warning: i took abuse for this on shaggy, but I find it interesting....i have edited it slightly to clarify where i was misunderstood. I do hope it is ok on horn fans to speculate about recruiting (even class rankings) without getting too much abuse! ; ) I have been studying up on how teams are ranked in terms of recruiting and how recruits affect final rankings in terms of team points etc. It appears that if we are indeed taking approximately 30 or 31 recruits this year, it will be near impossible for us to not have a top 5 class based upon who we are currently aiming. In fact, just landing Malik Jefferson (looking highly unlikely at this point, but for the sake of making my point about how one player can affect rankings), we would move up 5 spots based upon today's rankings. He would add over 200 points to our point total which is currently at 1849 points. MJ would move us up to past 2049 points which would currently be good for a #10 or #9 ranking: Team Rankings for Recruiting class 2015 here are the way that points are determined: Point System Based upon whom we are looking currently, I believe we are going to average around 100 points per player we get commitments from going forward. It is easy to imagine a higher average per player, so I am attempting to use conservative numbers. This would get us to near 3,000 total points if not beyond. Over the past 5 years, this would have been top 3 in each year....in fact, it would have been #1 in 2010-2012, but i am aware that there may have been changes in the point system since then which means higher final points per team. Regardless, even the past 2 years we would have been #2. Obviously, there are a ton of "if then" statements in my hypothetical, and we will be artificially ranked higher because we are taking a higher number of recruits, but it is still encouraging to imagine the momentum this will give us in the eyes of next year's recruits. Now let me add a huge caveat to my post. Some decided that due to my post i thought recruiting was more important than coaching, or that i wanted us to go back to Mack's days of winning recruiting championships but not conference or national championships. that's ridiculous. i am so pumped that we have a coach who is so good at coaching that we will be able to compete with 3 star recruits against other teams with 4 and 5 star recruits. having said that, I would love to see what he can do with 4 and 5 star recruits and believe that, on average, 4 and 5 star recruits are rated higher for a reason. some 4 and 5 star recruits will be busts for sure....but probably less of them will be busts than out of the 3 star ranks. Ok....that's my thoughts. Am i being too positive?
Don't listen to those morons, I stopped along time ago. It's nothing but shameful Aggie-esque excuses pretending it doesn't matter we are now lagging behind several other top schools in the recruiting wars. There's not a coach worth his salt that wouldn't prefer a higher ranked class of mostly 4-stars over one littered with 3's. It's not an exact science by any means and has many exceptions, but for the most part kids are higher ranked for a good reason. Alabama wouldn't be running the SEC and nation consistently if every year they were working with the #20 ranked recruiting class. There are other programs they face with quality coaches that develop well also. So yeah, player development matters a ton, but the ability to do so resides in more than a handful of coaching staffs in America. Which is why those programs fight tooth and nail for the highest regarded recruits to start the process with. Ignore all that "it doesn't matter to me we have a bunch of 3-stars now because Strong sees something in them" ********. What he sees is the 4-star and 5-stars ahead of them at that position going elsewhere and how knows it's a lost battle each time he missed one he pursued. You take the best of what you can get and do the most you can with it. But saying he didn't desire more is nonsense.
Some recuits are so exceptional, everyone can see they are good, even the journalists who assign the recruit rankings score. Sometimes a coach can see potential, evaluate ability and project a big winner the web sites misevaluated. Jerry Patterson, Art Briles, Bill Snyder, Mike Sherman, and others can spot, evaluate and develop talent and I trust them more than Rivals on player evaluation. With Charlie Strong, it's too early for me to tell. Alabama and Florida State are winning with players everybody knew were good. Texas has been muddling along with players ranked almost as high. TCU and Baylor are winning big with fewer Rivals stars in their classes.
For scoring purposes Rivals only uses the top 20 recruits and Scout uses the top 25. We would have to finish off with quite a bang. I figure we would need two fives and three fours just to crack the top ten as it stands now.
oh wow...then i am completely mistaken. i don't at all expect that to happen. i thought it was a pure addition of all the recruits individual points. major mistake on my part.
Hi MOP: Just to provide a little help in getting the overall view of how Rivals ranks players. You will notice that we added a five star and four star player but only moved up a bit. We do hove our top 20 at three stars and above now. The two stars were lowering our score until today. . We have a ways to go to crack the top ten but it is still possible. Take a look at LSU. They only have 15 recruits but their average rank is: 3.67 compared to our 3.23. If they get five more recruits at their current average they will jump us. Hope this helps. Here is the Rivals ranking formula. Sorry you have to cut and paste. I cannot make it work with a name. https://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?SID=880&CID=1364602
