Sports/General

Recruiting rankings don’t mean much

Posted by Robert Vanasse on February 6, 2008 at 11:13 am.

Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News analyzed the utility of recruiting rankings as a predictor of teams’ future success and noted: “If recruiting rankings told the entire story, Miami and Florida State should have been top-10 teams, as their Rivals.com five-year ratings suggest. Instead, in the past two years, the Hurricanes have a 12-13 record and the Seminoles are 14-12. … Among those teams that made it but should not have based on five-year recruiting rankings: No. 4 Missouri (35.2 five-year average ranking), No. 6 West Virginia (39.8), No. 7 Kansas (45.2), No. 9 Virginia Tech (28.6) and No. 10 Boston College (36.0).

The complete article “Recruiting success doesn’t always lead to on-field success” is here: http://www.al.com/sports/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/1202289408283100.xml&coll=2

3 Responses to “Recruiting rankings don’t mean much”

  • 1
    Scott Smith Says:
    February 6th, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    There’s another article on ESPN that points out 10 cases of where unremarkable recruits such as Bob Sanders and A.J. Hawk go on to star over more touted recruits. With such disparate talent pools in the different state high schools (and instances like Alex Smith who didn’t throw for a lot of yards because he was busy handing off to Reggie Bush in high school), it’s gotta be the biggest crap shoot in sports.

  • 2
    Scott Smith Says:
    February 6th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

    Here’s the article: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/columns/story?columnist=feldman_bruce&id=3231250

  • 3
    Cruiser Says:
    February 6th, 2008 at 3:09 pm

    Bunk.

    Loserspeak.

    Recruiting rankings DO matter. Is there much of a difference between teh 1st calss and the 5th class? No. But is there a difference between 3 and 43? Yes. Also, having one great recruiting hual followed by a bad year might “average out” as the same as 2 consecutive mediocre classes, but it simply doesn’t work that way.

    Of course there will be statistical outliers, just like there are with the NFL draft, and other factors like homesickness, injuries, systems, coaching changes, and development go into the final analysis as well.

    But I’d rather take 25 4- and 5-star athletes than 25 scrubs. Even if only 1/2 of them end up working out, it is a great class.