If you believe in recruiting stars (I don't), then State's in trouble Saturday

[Rick Cleveland]

https://mississippitoday.org/2017/09/20/recruiting-stars-state-no-shot-georgia/

[Jack Lambert]

A lot of our three stars come from small schools and if they were playing at Madison Central or some other 6A school they would have been four stars. These recruiting services miss on a lot of guys and Mullen seems to find them.

[AlmostPositive]

If you "believe in recruiting stars" after last Saturday night, you need to rethink your belief system.

[ShotgunDawg]

Good article Rick.

I'll also add that, while the state of Georgia is stock full of talent, players from that state are often times a little overrated.

Why?

Because of how the recruiting process works.

If you are college football program located anywhere in America & have a recruiting budget & limited number days in which you can be on the road & recruit, you have to make decisions that are efficient & allow you to watch as many players as possible in as few amount of days & for as little amount of money as possible.

Under that premise, where do you send your coaches:

Mississippi? In Mississippi, you have to fly into Memphis, Birmingham, GTR, or Jackson & then drive possibly an hour or more with the benefit of watching 1 maybe 2 players.

Montana ? Same as Mississippi

Dallas & Atlanta? - Direct flight from anywhere in the country, rent a car, & see 20-40 players in a week's time without having to switch hotels, get on a plane, or drive very far.

So, the result of an effort for most college football programs to be efficient & economical, leads to players from hot beds getting infinitely more college offers than similar players from more rural areas

In Georgia, a player like Brandon Bryant, McKinney, McClaurin, Dez Harris, etc may be solid 4 or high 4 star players because each one of those players would have had 50+ college offers, but, since they are from Mississippi or rural Alabama, they only had 3-5 offers. Thus they are only high 3 stars.

Offers matter & make the recruiting ranking guys more comfortable in their evaluations which makes it easier to rank guys higher.

All that to say, the talent level between Georgia & MSU is closer than the recruiting rankings make it appear

[confucius say]

Been saying for years, Recruiting rankings (the number assigned to a recruit) is only relevant when the ranking is accurate. For every accurate one you can give me, I can give you an inaccurate one. Just pick one of our classes 2014 and further back (not fair to judge 2015-2017 yet) and look at it.

[Dawgtini]

Nice article Rick. Well done.

[Hasu Dackds]

Been saying for years, Recruiting rankings (the number assigned to a recruit) is only relevant when the ranking is accurate. For every accurate one you can give me, I can give you an inaccurate one. Just pick one of our classes 2014 and further back (not fair to judge 2015-2017 yet) and look at it.
Agreed. I think the only accurate statement you can make about it is that the top ranked classes certainly do have talent, in very general terms. But you can't 100% infer that other classes do not have talent. So it is hard to truly ever compare. Not to mention, there is no extra weight given to the more important positions (like quarterback), or roster balance, whether it be positional-wise or age-wise.

You also need to use reason. Pretty sure the #2 ranked class will be better than the #32. But is there really much difference in #4 and #16, given the previous paragraph?

[JoseBrown]

Great article, Rick. Great job Dan, turning our lowly one 5-star recruit team into an ass whipping team!

[kojak]

Been saying for years, Recruiting rankings (the number assigned to a recruit) is only relevant when the ranking is accurate. For every accurate one you can give me, I can give you an inaccurate one. Just pick one of our classes 2014 and further back (not fair to judge 2015-2017 yet) and look at it.

Recruiting rankings are like the equity you believe you have in your home. It isnt real until you see the money.

[Mimi's Babies]

I will take 2-3 ranked stars over a smart ass know it all 5 star any day. 2-3 Star players want to play and know that they have to work to
play. The work both in practice, on the field and in the classroom. They work to be character also.... They are more likely to stay out of trouble also.
Give me a kid who is willing to work than one who THINKS I owe him.

Example... there are kids at a certain college that look like high schooler's. (nothing against 16, 17, 18 year old's)

Then there are our players who have worked their butts off since graduating high school to obtain a RIPPED Picture...
These kids have worked.... Proud of each of them and they will play their hearts out for MSU and the extended family.... #HAILSTATES....

