Recruiting – Who is best positioned going into 2008?

While we have acknowledged the limitations of our two recruiting models based on Scout.com and Rivals.com data (Scout changed it’s rating system in 2007, Rivals appears to have school specific bias), we still believe the models have some value, if none other than current perception of the talent base at particular schools.

Which leads us to this project – identifying which teams are best positioned by talent base going into the 2008 recruiting season.

First let’s look at Rivals.com 3 year (2005-2007) trailing point totals for the top 25 teams, or the period that will make up most of the talent base going into next season (total points noted) –

1 Southern Cal 8,410
2 Florida 7,327
3 Florida State 6,679
4 Tennessee 6,374
5 Oklahoma 6,325
6 LSU 6,268
7 Texas 6,254
8 Georgia 6,145
9 Auburn 5,757
10 Michigan 5,719
11 Nebraska 5,344
12 Alabama 5,340
13 Ohio State 5,231
14 Miami-FL 5,213
15 Notre Dame 4,782
16 South Carolina 4,736
17 Clemson 4,727
18 California 4,706
19 Penn State 4,698
20 Virginia Tech 3,863
21 Ole Miss 3,808
22 Texas A&M 3,799
23 Arizona 3,717
24 Iowa 3,615
25 Maryland 3,606

Once again I suspect FSU’s points might be “over inflated”.

Notable is the total point lead of USC (more than 1000 better than 2nd place Florida). Overall the placement of the schools is remarkable stable vis-à-vis the prior trailing 4 year total. Exceptions include improvement for Tennessee (7th to 4th), Auburn (12th to 9th), Nebraska (14th to 11th), Clemson (20th to 17th), and Virginia Tech (24th to 20th). Getting somewhat worse include Miami (10th to 14th), Penn State (15th to 19th), Maryland (22nd to 25th) and Oregon (21st to 30th).

Next let’s see what Rivals has for the 3 year average “Star” rating for the players on the squads. This looks at the average rating of the players recruited for the 2007-2007 period –

1 Southern Cal 4.04
2 LSU 3.74
3 Florida 3.72
4 Texas 3.66
5 Ohio State 3.63
6 Georgia 3.57
7 Florida State 3.57
8 Oklahoma 3.52
9 Michigan 3.50
10 Miami-FL 3.46
11 Tennessee 3.45
12 Notre Dame 3.39
13 Auburn 3.36
14 Nebraska 3.31
15 Alabama 3.31
16 Penn State 3.27
17 Clemson 3.23
18 California 3.23
19 UCLA 3.17
20 South Carolina 3.15
21 Arizona 3.06
22 Texas A&M 3.03
23 Maryland 2.98
24 Arkansas 2.96
25 Iowa 2.96

This list is too remarkably stable compared to the 4 year average (2004-2007). Improving notably from the four year average are Ohio State (8th to 5th) and Auburn (16th to 13th), while no one get’s markedly worse.

These lists show us who is well poised to benefit from the current recruiting efforts. At this point total points for the 2008 class is largely meaningless due to the relatively few numbers of commitments, trends in average “Star” ratings are somewhat more telling. The current (for the 2008 class thus far) top 25 by average “Star” rating are –

1 Southern Cal 4
2 Ohio State 3.93
3 Notre Dame 3.9
4 Oklahoma 3.8
5 Georgia 3.75
6 Florida State 3.74
7 Alabama 3.68
8 UCLA 3.64
9 Florida 3.64
10 Michigan 3.53
11 Texas 3.47
12 Auburn 3.43
13 LSU 3.4
14 California 3.36
15 Pittsburgh 3.31
16 Miami-FL 3.3
17 Texas A&M 3.29
18 North Carolina 3.29
19 Colorado 3.27
20 Clemson 3.25
21 Penn State 3.25
22 Virginia Tech 3.2
23 Tennessee 3.18
24 Texas Tech 3.15
25 Nebraska 3.14

Were this trend to hold, the top 25 for next year’s total squad would be (2005-2008) –

1 Southern Cal 4.03
2 Ohio State 3.71
3 Florida 3.70
4 LSU 3.65
5 Texas 3.62
6 Georgia 3.61
7 Florida State 3.61
8 Oklahoma 3.59
9 Notre Dame 3.52
10 Michigan 3.51
11 Miami-FL 3.42
12 Alabama 3.40
13 Tennessee 3.38
14 Auburn 3.38
15 UCLA 3.29
16 Pittsburgh 3.28
17 Nebraska 3.27
18 California 3.26
19 Clemson 3.24
20 Texas A&M 3.09
21 South Carolina 3.09
22 Maryland 3.01
23 Virginia Tech 3.00
24 Arkansas 2.96
25 Arizona 2.96

The obvious remarkable trend here would be the elevation of Ohio State to the 2nd most “talented” team in the nation (from 8th currently). FSU would, finally, fall from one of the top slots.

Why is this important? Well despite all the turmoil in the BCS this year, the BCS contenders have typically come from somewhere in the top10 every year we have been following this in the Scout.com data (3 years). This year, the BCS title teams were 2nd (LSU) and 8th (Ohio State) in this Rivals.com average "Star" data. Moreover, look at the placement of the following –

In four of the “big 5” conferences either the 1st place team in accumulated talent or average “star” talent won the conference. The exception was the ACC, where Virginia Tech places a lowly 5th in conference in talent per Rivals – behind FSU, Miami, Clemson and Maryland.

I don’t know what to make of the ACC, but otherwise it is the consistently judged (per Scout and Rivals) top talented teams that win both conference and “national” championships. If this holds true in 2008, look for your BCS title game to contain 2 of the following – USC, Ohio State, Florida, LSU, Texas, Georgia, FSU, Oklahoma, Notre Dame and/or Michigan, and your BCS games to filled with most of the others.