Can a college team win a Natty w/mostly 3*&* athletes, no 5*'s

[calidawg]

In the last 20 years, every national champion has had at least 2 top 10 classes in the 4 years leading up to their title except for 2. Oklahoma in 2000 and Clemson last year. Oklahoma had 1 top 10 class and Clemson had 1 top 10 class and 1 class that was 11th. So in reality.. no

[dawgs]

In the last 20 years, every national champion has had at least 2 top 10 classes in the 4 years leading up to their title except for 2. Oklahoma in 2000 and Clemson last year. Oklahoma had 1 top 10 class and Clemson had 1 top 10 class and 1 class that was 11th. So in reality.. no

Given the relative Stone Age of recruiting services that Oklahoma team’s recruiting rankings are based on, its hard to really accurately compare them to the recruiting rankings of teams in the past decade or so, when recruiting rankings have gotten far more advanced and national than they were in the 90s.

[HSVDawg]

In the last 20 years, every national champion has had at least 2 top 10 classes in the 4 years leading up to their title except for 2. Oklahoma in 2000 and Clemson last year. Oklahoma had 1 top 10 class and Clemson had 1 top 10 class and 1 class that was 11th. So in reality.. no

Clemson had 1 top 10 class the past 5 years before the title (the most recent class that was 9th), one 11th (before the first NC appearance) and the 3 years before were all barely Top 15. The last two years, the vast majority of their 2 deep has been in those first 3 classes that were barely within Top 15.

Bottom line, "Top 10" is an inaccurate and arbitrary number for defining an elite recruiting class. Top 15 has historically been a more correct number. Not a lot of difference between the performance of a team who's average class rank is 10th vs. 15th over a 4 year period. But there's a huge difference between 15th and 20th. At or inside the Top 15 gives you a chance to win it all.

[dawgs]

Clemson had 1 top 10 class the past 5 years before the title (the most recent class that was 9th), one 11th (before the first NC appearance) and the 3 years before were all barely Top 15. The last two years, the vast majority of their 2 deep has been in those first 3 classes that were barely within Top 15.

Bottom line, "Top 10" is an inaccurate and arbitrary number for defining an elite recruiting class. Top 15 has historically been a more correct number. Not a lot of difference between the performance of a team who's average class rank is 10th vs. 15th over a 4 year period. But there's a huge difference between 15th and 20th. At or inside the Top 15 gives you a chance to win it all.

In this threads and others, various posters (including myself) have pointed out you either need to average top 10 classes leading up to your natty run OR you need to average top 15 classes with a transcendent QB and/or coach ($cam, Watson, mariota, chip kelly). Our route, if we ever make a run to play for a natty is to average a top 15 class for a few ears and land a game changing QB. The difference between us in 2014 and Clemson last year was about 10 spots in the recruiting rankings, which showed towards the end of the year.