[TUSK]

Coaching are* important.

Les, Ed, Kevin, Gus, Mike (Dubose), et al are prime examples of how talent can be wasted...

[Homedawg]

Good article. But our best player is a 5 star. Just sayin. Subjective yes. But let's no go crazy about taking 2 stars over 5. Some 5 stars work hard too! Just like some 2-3 stars don't.

[Turfdawg67]

Good article. But our best player is a 5 star. Just sayin. Subjective yes. But let's no go crazy about taking 2 stars over 5. Some 5 stars work hard too! Just like some 2-3 stars don't.

And arguably our 2nd best is a 2*, which is precisely what everyone is saying. If Mullen's evaluation of a 2* shows him that he's really a true under-the-radar 3 or 4, I'll trust his judgement over 247 or Rivals.

And Rick, great article, but enough about these 2* OL... screws up our Hevasy b!tching.***

[dawgs]

I believe in recruiting stars. I also know that recruiting stars don’t tell the entire story. But if given the choice between bama’s roster of mostly 4* and 5* and filled with guys comprising consensus #1 classes each of the past 4 years or any other roster in the country, I’d take bama’s roster.

[confucius say]

I believe in recruiting stars. I also know that recruiting stars don’t tell the entire story. But if given the choice between bama’s roster of mostly 4* and 5* and filled with guys comprising consensus #1 classes each of the past 4 years or any other roster in the country, I’d take bama’s roster.

Would you take our roster over tenn? Aggie? Lsu? Fla? OM? I would.

[Commercecomet24]

Good article. But our best player is a 5 star. Just sayin. Subjective yes. But let's no go crazy about taking 2 stars over 5. Some 5 stars work hard too! Just like some 2-3 stars don't.

Yep and that's where the truly elite players come from, the combo of talent and work ethic.

[Commercecomet24]

Coaching are* important.

Les, Ed, Kevin, Gus, Mike (Dubose), et al are prime examples of how talent can be wasted...

Yep an army of jackasses led by a lion is always gonna be better than an army of lions led by a jackass.

[TUSK]

It's not important whether one "believes" in "stars", or not... What is important, is that they do exist... and they matter... it's simply a fact.

That being said, if a program has an "outlier" head coach, like YDL, less "star" talent can be mitigated to an extent.... conversely, greater "star" talent can be pissed away (eg Tennessee)...

[Homedawg]

Would you take our roster over tenn? Aggie? Lsu? Fla? OM? I would.

Depends on who is coaching them honestly

[TUSK]

Depends on who is coaching them honestly

https://i.imgflip.com/uhk6d.jpg

[dawgs]

Would you take our roster over tenn? Aggie? Lsu? Fla? OM? I would.

OM doesn’t really have more talent than we do even by star ratings now that the nkemdiche/treadwell/tunsil class is gone. Tennessee, a&m, and Florida haven’t recruited significantly better than us over the previous 4-5 years and are definitely within some reasonable range of volatility where 1 or 2 guys underperforming/overperforming can swing the perception of the class.

If we could keep our QB and coaching staff (and assuming lsu’s front 7 is healthy), I’d swap the rest of the roster with lsu’s. Fortunately for us, QB, coaching, and lsu’s lack of health in the front 7 let us dominate that game. A bad QB and a shit head coach can definitely sink an otherwise great roster.

Right now the sec recruiting talent can be tiered:
Tier 1: bama
Tier 2: lsu, uga
Tier 3: a&m, Florida, auburn, Tennessee, usce, MSU, OM (pre-NCAA trouble at least)
Tier 4: Arkansas, Kentucky
Tier 5: Missouri, vandy

The problem is so many of y’all look at the trees you miss the forest. Is the difference between a 88 and a 89 rated player significant? Nope. If your coach prefers the 88 rated guy then let the coach get the one he likes better with complaining about choosing the lower rated guy, even if it slightly hurts your recruiting rankings. A 2* turning into a stud doesn’t mean the recruiting rankings are bullshit, it means that they aren’t perfect. That’s just how it is.

