Buck Bravo

Every February, college football news services release sensational reports about recruiting classes.  Is a great recruiting class truly sensational, or is it just sensationalism?  Teams that perennially reel in five and four star recruits such as USC, Florida, and Texas always seem to be in the hunt for the national championship.  But then there is Notre Dame, who despite fielding a team of blue chip talent has been mediocre the last few years.  Also, teams like Utah and Boise State will occasionally slip into BCS bowl games.  Let’s take a look at how Big Ten teams have finished the season with respect to the five recruiting classes that have contributed to the team that they fielded.  The rankings used for this analysis are simply Rivals’ Big Ten recruiting class rankings, from 1 to 11 for each respective year.  Teams that finished better than three positions above their five year recruiting rank average are highlighted in green.  Teams that were worse than three positions below their five year recruiting rank average are highlighted in red.  Here’s how 2008 panned out:

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In 2008, 9 of the 11 teams in the Big Ten finished the regular season within three spots of their average recruiting class.  Michigan, who had an abysmal season, was the only team to fall greater than three spots in the standings from what their average recruiting class would predict.  Northwestern’s surprising season also outperformed recruiting class predictions.

For 2007:

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In 2007, not a single team in the Big Ten either surpassed or fell short of three standing positions from their average recruiting class rank.  Illinois’ 2nd place fairy tale and Minnesota’s last place nightmare were both within three positions of what the recruiting class averages would predict.

As for 2006:

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2006 had four teams that were outside of average recruiting class expectations.  Michigan State and Illinois finished at the bottom of the Big Ten, despite recruiting classes that should have placed them in the middle of the pack.  Indiana barely outperformed expectations, and Wisconsin finished second despite an average recruiting class smack dab in the middle of the Big Ten.

For the last three seasons (2006-2008), Big Ten teams have finished within three positions in the standings from their average recruiting class ranking  82% of the time.  Not a single team won the Big Ten that had an average recruiting class worse than 3.6.  If these statistics have a large enough sample size to be accurate, Big Ten fans can expect their favorite team to finish within three spots of the following predicted standings in 2009:

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