Recruiting 2004-2010

[CarrollVermin]

I was working on some recruiting statistics and thought I would share the following with you. Below is the average recruiting class rating (stars per player per class) from 2004 to 2010.

1. USC 4.00
2. Florida 3.76
3. Texas 3.69
4. LSU 3.65
5. UGA 3.60
6. Ohio St. 3.58
7. Oklahoma 3.58
8. Florida St. 3.53
9. Michigan 3.50
10. Alabama 3.42
11. Notre Dame 3.40
12. Miami (FL) 3.39
13. Tennessee 3.38
14. UCLA 3.22
15. Auburn 3.21

ND's best year in the cycle was 2008 (3.96) and the worst was 2004 (2.83). Interesting to see how the classes have added up with the various programs...and their subsequent success.

 

[irish1958]

It would be interesting to see the average ranking at the end of the season of these programs over these years.
And it is fun to speculate as to the reason the Irish did so poorly with essentially top ten talent.
Maybe smart football players play poor football.
Of course it couldn't be coaching

 

[PLACforever]

I'd be curious to see how much higher our average would be by looking at the data for the past 5 years(2007-2011)

 

[Old Man Mike]

List raises all sorts of questions about the obviously under-performing programs, while simultaneously demonstrating the advantage to at least get the supermen on campus. Sure, the Boises, TCUs, VTs, Oregons aren't on there, but most of the superpowers and the NCs are. Then there's us, UCLA, Tennessee, et al. Quite an illuminating study could be done on the reasons for high-function vs. mediocre-function in programs getting sufficient studs by taking each of these teams apart. One feels that the "answer" is coaching, culture, and overall-system, but it would be nice to understand just what the commonalities are.

 

[irish1958]

And therein lies your PhD

 

[CanadalovesND]

michigan does not recruit better players than us. PERIOD.

 

[NDPhilly]

michigan does not recruit better players than us. PERIOD.

I agree. The reason we are not higher on this list is that we have gone through 2 coaching changes in this time period while Michigan has gone through only 1.

 

[ACamp1900]

Does this include attrition??? becuase if you include that our numbers are sure to fall... in the last ten years our rankings shrink pretty well when you include attrition... which has in fact hit our program a bit more than average over the past decade..

 

[CarrollVermin]

The stats were taken from Rivals for those respective periods. They were the average star rankings per class.

I believe you have three coaching changes in there don't you? Consider the 2004 recruiting class and project that to their junior year, you can see the impact that the class had...

The stats do not include attrition, but that is an interesting variable to consider. We had considered coaching changes as a variable that influences recruiting, but statistically it did not have much of an impact. Winning does. Now, often those two go together. Still working on a model to capture player development.

Michigan was hurt by the last years of Carr...Bama was hurt by the entire Shula era. Oregon has made progress in the last few seasons and overtook USC for the Pac-10 lead a few years ago. I too, was shocked to see UCLA on the list.

A note on Kelly...his classes at UC were consistently poor, ranking in the 2.2 to 2.6 range while he was there; however, he managed to win with development. As a previous post said before, the gap becomes very apparent when they played Florida.

 

[pkt77242]

Does this include attrition??? becuase if you include that our numbers are sure to fall... in the last ten years our rankings shrink pretty well when you include attrition... which has in fact hit our program a bit more than average over the past decade..

Most big time programs have a fair amount of attrition (though we might have been harmed a slight more by multiple coaching changes). All of these are without checking every player in their class, just who I know off the top of my head transfered. I am sure they lost other transfers from these classes.


USC (2006-2008)
Aaron Corp 4*
Broderick Green 4*
Videl Hazelton 5*
Jamere Holland 4*
Emmanuel Moody 4*
DJ Shoemate 4*

Florida (2006-2007)
Jarred Fayson 4*
Jamar Hornsby 4*
Chevon Walker 4*
Mon Williams 4*
Jerimy Finch 4*
Cameron Newton 5*
Bo Williams 4*

 

[pkt77242]

As a comparison

Notre Dame (2006-2008)
Zach Frazier 4*
Demetrius Jones 4*
Matt Carufel 4*
Konrad Reuland 4*
Daniel Wenger 4*
Joseph Fauria 4*

Only looked at 4* and higher as they would harm our score, 3* and less transfering would actually improve it (and it is entirely possible that I missed someone or multiple people.