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Feb25
Do Big Ten Bloggers Parallel Recruiting Class Rankings?
When navigating the blogosphere for stories about Big Ten football teams, you will shortly discover that teams such as Michigan and Ohio State have many more blogs following their programs. Certain teams have disproportionately greater internet exposure. So, is there any correlation between the number of blogs that follow a college football team and that team’s recruiting class rank? Let’s find out.
In order to simplify the process, only the blogs that are in the Big Ten Bloggers Network and cover football were included in the analysis. Team blog rankings were determined using total Google Page Rank. Google developed Page Rank in order to measure the importance of a website. While Page Rank can be inaccurate at times, it is the best measurement that is currently available. For example, BuckBravo.com has a Google Page Rank of three. Three is a decent rating, but some Big Ten Bloggers still do not consider BuckBravo.com worthy of a link on their page.
Sites marked with an asterisk recently changed their web addresses, and therefore old web address Page Ranks were used for the analysis:
There is definitely an interesting correlation between number of Big Ten Blogger Blogs and 2009 recruiting class rankings. Remember, Google Page Rank is an imperfect science. Blogs such as Michigan’s MGOBLOG and Iowa’s Black Heart Gold Pants only have Page Ranks of three while I am certain that their daily traffic would warrant higher rankings. Also, Wisconsin’s blog Bucky’s 5th Quarter is brand new and hasn’t had enough time to be ranked. Despite a few irregularities, the numbers and Page Rankings of Big Ten Bloggers’ blogs are generally indicative of what level of talent each team recruited in 2009. Here’s a list of the blogs from the analysis and their Google Page Rankings:
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Michigan
MGOBLOG 3
MVictors 3
Michigan State
Minnesota
Buck Bravo 3
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
There is No Name on My Jersey 4
Purdue
Wisconsin
3 Responses to “Do Big Ten Bloggers Parallel Recruiting Class Rankings?”
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I like that Hammer and Rails has existed for two days and has a higher rank that Boiled Sports, which has existed for 2 1/2 years. Imperfect science, to be sure. Also, I might posit that the more popular/successful a program, the more people willing to blog about it — thus the higher number of sites may have zero correlation to the better recruiting classes.
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buckbravo February 25th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I used “Off the Tracks” for the “Hammer and Rails” Google Page Rank since that was the predecessor to Hammer and Rails. I agree that the number of blogs probably doesn’t cause better recruiting classes. I should have clarified that I was looking for a statistical relationship (even though I didn’t take the time to use actual statistics), and not a cause and effect relationship.
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I have the same ranking as Eleven Warriors and Our Honor Defend???
I’m either flattered, or I think that I’m overrated….
