How we stack up on the recruiting trail against the 2010 opponents
by FIGUREFOUR on Aug 23, 2010 5:00 AM EDT
in Recruiting
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PrintWe have been crunching some numbers lately to try to see how Clemson matches up with their opponents. We are currently in the process of putting together a pretty comprehensive recruiting database for the Tigers and our opponents. Today we will examine these items from a distance to get a better grasp of how Clemson stacks up based purely on talent alone.
While we realize that talent alone will not win you football games, it definitely helps if the most talented players on the field are on your team. We also realize that there are some busts and some players who are underrated coming out of high school. It is difficult to objectively make adjustments and we feel that the best way to move forward is to utilize the "experts" rankings and assume that the AVERAGE accurately reflects talent recruited on an annual basis.
We will also be using this data over the course of the season to better examine how Clemson matches up with its opponent each week of the season. I think this data and the visuals that it will provide will be interesting to see. We will also be looking for trends to help us better anticipate future performances. So hit the jump and dig through the data with us!
After mining all the data and putting these rankings into a comparative table format, I was a little surprised at some of the results that emerged. Clemson, on average based on Rivals.com and Scout.com recruiting rankings over the past five recruiting classes, has been out-recruited by 4 or 5 teams based on the opinions of these services.
Auburn, Miami, and Florida State easily rank higher than Clemson. North Carolina (based on a strong 2009 class) ranked higher than CU through Scout rankings and South Carolina (also helped by a highly ranked 2007 class) eased past Clemson in the Rivals average rankings. Interestingly, most of the predictions that I have seen to date have Clemson losing 4-5 games. I also saw a few weeks ago the Vegas over-under on wins for Clemson sat at 7.
I admit that I am a little surprised about a couple of the ratings. Based on recent performance, I definitely would not have expected to see Maryland ringing inside a Top 35 Rivals average. Georgia Tech has had recent success despite only one really good (Top 20) recruiting class over the past 5 years.
These stats also show past powerhouse teams Florida State and Miami have been getting quality players and should be poised to return to success if their leadership can implement appropriate strategies to properly utilize team talent. Auburn has been recruiting well for years. Tommy Tuberville and Gene Chizik have done a fine job bringing players to the Plains as shown below. With this much talent, it is easy to see how GC was able to come in and win immediately.
Clemson should have no problems with Wake Forest, North Texas, NC State, or Boston College based on talent alone.
SCOUT TEAM RECRUITING RANKINGS:
|
|
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
Average |
|
North Texas |
108 |
103 |
68 |
116 |
117 |
102.4 |
|
Auburn |
9 |
6 |
18 |
16 |
6 |
11 |
|
Miami (FL) |
14 |
13 |
3 |
24 |
14 |
13.6 |
|
North Carolina |
25 |
14 |
30 |
6 |
31 |
21.2 |
|
Maryland |
27 |
48 |
52 |
28 |
42 |
39.4 |
|
Georgia Tech |
49 |
15 |
37 |
32 |
41 |
34.8 |
|
Boston College |
44 |
50 |
22 |
81 |
43 |
48 |
|
North Carolina State |
42 |
60 |
29 |
39 |
47 |
43.4 |
|
FloridaState |
12 |
33 |
8 |
18 |
9 |
16 |
|
Wake Forest |
65 |
63 |
67 |
56 |
62 |
62.6 |
|
South Carolina |
33 |
7 |
34 |
13 |
34 |
24.2 |
|
Clemson |
22 |
23 |
11 |
42 |
23 |
24.2 |
RIVALS TEAM RECRUITING RANKINGS:
|
|
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
Average |
|
North Texas |
113 |
113 |
86 |
104 |
98 |
102.8 |
|
Auburn |
10 |
7 |
20 |
19 |
4 |
12 |
|
Miami (FL) |
14 |
19 |
5 |
15 |
16 |
13.8 |
|
North Carolina |
30 |
17 |
32 |
9 |
29 |
23.4 |
|
Maryland |
29 |
35 |
38 |
26 |
36 |
32.8 |
|
Georgia Tech |
57 |
18 |
49 |
49 |
43 |
43.2 |
|
Boston College |
37 |
46 |
33 |
70 |
47 |
46.6 |
|
North Carolina State |
51 |
49 |
31 |
52 |
34 |
43.4 |
|
Florida State |
3 |
21 |
9 |
7 |
10 |
10 |
|
Wake Forest |
75 |
89 |
58 |
64 |
69 |
71 |
|
South Carolina |
24 |
6 |
22 |
12 |
24 |
17.6 |
|
Clemson |
16 |
16 |
12 |
37 |
19 |
20 |
19 comments
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Comments
Good analysis.
I had an excel file (that was lost when my computer crashed) that had the average rankings of scout and rivals for all of our players and the average star rating for our starters was actually below 3.0 up until last year. Basically, players like Aaron Kelly, Tyler Grisham, Michael Palmer, and Chris Hairston, who were all pretty good players, were rated as 2-stars and brought down the average. I thought that was interesting because everyone felt we were wasting all of this talent, but our guys really were not rated that high.
There is something in these Hills!
