Reality of Miami's class ranking

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If you take our bottom 5 guys out then we rise considerably.

I wouldn't drop the bottom 5. Just cause they aren't ranked high doesn't mean squat with the so called experts. Wasn't it this site who called out a recruiting site for having an F$U guy ahead of the MIami guy by a lot even thought the Miami guy has much better stats playing the same competition? I will trust Al's opinion. Some of these no ranked guys get lots of attention after Al gets them.
 
Like it or not, star ratings reflect how various programs and coaches value players. So the star rating for many of our guys aren't so much the result of some "mailman's" evaluation, but rather it is the result of whether the best coaches and the winningest programs like Alabama, LSU, think a kid is good enough to be a part of a national championship program.

Kids who Alabama, LSU, USC, etc. think are national championship caliber have four and five star ratings. Kids that FIU, Syracuse, UCF, etc. compete for aren't four and five star guys. And lo and behold, the teams that win national championships are the teams with highly rated kids, and the teams that don't have highly rated kids don't win national championships.

Even Butch "Mr. Diamonds in the Rough" Davis had lousy results
with every kid except one who was two-star or lower at North Carolina. Most of his success was with his four and five star kids and top-60 by position three star kids.

So when considering star ratings, the value isn't in the evaluation of "mailmen". Rather, it's reflective of whether national champion programs and national champion coaches think a kid is good, versus whether only 40th ranked programs think a kid can play.

That's what's scary about recruiting kids that are two-star or NR. It isn't that mailmen have given them that rating. It's the fact that hardly any top program thinks they're kids who you can compete for a NC with. They're kids that BC, Kansas, UCF sign and finish each season ranked 33rd or 57th in the country with.

When thinking about this stuff only average star rating matters, not class ranking. Because the component of the ranking that's based on class size will even out over four years since every program is limited to 85 players. So average star ratings is the only way to assess and compare the caliber of all 85 players on a roster.

For each national championship team since 2003 I went back and calculated Scout's average star rating for the previous four recruiting classes. That took me back to 2002, which is the first year for recruiting info in Scout's database. (Since no data exists prior to 2002 I used fewer years for the 2003 (2 years) and 2004 (3 years) national champs.) Here are the results:

Year-Team-Avg stars
2011-Ala-3.63
2010-Aub-3.17
2009-Ala-3.43
2008-Fla-3.88
2007-LSU-3.60
2006-Fla-3.66
2005-Tex-3.48
2004-USC-3.53
2003-LSU/USC-3.32/3.30

Currently, UM has a class with an average Scout rating of 3.06. Since 2003, only Auburn has won a NC with an average star rating of less than 3.30 and Auburn won because it had a transcendent player in Cam Newton.

So if UM hopes to win a NC in the next four years, it either needs to increase its average class rating, or hope that Al Golden is the absolute best talent evaluator in college football...even better than Butch Davis.

My guess is that this year reflected some very unique, short term challenges and over the next couple of years Al's avg class rating will increase to become more in line with the top national championship programs. Because in the final analysis, classes with a high avg star rating don't guarantee winning a NC, but classes with low avg star ratings do seem to guarantee that you won't. And I'm pretty sure that Golden like higher rated kids...heck he's gone after a bunch of them (albeit with some mixed success) this year.

As the program recovers I would expect that a typical Golden class will start looking like the classes recruited by other national championship coaches and programs. And coincidentally, those will be the classes rated more highly by the mailmen too. In the meantime, the 2012 class is one we can up up the polls with, but the vast majority of the all the lower rated kids we're signing aren't going going to become the next Ed Reed.
 
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Like it or not, star ratings reflect how various programs and coaches value players. So the star rating for many of our guys aren't so much the result of some "mailman's" evaluation, but rather it is the result of whether the best coaches and the winningest programs like Alabama, LSU, think a kid is good enough to be a part of a national championship program.

Kids who Alabama, LSU, USC, etc. think are national championship caliber have four and five star ratings. Kids that FIU, Syracuse, UCF, etc. compete for aren't four and five star guys. And lo and behold, the teams that win national championships are the teams with highly rated kids, and the teams that don't have highly rated kids don't win national championships.

Even Butch "Mr. Diamonds in the Rough" Davis had lousy results
with every kid except one who was two-star or lower at North Carolina. Most of his success was with his four and five star kids and top-60 by position three star kids.

So when considering star ratings, the value isn't in the evaluation of "mailmen". Rather, it's reflective of whether national champion programs and national champion coaches think a kid is good, versus whether only 40th ranked programs think a kid can play.

That's what's scary about recruiting kids that are two-star or NR. It isn't that mailmen have given them that rating. It's the fact that hardly any top program thinks they're kids who you can compete for a NC with. They're kids that BC, Kansas, UCF sign and finish each season ranked 33rd or 57th in the country with.

When thinking about this stuff only average star rating matters, not class ranking. Because the component of the ranking that's based on class size will even out over four years since every program is limited to 85 players. So average star ratings is the only way to assess and compare the caliber of all 85 players on a roster.

For each national championship team since 2003 I went back and calculated Scout's average star rating for the previous four recruiting classes. That took me back to 2002, which is the first year for recruiting info in Scout's database. (Since no data exists prior to 2002 I used fewer years for the 2003 (2 years) and 2004 (3 years) national champs.) Here are the results:

Year-Team-Avg stars
2011-Ala-3.63
2010-Aub-3.17
2009-Ala-3.43
2008-Fla-3.88
2007-LSU-3.60
2006-Fla-3.66
2005-Tex-3.48
2004-USC-3.53
2003-LSU/USC-3.32/3.30

Currently, UM has a class with an average Scout rating of 3.06. Since 2003, only Auburn has won a NC with an average star rating of less than 3.30 and Auburn won because it had a transcendent player in Cam Newton.

So if UM hopes to win a NC in the next four years, it either needs to increase its average class rating, or hope that Al Golden is the absolute best talent evaluator in college football...even better than Butch Davis.

My guess is that this year reflected some very unique, short term challenges and over the next couple of years Al's avg class rating will increase to become more in line with the top national championship programs. Because in the final analysis, classes with a high avg star rating don't guarantee winning a NC, but classes with low avg star ratings do seem to guarantee that you won't. And I'm pretty sure that Golden like higher rated kids...heck he's gone after a bunch of them (albeit with some mixed success) this year.

As the program recovers I would expect that a typical Golden class will start looking like the classes recruited by other national championship coaches and programs. And coincidentally, those will be the classes rated more highly by the mailmen too. In the meantime, the 2012 class is one we can up up the polls with, but the vast majority of the all the lower rated kids we're signing aren't going going to become the next Ed Reed.

That's some interesting stuff right there. Nice work
 
Interesting work there by palycane. The only question would be is the info constant before and after the fact meaning did rivals/scout go back and adjust rankings after the fact based on the performance of a player? I know they have in the past and with this new lo, mid, and high level star crap they prolly still do the same.

Not only that, these ratings seem to favor so called proven evaluators so are these people truly evaluating anything or just saying.." well saban wants him so he's atleast a 3 star".
 
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