Outliers is a great book. I'd recommend it to anyone, and michigan was right that this example is very comparable to the one in the book.
I also think Hatter is correct that this isn't a coincidence.
Finally, you only need to have 22 really awesome players at a time. That's 25% of your roster. If you can sign 6-8 potential studs in every class, that's enough to fill a two deep almost 1.5 times over and fill the rest of your team with quality depth to push the starters and backups in practice every day. And, ultimately, what you want if you're not a perennial power, like Bama, LSU, OU, etc., is a roster full of D1 athletes, and the guys in this class, for the most part, look like D1 athletes.
You have to remember that for a lot of these guys, they won't see the field for anything but special teams (if that) for almost three years. That's three years of S&C, practice, development, maturation, etc. That's an entire lifetime for an athlete. Imagine where you were at 18, physically, compared to where you were at 21 or 22? Now imagine if you had spent three, four, or five years doing intense, year-round physical training while eating at a training table?
And, while we knock Snyder for a lot of things, one thing he excels at is creating a structured environment that facilitates improving personal performance. You can't underscore how much his attention to detail and structured approach enhance that development as well.
/untucksshirtnow
