Bud Elliott breaks down Oregon's Blue Chip Ratio Score

Introduction welcome into the odson audibles podcast Matt PR Eric scopel of 247 Sports Duck Territory Aon Ables podcast we're welcoming a guest today uh Bud Elliott from the cover three podcast in 247 Sports as well uh the man that's running and created the Blue Chip ratio uh we are having him on to come on to break down where Oregon sits because they're in a good spot Bud they are Oregon is like solidly top 10 they top five this year I feel like it's crazy how how high they are on the list and um you know Dan Lanning I think we knew we you could recruit to Oregon but like Lanning and and uh you know obviously the the work that everybody has you know been on the same page here at Oregon it's kind of kicked it in another gear I mean that this is this is really pretty impressive and I like I made some comments on cover three that like very quickly Oregon's going to have the second best roster in the Big 10 and people like I don't know about that Michigan just won the national title like yeah they did that that was last year's team this is this year's team so I'm I'm really impressed with orgon's doing Ohio State's one Alabama 2 Georgia uh three Texas A&M four and then Oregon you are correct is five look at that I mean Oregon higher than like a Notre Dame an an LSU a Clemson that that's that is rarified air like ducks have made the list before but not this High yes for starters butd can you just give our listeners a breakdown of the origin of your blue chip ratio and kind of what you're trying to capture with it sure so uh a little over 10 years ago I was you working in recruiting and I saw the uh types of players that certain teams signed and I saw like National Riders who for for whom I had really good respect uh hyping up certain teams like a a Wisconsin or you know an Arkansas like they could win the national title like what am I missing here that I I'm I'm at all these camps I see the quality uh of body that Georgia signs or you know the Ohio State Signs and I see what some of these other teams sign and guys the Gap is significant and so I went back I was like what what's like the worst you could do in recruiting and still win it all you know and I just got lucky honestly uh that that it came out to a clean 50% Mark so the Blue Chip ratio you need to sign more four and five star recruits than two and three star recruits in the prior four years it's almost been busted a couple times the Mariota year uh scared the heck out of me for about 105 minutes there in uh in in in Dallas the Clemson year where Nick sa had the onside kick to beat uh to beat deshaan Watson the first time that one uh came pretty close I don't know if it'll live forever but uh if you're picking a team to win the national title who is not on this list uh probably not the best choice waston last year could have busted it but instead you know Michigan just beat him up so Oregon's in the top uh top five 76% Oregon Blue Chip Ratio of its rosters the Blue Chip ratio uh I believe they were at 67% the year before it feels like the last couple of Seasons we are seeing Oregon kind of make a jump from the tiers of this tier of schools there's other levels uh and it feels like four or five years ago they were at the bottom now they're they're as you said they're getting close to the top is that what you've seen from the data in the last couple of cycles that you've done this and just what are your thoughts on just the their meteoric rise here a little bit yeah I I just think like look I mean there are certain guys that Oregon has had who have shown you can recruit to Oregon but I don't think anybody has has done it quite like Dan Lanning has with with with the relentlessness although I mean Mario is obviously pretty Relentless H but also I think with the organization and with with with the real plan I think that's been sort of some of the beauty of what Dan landing's done and obviously like Oregon was at the Forefront of nil and you know we don't have to dance around it but you also have to do it the right way you have to do it in a smart way and you have to have a good working relationship between all parties involved and it's it's pretty clear that Oregon has that and you know land landing's decision to stay at Oregon I thought probably spoke volumes as well to a lot of these recruits that the Ducks are trying to recruit I I will caution I'm not an idiot like I don't think that having less Talent is good but last year everybody told me okay only Ohio State Georgia and Alabama can win the national title my guys history doesn't say that only the 80% teams can do this right I it's 50% for a reason like you have to get this certain minimum amount of talent through your door and then what do you do with it right how's your Player Development how's your coaching how's your culture how experienced are you you know last year Michigan you know what you get that minimum level of talent through the door you get a quarterback go top 10 you get a guy that almost won the Super Bowl as your coach you get a bunch of dudes on your roster who are 23 years old that's a pretty good recipe and so I I do think there are a lot of teams that if everything clicked you know certainly could win it and I don't think Oregon has a better roster than Georgia but I don't necessarily think you have to have like the very very best roster in college football to win the whole thing you got to have a certain level though there's always luck involved in sports yeah of all degrees I mean Phil steel uh 20 years ago pointed out that the the okahoma team that won the national title did not lose a single game from a starter to injury all year yeah like all 22 played the played the whole season which is insane that's yeah right absolutely but I'm curious how how has the transfer portal uh impacted you have you considered incorporating that data like what where you at with that because I imagine some of these rosters it's like 20% of the there's 20% turn every year so uh and obviously like I I went to Florida State for undergrad and uh you know ran a floor State site for a long time so FSU fans hate that I have not included the transfer portal data in this um I haven't for a couple reasons one the the early data that we have so far suggests that you can get a lot of very good players out of the portal and some that'll be drafted in the back half of the draft but you still don't get very many elite players in the portal and that may be changing right and like it's something again I'm just going to continue to Monitor and you can be a really good team with portal guys can you win a national title if like over half your roster is Portal I haven't seen anybody come close to doing that right for the most part your very best players in the sport are still identified signed out of high school they're really good early on during the program the collective pays them a boatload to not go anywhere else right that's just kind of how this works I'm going to continue to monitor it the other thing that I don't know is at what rate do transfer grades convert to draft picks right I can tell you with with reasonable certainty how often a festar gets drafted and at each position and and how how often that festar four star goes in the first round with transfer