that simple. Stephen Lindsey covers Utah athletics for KSL.com, as well as the SLC Stars and prep sports. Get in touch with him via Twitter at @slthe3.
