A STUDY OF PRESENT TOP 10 BCS SCHOOLS FOOTBALL RECRUITING

Contributor Written on November 05, 2009

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When you look at the present BCS Top 10 football poll do you ever wonder how a Cincinnati, Boise State or TCU compete with the so called 'elite BCS' schools and end up ranked in the top 10? I decided to do a little study using the ESPN recruiting results information over the past 4 years, 2006-2009. I've noted the number of 5 star, 4 star, 3 star, 2 star and one star/or less athletes each school has recruited. You would think that the schools that get the best athletes would be the higher ranked teams. Correct? Not so, as the study reveals.

NOTE: This study only includes those teams PRESENTLY ranked in the BCS poll's top ten. I did throw in the University of Southern California (presently NOT in the top ten) because of their recruiting success since 2006.

1. Florida

Using the following formula as reported by ESPN here are the results over the past 4 years for the University of Florida Gators, presently ranked number one in the BCS poll:

Grade of 85-100 = 5 Star
Grade of 80-84 = 4 Star
Grade of 75-79 = 3 Star
Grade of 68-74 = 2 Star
Grade of 55-67 = 1 Star

The same fornula is applied to each of the teams in this study.

FLORIDA 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star or less

2006 5 12 5 3 2
2007 0 12 12 2 0
2008 2 12 4 1 1
2009 3 7 5 1 0

4 year Totals 10 43 26 7 3

NOTE: Any JC transfers are not counted in the poll since no scoring formula is applied to a JC player.

2. Texas

2. TEXAS

TEXAS 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 5 3 14 2 0
2007 0 8 13 3 1
2008 2 7 9 1 0
2009 1 9 10 0 0

4 year totals 8 27 46 6 1

JC transfers not included

3. ALABAMA

3. ALABAMA

ALABAMA 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 1 0 12 3 6
2007 0 2 14 5 2
2008 1 14 15 1 0
2009 3 12 13 0 0

4 year totals 5 28 54 9 8

JC transfers not included

4. IOWA

4. IOWA

IOWA 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 1 2 3 4 8
2007 0 1 8 6 7
2008 0 1 8 5 10
2009 0 1 5 7 6

4 year totals 1 5 24 22 31

Does not include JC Transfers

5. CINCINNATI

5. CINCINNATI

CINCINNATI 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 0 0 1 2 15
2007 0 0 1 5 16
2008 0 0 6 12 5
2009 0 0 10 9 3

4 year totals 0 0 18 28 39

JC transfers not included

6. TCU

6. TCU

TCU 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 0 0 2 3 12
2007 0 0 4 4 14
2008 0 1 3 2 10
2009 0 1 11 3 5

4 year totals 0 2 20 12 41

JC transfers not included

7. BOISE STATE

7. BOISE STATE

BOISE STATE 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 0 0 2 1 13
2007 0 0 9 2 13
2008 0 0 1 2 17
2009 0 0 6 8 6

4 year totals 0 0 18 13 49

JC transfers not included

8. OREGON

8. OREGON

OREGON 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 0 0 2 2 10
2007 0 0 12 5 10
2008 0 3 8 4 1
2009 0 1 10 5 5

4 year totals 0 4 30 16 26

NOTE: OREGON recruiting numbers are lower because of the high number of JC transfers they recruit. In the years 2006-2009 Oregon signed a total of 18 JUCO players and those numbers are not included.

9. LSU

9. LSU

LSU 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 3 6 7 4 5
2007 1 5 14 4 2
2008 2 8 11 2 3
2009 3 8 12 0 0

4 year totals 9 27 44 10 10

JC transfers not included

10. GEORGIA TECH

10. GEORGIA TECH

GEORGIA TECH 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 0 0 5 6 4
2007 0 1 12 7 0
2008 0 1 12 2 5
2009 0 2 16 2 1

4 year totals 0 4 45 17 10

JC transfers not included (GEORGIA TECH HAD NO JC TRANSFERS FROM 2006-2009 according to ESPN.

USC (Not in the BCS Top 10 - just for fun)

USC (NOT IN THE BCS TOP TEN PRESENTLY - THIS IS JUST FOR GRINS)

USC 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star/or less

2006 7 6 7 3 1
2007 3 5 7 2 1
2008 1 11 7 0 0
2009 2 9 5 0 0

4 year totals 13 31 26 5 2

USC traditionally recruits JC players (8 total from 2006-2009) and they are not included in the above.

THE RESULTS?

To attempt to make some sense of all this information I have come up with the following formula and results.

For each 5 star player recruited I gave the school 5 points, for each 4 star 4 points, 3 star 3 points, 2 star 2 points and for 1 star of less (since a number of recruited players don't have enough points to even warrant one star), one point.

Based on that formula here are the results of the total recruiting points of the present BCS top ten teams with USC included even though the Trojans are not in the top ten teams presently:

SCHOOL TOTAL POINTS

1. Alabama 325

2. Florida 317

3. LSU 315

4. Texas 299

5. USC 279

6.Georgia Tech 195

7. Oregon 172
(tie) Iowa 172

9.Cincinnati 149

10.TCU 133

11. Boise State 129

So what's all this mean? Well, clearly Florida, Alabama, Texas and USC get the majority of 5 star and 4 star players. You would think that those teams couldn't be beat. Right? So how does Cincinnati, TCU and Boise State compete when they can only attract at best 3 star athletes? (Granted, TCU and Cincinnati did successfully recruit a 4 star or 2 but the majority are 3 star or less). Is it coaching? Remember when Boise State played Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl? BSU was lucky if they had 3 or 4 two star players on the field back then! Oklahoma was loaded with 5 star and 4 star players! Go figure. So what is it that allows these teams with far fewer great high school athletes to compete at such high levels? Don't say it's the schedule either. Yes, Boise State plays in the WAC but they thumped a very good Oregon team already this year and TCU has taken down a couple of SEC teams. CIncinnati has beaten some 'elite' teams as well. So how do they do it?

Comments and ideas welcome!

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written on November 05, 2009 Rankings/List

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A STUDY OF PRESENT TOP 10 BCS SCHOOLS FOOTBALL RECRUITING

D. Walker

1. Florida

2. Texas

3. ALABAMA

4. IOWA

5. CINCINNATI

6. TCU

7. BOISE STATE

8. OREGON

9. LSU

10. GEORGIA TECH

USC (Not in the BCS Top 10 - just for fun)

THE RESULTS?

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