Who won the big recruiting battles this year?

In rating prospects this year, Scout.com gave its top 50 recruits “5 Stars”. While we will not know for some years whether these players merited their ratings, traditionally a high percentage of 5 star players make a significant impact in college football.

Certainly, these recruits are much sought after by top college programs. Some of these young men know fairly early on where they want to go, and they make one (or none) visits to interested schools. Some make many visits to different schools.

In looking at the top 50 Scout.com recruits this year, some were clearly hard fought wins for the programs they signed with. But who did the best in luring away otherwise interested top prospects from rival schools? For our purposes, we will assume a recruit was “interested” if he either visited a school or attended one of that school’s camps, and been received an offer from the school.

The results of the competition for the top 50 high school players for 2007 had some interesting battles, and some surprising names.

First of all, 1 top player (RB Noel Devine) did not sign with anyone, so our analysis looks at the other 49.

20 of the remaining 49 committed to a school after either one visit or less. The breakdown of these 20 is as follows –

USC -4
Texas – 4
Florida - 3
Pittsburgh - 2
Notre Dame - 1
Michigan -1
Wisconsin -1
Georgia – 1
Ohio State -1
Virginia Tech -1
Virginia -1
Auburn -1

You have the last 3 “national champions” getting a total of 11 top commits that they essentially didn’t have to compete very hard for. In Florida’s case, Torrey Davis, Chris Rainey and Aaron Hernandez all committed in August of last year or before. Pittsburgh is surprisingly next on this list with 2 top 50 players that only visited that school. The other schools all got one each.

Of the 29 “battles”, Florida and USC were by far and away the most competitive schools. Florida won 7 battles, USC 6 (overall they took 20 of the top 50 between them). In looking at the “battle scores” below, note that schools have more “overs” than total wins because in winning they often beat out more than a single suitor.

Battle Scores

Florida – 7 wins (10 total)

Over -

LSU 2
Miami 2
Ohio State 2
USC 1
South Carolina 1
Clemson 1
Georgia Tech 1
Michigan 1
Notre Dame 1
FSU 1
Alabama 1

USC – 6 wins (10 total)

Over –

Michigan 3
Florida 2
LSU 1
Mississippi 1
Ohio State 1
Oregon 1
Arizona 1
Tennessee 1
UCLA 1
Nebraska 1
Arizona St 1

LSU – 3 wins (3 total)

Over –

Florida 2
FSU 2
Oklahoma 1
Tennessee 1
USC 1
Notre Dame 1
Ohio State 1

Tennessee – 3 wins (3 total)

Over -

Ohio State 2
Auburn 1
Georgia 1
Florida 1
Notre Dame 1

Illinois – 2 wins (2 total)

Over -

Maryland 1
Michigan 1
Notre Dame 1
USC 1

Michigan 1 win (2 total)

Over –

USC 1
Cal 1
UCLA 1

South Carolina – 1 win (1 total)

Over –

Georgia 1
North Carolina 1
Clemson 1

Miami – 1 win (1 total)

Over –

Florida 1
Alabama 1
Georgia 1

North Carolina – 1 win (1 total)

Over –

FSU 1
Illinois 1
Tennessee 1
USC 1

UCLA – 1 win (1 total)

Over –

Arizona State


Clearly not only were Florida and USC the top competitors for talent, they were the top winners. But who were the top losers? Teams losses in head-to-head competition (more than one loss) –

Florida - 6
Ohio State – 6
USC – 5
Michigan – 5
Notre Dame – 4
FSU – 4
LSU – 3
Tennessee – 3
Arizona St – 3
Georgia – 3
Miami – 2
Clemson – 2
UCLA – 2

However, losses in head-to-head for top 50 talent doesn’t tell the whole story. In the cases of Florida and USC, they were competitive for, and ultimately won, so many battles that some losses are explainable. So if we take a modified score that subtracts the losses from the overall commitments of top 50 talents, we get a better idea of the overall effectiveness of the recruiting effort. In Florida’s case, although they lost 6 battles, they won 10, for an overall score of 4.

Modified “loser” scores are as follows (from worst to best) –

Ohio State – negative 5
Michigan – negative 4
FSU – negative 4
Notre Dame – negative 3
Arizona State – negative 3
Georgia – negative 2
Clemson – negative 2
Miami – negative 1
UCLA – negative 1
Georgia Tech - negative 1
Mississippi - negative 1
Oregon - negative 1
Nebraska - negative 1
Oklahoma - negative 1
Maryland - negative 1
California - negative 1
North Carolina - 0
South Carolina – 0
Tennessee – 0
LSU – 0
Auburn -0
Illinois -1
Virginia Tech -1
Virginia -1
Wisconsin - 1
Pittsburgh - 2
Texas - 4
Florida – 4
USC – 5

What this admittedly somewhat confusing chart shows is something actually very enlightening. Of the battles for the top 50 players in the country, many schools lost more contests than they won. In Ohio State’s case, they got one top 50 player (S Eugene Clifford). However, they lost 6 other head-to-head battles for top talent to other schools. In other words, when it came to competing for top talent, Jim Tressell’s crew came out on the bottom.

Also startling is the lack of familiar names with top 50 talent, or those schools with only a single player. Florida State got none of the top 50 players (though they got a 5 star junior college commitment). Likewise, neither Nebraska nor Oklahoma landed a single top player per Scout.com.

Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame got a single top 50 player each. Miami got 1, but also lost out head-to-head in 2 cases.

The biggest winners appear to be Florida, USC and Texas (who intriguingly did not have to compete for – nor lose – a single commitment).

The successes of USC, Texas and Florida in the past 3 years may have a lot to do with the results in the 2007 recruiting battles for top talent. After winning the BCS Championship on January 8th, Florida picked up 10 commitments, including 6 of the aforementioned 5 star players. During the same period, Ohio State got only 2 commitments, both 4 star. Of the 6 five star players Florida signed, 2 had actually visited Ohio State and received offers.

USC, Texas and Florida - perhaps in this case, past is prologue.