Using Espn's Power Rankings and rivals' review of the best recruiting teams in the past 5 years, I created this chart on how recent recruiting has played into some teams success, and how the more successful teams with weaker recruiting have better coaches, and how teams that have struggled this year with a lot of talent have coaches on the hot seat.
Things I Noticed
- Justin Fuente has really coached up a lack of talent in his two years here
- Wisconsin could be REALLY overrated this year
- Tennessee and Texas A&M have a lot of talent and with the right coach could be fast national contenders
- Notre Dame is bak
- LOLUVA!!!
I only did the 50 teams from the Rivals site, and was surprised I did not find Ga Tech
Thoughts?
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
It's Bama's football world and the rest of us are living in it until Satan...Er Saban Retires. There will be an occasional glitch in the matrix but he is king in both coaching and recruiticorning right now
Last year ND would have been in the bad quadrant on this chart. The data might be a little more reliable by using the average of last 3 years power rankings coupled with 5 years recruiting.
I agree with this. The graphic for this info is a perfect way to present it, but what we have here is only a slice in time and I would not draw any conclusions from it. Really you would have to apply Pi's recruiting effect formula that weights the classes of the prior years and plot the weighted score against the end of the year power ranking.
This: http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2017/august/30/ot-coaching-em-part-iii...
It has links to the first two installments, which explain the method.
Clearly there's a strong correlation between recruiting and on-field results. It's tough to overachieve on a year-in, year-out basis. In the ACC, only Beamer and Coach Chopblock have done it consistently. Fuente's off to a good start, but here's hoping the recruiting picks up a notch.
BTW, the graphic is great.
Wisconsin and a ton of the midwest schools are interesting schools as the rest of the state feeds them walk-ons and are horribly under recruited. Take the watt brothers the highest recruited one was a 3 star. all three made the nfl.
WVU seems low on the power scale, and uK seems high on the recruit scale for as bad as always seem to finish. BIG west has nothing - which helps Wisky look good against who they play. What would this like if done again in 2 weeks when we get a little deeper into conference play? End of year, year to year numbers would really make a more complete picture than a how do they look halfway through one season. But great job putting together the data like this.
Looking at the rivals page, and Miami AND Tennessee have underachieved based off the talent they have brought in? shocking.
Texas A&M and LSU are the teams that shocked me, I didn't think they recruited that well
Don't know why LSU shocked you. They recruit top 10 classes almost every year. They had the number 1 class last year or a couple years ago, cant remember.
They were 2nd in 2014 and top 10 from 2013-17. It's not like they were wasting these guys- they've had a lot of draft picks. They've just been unable to develop a competent QB.
Edit: LSU had 35 players drafted from 2013-17, including 6 first round picks. I don't know exactly where that ranks but Bama's had 41 picks, Michigan 22, Ohio St. 33, FSU 35, Clemson 29 and VT 13 (1 first rounder, a 3rd rounder, a 4th rounder, and the rest 6th and 7th rounders).
aTm and Texas are always going to be propped up by location and history. They're in the largest state in the continental US, which is THE state for high school football, and most kids grow up with playing for one of those two schools in mind. LSU is THE school in Louisiana. They have their pick of a solid talent pool that was born bleeding purple and gold. Plus, Katrina forced a lot of Louisianans to move to Houston, where those kids have a chance to shine in one of the best areas for football in the country. Given all that, there's little excuse for LSU and the Texas schools consistently underperforming in recent years.
Man, they just can't catch a break.
You mentioned UVA. Their recruiting classes, per Rivals:
2013: 28
2014: 41 (with 2 5-star kids, which is impressive)
2015: 44
2016: 61
2017: 57
2018: 50
What little talent London left is about to graduate. Unless Bronco is Lombardi reborn or gets a whole bunch of grad transfers who can play things are about to get a lot worse.
Yes recruiting results matter and correlate directly to on-field success.
For every walk-on/2*/3* who can be cited for performing at a high level and potentially being drafted, there are literally hundreds who don't amount to jack.
There is probably an equal number of 4*/5* that bust as well.
Percentage wise (which is what matters), that is false. A much higher percentage of 4 and 5* players get drafted than 0, 2 or 3.
According to this data from 2014, 4 or 5* players were 10x more likely to be drafted in the first round of the draft
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2014/5/12/5696710/n...
As far as the full 2014 draft went:
In the 2017, 35 of the 80 players named to the Pro Bowl (43.8 percent) were rated as either 5-star or 4-star players coming out of high school per the 247Sports Composite
I think my comment wasn't clear. For every walk-on/2*/3* that can be cited as performing at a high level there is a 4*/5* recruit that is a bust.
Generally speaking, the teams with the best players tend to play the best, so this chart shouldn't be that surprising.
Agreed but the chart format is a great visual to setup 4 quadrants.
1. Recruit good play good
2. Recruit bad play bad
3. Recruit good underachieve
4. Recruit bad overachieve
HUGE !!!
-
Wisconsinthe BIG TEN could be REALLY overrated this yearThere, fixed it for yah. Conference best non-conference win? LOLUVA best non-conference loss? OSU to OU or MSU to ND. The Pac12 is the worst power 5 conference this year, but the BIG really doesn't have anything to claim 3 top-ten spots. The ACC got crucified in years past when this was the case, but apparently the BIG will not suffer the same.
I think this is because of a wild imbalance in divisions. OSU, Penn St., MSU, and UM are all in one division and Wisconsin is in the other. The West should have Iowa and Nebraska up there as well, but it seems they're up and down every other year, and even then they'd need more consistency from another member. What's sad is that the BIG Ten probably has some of the best coaches and then the majority under preform.
In last 3-5 years I'd say ACC has best coaches. Harbaugh who is either highest paid or second highest hasn't really done anything at M. So you have Franklin and Meyer.
I think that's fair, I feel like I may need a year or two to say the ACC has the best coaches, but that's personally. I may just be going on name, but Meyer (first ballot HOF), Franklin, Harbaugh (his seat
won'tshouldn't be hot for two years), Dantonio, Ferentz, Fitzgerald, Chryst, Fleck (#Rowtheboat), hell give Durkin a few years and he may turn around UMD. I guess a lot of it does do with name/eye test but it is a strong conference in terms of depth. So you have the given top 3 plus a ton of depth that does toe-toe or beats other conferences imo. Side note I'm not sure why people think Harbaugh was gonna rebuild Michigan in a year or two. As Beamer himself said rebuilds take time.Texas in the top right?
A flaw of using "espn's power rankings" as an indicator of quality of play
For the record, Sagarin has Texas at #25, having played the 5th most difficult schedule in the country. I'm not a believer in Texas, but the computers are.
Do these computers take into account actual W-L?
Or maybe their win over now-ranked Iowa State is propping them up?
So many questions...
The top left should get some recognition. These are coaches or teams who focus on talent evaluation over recruiting stars. Not all have the same budgets as the top right, or the kids who line up at their door. The coaches gotta evaluate, and then sell, and complete with a close. Then, when the kids get to campus, they gotta coach em up.
Gary Patterson and Mike Gundy, along with Beamer/Fuente are in that quadrant, and rightfully so. And then one, or two 5* kids can really elevate their program.
Icehokieguy, I hope you'll take the time to update this throughout the season. For example, I'm looking for FSU to slide down into the "High Recruiting, Low Success" quadrant, which will be ... enjoyable.