Do Recruiting Rankings Equal Success in College Football?

This takes place on a Wednesday, by the way, and more than 4,000 people show up. It seems like 10,000 though. I’ve been going for a while now. Drinking beer, eating good food, and talking football seems to be a perfectly acceptable way to spend a February Wednesday in Baton Rouge.

But does all this ballyhoo over recruiting equal success?

For an LSU fan, the answer comes in two names: Ryan Perrilloux and Jacob Hester. No need to expound on the Perrilloux situation here at LSU, but let’s just say for this five-star quarterback, things didn’t work out.

Jacob Hester, on the other hand, was a signing day afterthought—a two-star rated recruit thought to be buried on the depth chart for his college football career. I think most know how important Hester was to LSU’s success last year. The San Diego Chargers made it known how important they thought this two-star recruit was by drafting him.

I saw this list and found it intriguing, and I thought I’d share it with you.

The following findings are from 2005-08, so it spans the last four recruiting classes. Since most fans seem to be content with four-star players and ecstatic about five-star players, this is a list of four- and five-star recruits for the past four recruiting classes.

If I did not include your school, I apologize—feel free to look up your school’s recruit totals and post them in the comment section. Also attrition is not accounted for, so if your team’s players like the drugs, can’t hack it with the books, transfer, get injured, or fancy a liquor store holdup, these numbers may be a little off.

This is the top 14.

Florida: 65 (12 five stars and 53 four stars)

USC: 61 (15 five stars, 46 four stars)

Florida State: 57 (6 five stars, 51 four stars)

LSU: 56 (7 five stars, 49 four stars)

Oklahoma: 55 (7 five stars, 48 four stars)

Georgia: 52 (4 five stars, 48 four stars)

Texas:

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