Virginia Tech Recruiting - Beamer vs Fuente

Based on some earlier conversation throughout a few threads, over the last couple days I have gone into 247 and pulled data to break down our average Recruit Rating according to the 247 composite for the first 5 years of the Fuente era as well as the last 5 years of the Beamer era, to total the past decade of recruiting.

All of this is out of the 64 teams that made up the Power 5 at the time

Beamer

2011 - 84.49 - 33rd Natl - 6th ACC - 3rd Coastal
2012 - 86.46 - 24th Natl - 4th ACC - 2nd Coastal
2013 - 87.70 - 20th Natl - 4th ACC - 2nd Coastal
2014 - 85.99 - 26th Natl - 5th ACC - 3rd Coastal
2015 - 86.35 - 28th Natl - 5th ACC - 3rd Coastal

Fuente

2016 - 84.85 - 37th Natl - 7th ACC - 5th Coastal
2017 - 86.13 - 26th Natl - 5th ACC - 3rd Coastal
2018 - 87.46 - 23rd Natl - 4th ACC - 3rd Coastal
2019 - 87.39 - 28th Natl - 4th ACC - 2nd Coastal
2020 - 84.98 - 54th Natl - 12th ACC - 7th Coastal

Couple of things stand out to me here. First, despite what it might seem like to some, recruiting hasn't fallen off a cliff under Fuente. The numbers just don't back that up. The problem is, they're not really improving. Our average rating per recruit might be trending slightly upwards, which I mean if you discount last year, it is, but its also worth pointing out that the average rating per school in the Power 5 has risen from 85.10 in 2011 to 87.34 in 2020. We also just don't see as many absolutely terrible classes in the Power 5 than we did back in the 2011-2014 range. Nowadays, the bottom class pulls in averages that bottom out between averages of 79 and 80 in 2011 and 2012 to classes that now bottom out around 83.7 and 83.6 in 2019 and 2020.

Across the board, recruiting is improving in the Power 5. The bad schools are pulling in classes that would have been in the low-average range 10 years ago. And the top of the food chain is getting more crowed as more and more teams raise their level to where we are. Last year might have been an aberration, but the charts show that with the trajectory we've been on, schools are catching up, and we're slowly falling back from those we were on an even playing ground with 10 years ago.

Some other observations I've made through this.... Pac 12 recruiting is absolutely terrible. They are a 3 horse conference when it comes to recruiting - USC. Oregon, and UCLA. And honestly, no school is as skilled at absolutely wasting talent as UCLA. They routinely get highly rated classes that should vault them to the top of the sport, especially in the conference they are in, and the fact they still can't manage to put it together is noteworthy. They are a sleeping giant that just can't figure it out right now.

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Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, the Hound, Jeff Jagodzinski, Paul Johnson, Pat Narduzzi.

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"Why gobble gobble chumps asks such good questions, I will never know." - TheFifthFuller

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Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

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"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K

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"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K