This year when I was going over the teams with each coach, I was thinking that it was an advantage for a team to be made up of mostly players they recruited as Freshmen and developed then added to the team with selected transfers. I think that this builds the best TEAM atmosphere. If we look at last year, there were some teams that hit the portal hard that had great success like Indiana and Arizona St. In Indiana’s case, a good portion of the transfers were players coach Cignetti brought with him from James Madison.
Plenty of teams that I feel were “Home Grown” had success. Ohio St had some notable transfers on their National Title team like Will Howard at QB, Seth McLaughlin at Center and Caleb Downs at S, but they had just 8 transfers with the rest of the team being home grown and many of the players were NFL prospects that turned down the NFL. Clemson was a “Home Grown” team and won the ACC. Iowa St had very few transfers and was in the Big 12 title game. Georgia had very few transfers and won the SEC. Army and Navy had zero transfers and both had unexpectedly strong seasons with Army winning the American Conference. Michigan was a home-grown team when they took home the National title in 2023.
I have been talking about “Home-Grown” teams during my radio show season (close to 200 shows so far). As you know I am a numbers guy and so let us put the concept into numbers and see how it does this year. We broke down the rosters of all 136 teams and put each player into one of five categories.
Signed as Frosh and still here – This is the column that the article is about. It is the old fashioned ways of signing Freshmen and developing them into players that contribute. For this category I awarded a team 2 points for every home-grown player.
This year’s Freshmen – This year’s Freshmen class is all home grown. For Group of Five Coaches they will try and develop these players but unfortunately once they become productive many will be bought by the Power Four teams. Since the majority of True Freshmen do not have an immediate impact on the team this year this category only earns 0.5 points for each player. I like the fact that they are home grown (for the moment) but it is their first year in the program.
JUCO’s – Five years ago the majority of transfers were JUCO transfers. JUCO signings have dropped off but these players are not home grown. I give each JUCO a -1 total as they are new to the team. Generally, JUCO players develop the first year and become the player you recruited in their second season.
Past Transfers – If a players transferred into the school in a past year I am counting them as a -0.5. The reason there is not as much a penalty here is that the player has been in the system for at least one year so they are not a complete stranger to the program.
This year’s transfers – This column is for the players that were added from another school that were in for the Spring. I think it is hard to assimilate a large amount of players into your roster and have them turn into a team in just one spring. For this category I assigned -2 points per player.
Post Spring transfers – There were a few teams that hit the transfer portal hard AFTER spring practice was over. It is even tougher to get these players integrated into the team with only August practices. I feel if a team hit the portal hard post spring, it may be a sign of how unhappy a coach was with what he had during spring. For each of these players I assigned -3 points.
Came From Coaches School – This is my Cignetti Factor. Last year coach Cignetti brought in a bunch of his top players from his top-notch James Madison team and they helped with the culture and building a team atmosphere. This year Southern Miss brought in a ton of players from last year’s Sun Belt Champ Marshall including their QB and almost all of his WR’s. For this category, I added back in the 3 points.
Here are this year’s most Home-Grown teams or the top twenty in total points.
- Air Force
- Army
- Navy (All three tied for first).
- Clemson
- Notre Dame
- Louisiana
- Georgia
- Texas
- Texas A&M
- Iowa St
- Penn St
- Tennessee
- Oregon
- Alabama
- Duke
- Nebraska
- Iowa
- Rutgers
- Stanford
- Miami Ohio
It is interesting that two Group of Five teams did make the list with Louisiana at a surpring #6 with coach Desormeaux opting to sign Frosh and develop them. Miami lost a ton of players from last year but still are in the top 20 despite 17 transfers as they only had five last year.
Now let’s look at the bottom ten or the teams that are dealing with the most transition on their rosters.
- Texas State
- Purdue
- Florida Atlantic
- Marshall
- Charlotte
- West Virginia
- New Mexico
- Colorado
- WKU
- U Mass
Most of these team are Group of Five but three are from the Power Four conferences and they are Purdue, West Virginia and Colorado.
Here is the complete list of schools with all the numbers.
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