Stars and Class Rankings

Now that we are back to two straight years of typical BYU recruiting class after the 2010 one-time flash that Jake Heaps headlined and significantly helped build, it seems the tune has changed a bit on our recruiting rhetoric about how much all of these stars matter. And perhaps the 2010 class was a reality check.



The Wall Street Journal went back to about 2005/6 and analyzed the stars recruited and how it all turned out. It was in today's printed copy I picked up in Chicago. Or if I was asleep instead of half asleep having gotten up at 3:30AM Chicago to fly home via San Fran in a 14 hour endurance test, it might have been USA Today -



Five Star - means expected to be an eventual NFL 1st Round Pick. In reality, 54% never make it to the NFL draft at all - let alone 1 st round. More than half are total busts re NFL.



Four Star - means expected to be all-conference by the time they graduate and likely play in the NFL. More than 80% of these never play in the NFL.



Three Star - means they are expected to start for two years of their career in college. More than 90% of these never play in the NFL.



Two Star - everyone signed by an FBS school gets at least two stars. It did not say what % play in the NFL. Generally they are not projected to do so, but some do.



So - Stars and Rankings are a bit over-rated, but they do raise the odds of being good enough to play football for a living.



The Utes kicked our butts on and off the field this year - but I would rather be ranked 25 in one poll than be not even be close to being ranked.



This is at least some indication that if we do get an invite to The Big 12 - our recruiting might step up a notch and we might be more able to compete.



Our recruiting class is not necessarily any worse than a typical BYU class, but this Ute class might be their best ever.



Maybe our rookie recruiting coordinator will get better as time goes by. But the high expectations that our new regime would take recruiting to a higher level just did not happen in year 1.



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TBS' BG says this class is better than 2011 but less than 2010. IMO The top 5-10 are really good and most will become starters. The bottom half will need to develop and some will turn out good.

If Scout included the RM transfers and the walkons we would be a top 50 class. Small class but not bad.

I thought it would be interesting to compare 2011 Sagarin Rankings with the 2008 and 2009 Rivals Recruiting Rankings.



Picking which year to compare to the Sagarin rankings is tricky. For example, Alabama was ranked #1 in both 2008 and 2009. However, many key members of the 2008 class (including Mark Ingram and Julio Jones) were already gone by the time the Tide won the NC this year. Meanwhile, the 2009 class contained their QB (McCarron) and their feature back (Richardson).



If I was only interested in the performance of the 4 and 5 star recruits, a two-year window would probably be the most appropriate - those guys tend to see the field sooner rather than later. On the other hand, it sometimes does take a recruit a year or two to find their game. I decided the best compromise would be to take the best year between the two.



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The non-italicized teams are teams that had at least one year in 08-09 where their recruiting class was in the 28. The italicized teams are teams that finished in the top 25 but did not have a top 28 recruiting class.



Starred teams have a recruiting ranking that was taken from Scout instead of Rivals due to Rivals only going 50 deep on their website.



Some thoughts -



- I think the article Cougarbib cited frames recruiting well - 4 and 5 star recruits aren't so much better recruits as much as they carry a higher probability of success. In other words, 4 and 5 star recruits are often busts, but they are less often busts than lower-ranked recruits.



Accordingly, the recruiting-performance correlation seems strongest among Alabama, LSU, Texas, South Carolina, Oklahoma - powerhouse schools that were in the top 25 in both 08 and 09. Meanwhile, schools like Colorado and Minnesota - schools that had one significantly stronger class than the other - have less of a success correlation. (Although K-State is notable in that they did quite well last year despite dropping off into the 100s in recruiting in 2009. Who knows.)



- I don't think the teams with very negative correlations would surprise anyone - teams like UCLA, Colorado, Ole Miss, Pitt, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Miami. Mostly teams that have struggled to find a good fit at coach recently. Mostly historically-strong teams that have been struggling for whatever reason. These schools seem to indicate that while providing the raw material of talented recruits is important, it's equally important to have adequate coaching and the proper environment.

scott715 wrote:
If Scout included the RM transfers and the walkons we would be a top 50 class. Small class but not bad.

That would be double counting - they got counted the year they signed - and some of this class will serve missions and you didn't suggest Scout subtract them for now.



No matter how you try to rationalize it, this is a decent, unspectacular class - like we usually get.



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ND East schedules themselves into guaranteed underachievement annually and theN fires the coach every 3-5 yers when they cannot go undefeated vs a steady diet of USC, Stanford, Washington, Utah, Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, Navy, etc. schedules.



I hope ND West avoids a similar over scheduling fate.



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I was talking about Hill and Olsen. They are transfer RMs that were not counted before for us. New players should be added.

Number of recruits are a big factor in our ranking this year.



According to the venerable CougarStats:

Utah has the 38th rated class according to http://Scout.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, but the 51st highest average stars per recruit.



According to http://Scout.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, #BYU has the 57th ranked recruiting class, but they have the 37th highest average stars per recruit.



we already have the bodies coming off of missions, so I think the average stars per recruit seems like a more accurate measure of class. Unfortunately, so does he head to head recruiting battle stat.

scott715 wrote:
I was talking about Hill and Olsen. They are transfer RMs that were not counted before for us. New players should be added.

I agree that those should count and do not know whether they took them into consideration.



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