Clemson @ Florida State 2012 Depth Chart Comparison

Clemson opens up their ACC schedule Saturday against the Florida State Seminoles at Doak Campbell Stadium. We'll see how this squad's recruited talent compares to our Clemson Tigers. Before we get into the analysis, I'll begin with the standard housekeeping items. The depth charts for both teams were attained DIRECTLY from the Clemson website (www.clemsontigers.com). A pdf version of this can be found here. I will go ahead and tell you that because of injuries and Monday depth chart adjustments, some items here may be a little out of place but in an effort to maintain consistency, I'll use both teams' depth charts as presented on the official 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. Players whose Scout/Rivals data was not available but were signed were 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.

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. A quick glance shows you Clemson is behind Florida State across the board in recruited talent. I'll discount the special teams numbers but these numbers are pretty much on par with where i thought the two squads would end up before looking at a single number.

While Clemson has recruited very well the past half decade or so, Florida State flat out killed it--especially with the arrival of Fischer in Tallahassee. On offense, Clemson is approximately one third of a star behind the 'Noles. Defensive talent levels are much closer, with FSU beating out CU on average by 0.20 stars per player. Special teams sees a big FSU lead and the Seminoles hold about a third of a star advantage overall.

Overall info below...the complete data following the jump.

Table I: Overall Recruiting Information

Figure 1: Overall Recruiting Data

Table II: Offensive Comparison

Table III: Defensive Comparison

Table IV: Special Teams Comparison