Good idea
I was looking at the chart and wondered how different the 2009 column would be if the average player rankings were used. In 2009 we had so few scholarships given that the class was ranked low.
I think our actual performance will be better because we have had no players leave early last year.
I agree with you.
Also, some schools sign huge classes that bump up their rankings, but then run off the ones that do not pan out, or better yet, do not admit the ones they don’t want.
There is something in these Hills!
by Tigerplowboy on Aug 23, 2010 12:24 PM EDT up reply actions
I anticipate putting out something similar to what you are discussing in the next week or so
that should be much more in-depth than just these (overall) ratings. This should help us baseline our group against the other folks we play each and every week.
Clemson Sports Analysis and Insight
www.shakinthesouthland.com
Players-on-the-roster rankings would be far better (though harder to compile). Class size matters.
According to this statistical analysis, if you had the #1 class with 25 5-star players in 2008, and the #99 class with one 4-star player in 2009, your average ranking would be #50, despite having twenty-five 5-star players and one 4-star player on your roster.
Nonetheless, since that’s an extreme example, I think the above data are a pretty telling.
If you throw out the anomalous 2009 transition year, Clemson’s average improves to 19.75 (Scout) and 15.75 (Rivals). That’s roughly the range for where I think Clemson will end up being ranked by the AP in the final poll.
I probably should have looked at weighing the data to better show how these players would effect the current team’s status.
I anticipate playing with these data to try to better guage how much talent really means and what method/model for such data would better shadow what happens in the real world. As always, any suggestions anyone has to improve our analysis would be appreciated.
Clemson Sports Analysis and Insight
www.shakinthesouthland.com
It is pretty time consuming to go back and get the rankings of all of the players in each class.
However, I think that inforamtion is archived on both the Rivals and Scout websites. Even then, though, there are a ton of variables that impact success. For example, GT probably will not have many highly rated classes because of their system, but the players they get may be very well suited for that offense. Also, I think Rivals or Scout is more likely to rate a player higher if he has an offer from Miami or FSU, even if their coaches mis evaluated that certain player. You also have to consider injuries…a guy like Scotty Cooper probably would have had a much different career had he not been hurt. Same is true with JK Jay. Oh well. It would be mighty boring if there was a sure way to predict success of these teams.
There is something in these Hills!
by Tigerplowboy on Aug 23, 2010 10:45 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
This is quite interesting.
I would love to see the enrolled rankings used to calculate total stars recruited in that time span. Some of these schools’ have rankings that are inflated because they do not exclude players who did not enroll
This team will improve in '10... on its 16-16 conference record over the last 4 years.... after losing 20 games in the last 4 years... after having the 7th worst major-conference defense... after not even winning its own division in the ACC in the last 4.
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by Bud Elliott on Aug 24, 2010 11:48 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
It's interesting that Rivals & Scout don't compile & rank the 4-5 year cumulative star-data.
It would be a simple database query for the folks Rivals and Scout to do (if they didn’t bother determining which players are actually on the rosters). I wonder if they don’t do it because they don’t think people would care, or if it’s because the data would show that their rankings are not very predictive.
Any of us could look up and compile the data from their websites (even if you’re not a paying member), but it would be very time consuming to do for multiple teams.
I bet they could sell that information to vegas, or even better, continue re-ranking the players through their college careers and sell that information to vegas.
If there were some way they could rank talent, the coaches based on actual coaching ability (and not necessarily their ability to recruit), and the experience level of the players, then they would be well on their way to producing some type of statistical analysis that would predict wins and losses. I would be much more interested in seeing that than the BS that is spewed in the pre-season publications. Huge undertaking for one person, but if everyone who had a website with SB Nation did their team and then shared with everyone else, then the task might not be so bad.
There is something in these Hills!
by Tigerplowboy on Aug 24, 2010 5:01 PM EDT up reply actions
I was thinking the same with regards to a division-of-labor compiling the data.
I don’t think that the data compilation would be of much use to sports betters. Guys like Rob Spence have clearly proven that you can piss away massive amounts of player talent, while guys like Bud Foster have proven that you can develop unknowns into champs.
Coaching would obviously have to be factored in to the equation.
Not just head coaches but also assistant coaches.
There is something in these Hills!
by Tigerplowboy on Aug 26, 2010 5:20 PM EDT up reply actions
They dont want you to doubt their rating system as a whole
so they wont compile that data.
If they leave it as is, the onus goes to the coach for not developing or recruiting smarter players.
VT is a great example of low star rankings but great performance. BC is another.
Some say teams like VT & BC exceed recruit-ranking-based expections because their coaches do such a great job of developing talent. And some say it’s because the recruiting publications are biased and spend more effort evaluating and rating players from recruiting hotbed states like Florida & Texas than from places like Virginia & New England. Maybe it’s a combination of both.
Probably some of both.
Something else that is not talked about is that a lot of schools redshirt just about everyone, so your marginal 3 star player who needs to develop has a year, and then is on the same level as a 4-star player coming right out of HS that is on track to avoid a redshirt. I think this is how WF fields a relatively competitive team despite never bringing in the 4 and 5 star players.
There is something in these Hills!
by Tigerplowboy on Aug 26, 2010 5:24 PM EDT up reply actions
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