2012 Clemson vs. WVU Orange Bowl Depth Chart Analysis

A couple months ago Clemson played in the Orange Bowl against West Virginia. We did not take the time to evaluate how this squad’s recruited talent compared to our Clemson Tigers at game time and have been requested to supply this info. Before we get into the analysis, I’ll point out that I have taken the depth charts for both teams DIRECTLY from the Clemson website (www.clemsontigers.com) within the "2012 Orange Bowl Guide" that was placed on the site back in January. I will go ahead and tell you that because of injuries and Monday depth chart adjustments, some items here may end up a little out of place come game time so, in an effort to maintain consistency, I’ll use both teams’ depth charts as presented on the official Clemson Athletics website.

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 depth chart roster as referenced above. It does not weigh experience nor does it evaluate coaching, preparation, etc... We think this is an interesting and valuable tool that is useful in overall program evaluation because there is a link between these star ratings and other metrics in both college football and the NFL.

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. A player whose Scout/Rivals data was not available but was signed was assigned a "NR". We picked carefully through the data and believe all is correct. However, if we've overlooked an item we apologize in advance and ask that you point it out so that we can make the correction in our database.

We all know what happened in the game, so I won't rant and rave again here but do encourage you to share your thoughts.

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.