Utah GM Joe D'Orazio's data-driven blueprint: Why staying put is worth $546,000 and how it's changing the Utes' pitch

When Joe D’Orazio came to Utah this offseason to become general manager, one of the first things he did was commission a study of recent NFL Draft picks.

Over the last four drafts, there have been 1,030 selections. Of that pool, 703 (68 percent) stayed at their first school and 327 transferred.

The difference in dollar value earned between those groups going to the NFL was significant.

It’s one of many data-driven talking points that D’Orazio and others inside Utah’s recruiting department discuss with prospects and their parents during official visit weekends and beyond.

D’Orazio thinks it can be a differentiator as the Utes look to build an elite roster of players that stay with the program.

“The biggest thing we talk about is the cost of transferring,” D’Orazio said. “Of the 703 that stayed at one school, their average draft pick was 124. The people who transferred once, their average draft pick was 140. The people who transferred twice, their average draft pick was 150.

“For that 124, if you take this year, the average rookie contract value is about $5.5 (million), 140 is $4.955 and 150 is 4.878 (million). We talk about the cost of transferring once is $546,000.

“Last year at Utah in the portal, we did not lose anybody because of $500,000. It was always lower than that. Educating recruits, we want to recruit people that want to play in the NFL. That’s how you have the best team possible.

“And then after that, it’s like, OK, what are the margins on where we can win?”

D’Orazio isn’t your stereotypical meat-and-potatoes football guy. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s esteemed Wharton School of Business. He loved coaching and developing players – what he called his passion – but he’s tackling a new, incredibly interesting challenge with the Utes using dollars and sense.

He admits Utah doesn’t have a $40 million roster and questions how that’s even possible considering NIL Go deals cannot match those numbers. D’Orazio talks at length about the five forces framework designed by Harvard Business School school professor Michael Porter in the late 1970s that is essentially about competitive rivalry and strategy.

Utah’s director of recruiting strategy and analytics Brian Stacy played at Carnegie Mellon before working at Goldman Sachs where he developed a transfer portal evaluation tool.

At Utah and many other programs, there is high school recruiting and transfer portal recruiting – two separate entities that have to be approached differently to then mesh together into one roster.

“In the transfer portal, you have all the data in the world but no time,” D’Orazio said. “In high school recruiting, you have all the time in the world but limited data.

“There is a lot of room for differentiation in the portal. There are a lot of advanced metrics that other people aren’t using where you can win those margins in the portal. In high school, you have less of that data so at Utah we defer to recruiting the best human beings.”

Recruiting “the best human beings” is a challenge unto itself but one D’Orazio and his staff are more than willing to tackle.

“I don’t have data to back it up but I do know if you recruit a great human being and they have setbacks along the way, they’ll find a way to overcome those,” D’Orazio said. “The people who are more entitled or have been given things in life, they’re still part of that 38 percent (of starters) sometimes because of God-given ability but not at a higher percentage.”

Utah quarterback Byrd Ficklin is an example D’Orazio recently used in a conversation about winning in evaluations. The only Power Four offer he had, Ficklin has shined in the Utes’ offense because of all those intangibles.

D’Orazio calls high school recruiting “the most imperfect science.” The Utes have made a high-level program – and look to make it even better – from a three-pronged system – evaluation, valuation and development.

“We need to win the three-stars,” D’Orazio said. “Three-stars have the most volatility in terms of playing on the field and making the NFL.

“You take that and you take valuation – attaching the values, we need to be elite there, how can we leverage data in the portal, how can we do a great job evaluating humans. And then how can we remain emotionless and then selling the vision on what it means to be part of the best team possible. Third is development. Utah has always been a very good development team but then again we’re investing more resources with our strength and conditioning program, with our nutrition, how can we take what Utah has been great at and continue to develop in that area, continue to push the envelope?

“You take those three pieces together and whether it’s directly stated, it’s all differentiation. How can we do things more unique than other programs in order to win those small margins? Everybody focuses on the big margins in football, the big margins in recruiting, but how can you win those little things that other people aren’t focused on?”

Utah has only four commitments at this point but D’Orazio also argues there is a perception vs. reality battle in recruiting. Coach Morgan Scalley wants to build Utah – to no one’s surprise – through the offensive and defensive lines but in the last week, the Utes dropped multiple prospects because their NIL demands were too high so there’s no point to bring them in for an official visit. 

“From the perception world, Utah is going to lose out on that kid,” D’Orazio said. “There’s deciphering what’s real and what’s not real in that situation.”

The depth chart from an NIL perspective is also broken down to the extreme level.

It starts with the entire depth chart. Then each position is a portion of the total budget. Then within each position, it’s broken down one-by-one by each player.

“My goal in the whole process is to be as emotionless as possible,” D’Orazio said. “Each of those depth chart positions, you have ranges. The high end of the range have behavior traits that exhibit what we want out of a Utah football player. The low end of the ranges are guys who don’t go to class, who are late for workouts, people who aren’t consistently day-in and day-out exhibiting our culture.

“The overreaching goal is how can you build a championship team which coach Scalley said in his introductory press conference through leveraging a data-driven strategy?”

From evaluation, to valuation, to development, to brand building to maximizing value and beyond, Utah is going to find out.

A pretty smart guy – and his army of very-capable lieutenants which include Stacy, director of player personnel Mason Yellico and many others – are going to find out.