ratings I think across the industry they're all over the board and I think 247's are the best by the way I don't actually use any other services transfer ratings because I I don't know what goes into their process whereas I know our guys like ran Personnel at Texas you know and we have some guys who have been professional Scouts working on the team and even then it's still really hard so I need more years of transfer rating data to figure out like what the right blend would be if I did want to blend it in I just tried like a straight mash it together this year and I put it in at the end of the article you can find on CBS Sports um most teams went down which makes sense because most of your transfers are filling holes right forever Caleb Downs there's like four or five guys you take who are man like I like this guy he's 22 he's gonna help us depth we know he can play a little bit U FSU actually went up from 49 to 53 so that kind of speaks like maybe they're maybe they're playing a different game than a lot of other folks and um you know I think they had more transfers drafted than like the next three teams of transfers combined so maybe they are but still I think you still win national titles out of high school recruiting for the most part how I feel like the 12 Playoff team playoff is really going to hammer home the value of being in this group because while the possibility of an upset now increases because there's just more games the fact that there's more games it's going to put a lot of attrition on the most talented teams and someone like Washington last year who was just unbelievable playing this isn't 100% accurate playing above their weight a little bit for for some really short periods of time that's going to be harder to get to the National Championship now like do you feel like this is gonna even add more value to being in this list from the 12 team playoff I do like let's let's take the TCU example right they they run the table until the Big 12 title game that they lose that close to uh to Kansas State they pull the episode over Michigan now look they lost by seven touchdowns to Georgia I I I get that but still that result was probably an outlier relative to power rating stuff like the game was lined was it 14 and a half 15 or whatever it was whatever the line was pregame which probably has more predictive value you know if you were to played a bunch of times than how the game actually played out but like what if Georgia got food poisoning and the quarterback got hurt we don't know how they're going to react right so let's say that happened and you'd already beat Michigan you still need to win one more game now as a presumably pretty big Underdog so to to your point yes like winning three really difficult games or I guess four right if you don't get the buy uh is going to be really challenging but pain for our listeners to sign ific of being at 76% where Oregon is at I know you kind of said 80% maybe is a cut off for like the elites of the elite but Oregon's right there and just kind of outline like what does that historically tell you about teams when they have three quarters of the rosters Blue Chip players I I think it tells you that uh from a physicality standpoint your practices are are likely really good um I mean just the whole iron sharpens iron thing you know it I mean think about it there aren't many players on Oregon who are rated three stars who are not a kicker punter Long Snapper right I me you you can kind of just go through your head and think about it from the high school level So you you're when I watch Oregon I'm like okay they are recruiting High School for the top end and they're filling some of the depth stuff from when these guys don't hit uh via the portal and I think that's really kind of the way to do it right why would I take a high schooler who has a limited ceiling you know I like I can ascertain floor more quickly from the portal that or with more certainty than I and for high school because that portal player is further along in his development like I want to recruit high school with an eye towards the moonshots like I want I want to recruit High School towards the idea of like if this guy reaches his maybe like 90th percentile projection I can't go get that player in the portal or if I do it's going to cost me a million bucks right so I I think it's super impressive to be up there at that 77% especially because we know Oregon does not have friendly geography for recruiting I mean it it's it's super press are able to do that yeah Oregon just real quick looked at their 2022 class they have three three stars that they four four three stars that they signed uh only one of them is on the roster remaining and he's pushed himself into the secondary group of offensive linemen like so a guy that's you know 2022 class these are guys that should be playing college football now wherever they're at and they've only got one of them that's that's a three star Prospect um kind of sticking with that line like as you've done this I don't know if anything strictly comes to mind right away but just from where your perspective when you've looking at these rosters when you're watching these games what's changed from a talent perspective out Oregon in the last two or three years you feel like is there a specific group that you just notice like hey they've the data shows they've got better here or their eyeballs tell you they're they're better here I I think that where are the holes on this team yeah right I mean it recruiting is sort of a percentages game like you you you stack it you make sure you have the the proper depth in each position room and then the odds say that that it's it's going to work out I like I don't really see holes like I I think when I look at Oregon I'm like okay maybe not as many like first round type talents although I think there are certain guys who certainly have that ability to to ball out this year and get into that conversation uh but like I mean dlan Gabriel is a super accomplished college quarterback I just saw him throw out out at the Elite 11 like is he a top half player on this roster I mean I think that says something if he's not right like he's a 23 year old dude who's thrown for what 10 12,000 yards in his career whatever he's thrown for it's got to be up there um like I I just think the the overall level of talent has increased quite a bit I like the length that they have at offensive line a whole lot um and I I think the diversity of body type on the defensive line is also really impressive like they have different answers there and I know that Mario did a good job recruiting that too at times but I feel like the balance that Dan Lanning has achieved is better than what his predecessor had probably wrap it there Matt because I think Bud's got perfect time constraints yeah yeah that's gonna do it for us uh bud thanks for coming on we really appreciate your opportunity to to break this down a little bit get some more insight into why Oregon is so high on Blue Chip ratio you can go to CBS Sports and read that 2024 story uh for this upcoming season get all the data all the information uh coming up all right we'll be back later this week with another edition of the ODS autles podcast thank you for listening we'll talk to you soon talk to you later folks guys