Two Deep Recruiting Comparison: Clemson vs. South Carolina 2010

We continue to examine how Clemson's two-deep roster matched up to opponents from a season ago.  Today we compare the Clemson Tigers and South Carolina Gamecocks just prior to their annual post-Thanksgiving football matchup.  We were able to attain the two-deep roster posted on Tigernet prior to the Clemson/Carolina matchup for this exercise (special thanks to T-Net for this info and STS member RazzMcTazz for running down links to the pregame two-deep for us).

We should not have to tell you this, but some folks debate what to take from these articles.  We expect you, the reader, to form an opinion of your own.  Often we will give you our take on things, but you should independently form your own thoughts based on information out there.  This article shows recruiting data for the two-deep roster.  It does not weigh experience nor does it evaluate coaching, preparation, etc...  We think this is an interesting and valuable tool and useful in overall program evaluation because there is a link between these star ratings and other metrics in both college football and the NFL. Clearly, the results of last season's contest did not mirror the data you see below, so you know there is much more to college football than February's Signing Day.

Keep in mind as you look through this data that only players who were officially signed were given a "Star Rating".  Players who were not signed could not be quantitatively assessed a recruiting rating.  Such players get a "NA" rating and were not included in the averaged data.  Again, all data was attained from www.Scout.com and www.Rivals.com.  Players whose Scout/Rivals data was not available but were signed were assigned a "NR".

Figure 1 and Table I both show an average of offensive players, defensive players, and specialist listed on the two-deep roster.   Tables II through IV show the two-deep roster used for analysis along with the recruiting ratings for each player on the roster.

The matchup numbers show a Clemson team with overall higher star ratings.  The Tigers averaged 0.40 stars better than its in-state rival offensively, the Gamecocks were slightly better than Clemson on the defensive side (0.01 via mathematical rounding).  Clemson was 0.02 stars per player better on special teams.  Overall, Clemson maintained a 0.15 star average advantage per player over the USC.

Data can be seen below and after the Jump.

Figure 1:  Average Star Rating per Player (Two-Deep Depth Chart)

Table I:  Average Star Rating Per Player (Two-Deep Depth Chart)

Table II:  Star Ratings per Offensive Player

Table III:  Star Ratings per Defensive Player

Table IV:  Star Ratings per "Specialist"