| Johnny T. works for me
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| Should we be satisfied?
I’d been planning on writing a post like this for a while, and now I finally have a moment, so here goes.
With recruiting having slowed down a bit, it’s worth taking stock of where we’d stand if our current group of verbal commitments made up the entirety of the ’08 class. Obviously this would be pretty disappointing, and there are several recruits (primarily Jason Baldwin, Jeremy Brown, Michael Floyd, Cyrus Gray, Kenneth Page, Trevor Robinson, Carlton Thomas, and Ryan Williams, though there are others as well) with whom we still have a good shot, but let’s just consider it as a POSSIBILITY.
As the attached chart shows, we actually wouldn’t do too badly if we stood pat. Obviously we’re not going to have as many commitments as the banner year of ’06, when the “recruiting” efforts of one Tyrone Willingham left us with loads of empty scholarships and we maxed things out (together with several early enrollments), but the fact is that we’re ahead of both ’06 and ’07 in terms of average star rating and total number of four- and five-star prospects, and we already have more verbal commitments than we did signees last year (a statistic that is of course complicated by a certain trio of defectors).
Moreover, take a look at the total number of “points” given to our respective recruiting classes: clearly this is a somewhat mysterious statistic, but it is the number used to determine overall rankings, and so it’s worth noting that we already have MORE points from both services than we did in either ’06 or ’07. And consider this: a total of 3,550 points would have been good for the #1-ranked Scout class in ’06 and their #7-ranked class in ’07, and 2,226 points would have put us at #8 in Rivals for ’06 and #6 for ’07. Obviously the number of “points” handed out may well vary some from year to year (just consider the divergence in the ’06 and ’07 Scout rankings), so there’s no GUARANTEE that our current crop of commitments would even be good enough to land us in, say, the top ten. That said, such a measure is clearly worth SOMETHING.
Suppose, though, that we DO manage to do well with our remaining prospects. (Note: this is where it gets complicated.) A (reasonably) best-case scenario, so far as I can tell, would be to get one of Baldwin and Floyd, one of Robinson and Page, one of Gray, Thomas, and Williams, and maybe Jeremy Brown. Supposing that we maxed out on that group (and keeping the current star-ratings unchanged), we would end up with 23 total commitments, with either four or five five-star commitments on Scout and one on Rivals, 13 or 14 four-stars on Scout and 18 on Rivals, and five three-stars on Scout and four on Rivals. Averaging those numbers out, you have average star-ratings of 3.978 on Scout and 3.870 on Rivals: compare this to averages of 4.17 and 4.22 for the top Scout classes in ’06 and ’07 respectively, and 3.96 and 3.89 respectively for the top Rivals classes in those years. One last statistic in this regard: the top Scout classes had eight 5*, 12 4*, and four 3* in ’06 and ten 5*, 13 4*, and four 3* in ‘07, and the top Rivals classes had five 5*, 14 4*, and six 3* in ’06 and four 5*, 16 4*, and seven 3* on ’07. (Whew.) Against those measures, these hypothetical best-case classes I’m considering here would DEFINITELY be enough to put us right up near the top.
So there’s a little perspective for you. What do you think? Are you satisfied with this class as it stands, or would you be disappointed if we strike out across the board on our remaining prospects?
__________________
Stoney is a dead man.
Last edited by johnnd05; 08-23-2007 at 05:41 PM..
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