But you literally can’t look at the meta-data and tell me there’s no difference in signing a bunch of 4-5* players and a bunch of 2-3* players. The math proves that 4-5* players become college starters, all conference players, and nfl draft picks at a much higher rate than 3* players, and likewise 3* guys succeed at a higher rate than 2* guys. That’s just a fact.

Now can a coach with superior player evaluation and development skills nail the right 2-3* guys at a higher rate than average? Sure they can, and some have made a great career out of it. Mullen, ferentz, gundy, Beamer, snyder, whoever coaches Wisconsin (since it doesn’t seem to matter), etc. have done it. But most of those guys also hit a ceiling and seem to come up 1 or 2 players short when they have a shot at making a natty run. Not that a 10 or 11 win season isn’t awesome, but it’s also not an undefeated season or playing for a natty.

Our starters may be on par with bama or usc or Ohio st or Oklahoma or Clemson, but what happens if Simmons gets hurt? We don’t have a stud waiting behind him to pick up the slack. It will really hurt our defense. Bama is more prepared to lose a guy like that and keep rolling because behind their starters they have another 4 or 5 * ready to get his shot. We have a development 3* guy not ready to take on a full time role.

This is rambling because it’s not a black and white issue and there’s lots that go into discussing recruiting rankings besides claiming they mean everything or they mean nothing. But simply go look at the teams that have played for the national title in the last decade. Almost every one of them averaged a top 10 recruiting ranking the previous 4 season cycles. The ones that didn’t were still top 15 and had a transcendent QB (cam, mariota, Watson) and/or coach ahead of his time (chip Kelly). I’m not saying it’s impossible to win a natty with our talent, but our margin of error is very very thin. We’d need to avoid injuries, fitz would need to continue to develop into a heisman contender, and Mullen would need to resist the urge to tuck his wiener in upcoming big games, and then we’d have to still execute at a high level.

So yeah, stars matter. QB, coaching staff, and health are the 3 things that can lead to overachieving or underachieving. Fortunately we have 2 of the 3 right now that are key to overachieving.

[Turfdawg67]

Wow... could not make it all the way through that. You lost me at... we recruit as well as Auburn, UF, TA&M and UT?!?!? LOLZ!

[TUSK]

OM doesn’t really have more talent than we do even by star ratings now that the nkemdiche/treadwell/tunsil class is gone. Tennessee, a&m, and Florida haven’t recruited significantly better than us over the previous 4-5 years and are definitely within some reasonable range of volatility where 1 or 2 guys underperforming/overperforming can swing the perception of the class.

If we could keep our QB and coaching staff (and assuming lsu’s front 7 is healthy), I’d swap the rest of the roster with lsu’s. Fortunately for us, QB, coaching, and lsu’s lack of health in the front 7 let us dominate that game. A bad QB and a shit head coach can definitely sink an otherwise great roster.

Right now the sec recruiting talent can be tiered:
Tier 1: bama
Tier 2: lsu, uga
Tier 3: a&m, Florida, auburn, Tennessee, usce, MSU, OM (pre-NCAA trouble at least)
Tier 4: Arkansas, Kentucky
Tier 5: Missouri, vandy

The problem is so many of y’all look at the trees you miss the forest. Is the difference between a 88 and a 89 rated player significant? Nope. If your coach prefers the 88 rated guy then let the coach get the one he likes better with complaining about choosing the lower rated guy, even if it slightly hurts your recruiting rankings. A 2* turning into a stud doesn’t mean the recruiting rankings are bullshit, it means that they aren’t perfect. That’s just how it is.

But you literally can’t look at the meta-data and tell me there’s no difference in signing a bunch of 4-5* players and a bunch of 2-3* players. The math proves that 4-5* players become college starters, all conference players, and nfl draft picks at a much higher rate than 3* players, and likewise 3* guys succeed at a higher rate than 2* guys. That’s just a fact.

Now can a coach with superior player evaluation and development skills nail the right 2-3* guys at a higher rate than average? Sure they can, and some have made a great career out of it. Mullen, ferentz, gundy, Beamer, snyder, whoever coaches Wisconsin (since it doesn’t seem to matter), etc. have done it. But most of those guys also hit a ceiling and seem to come up 1 or 2 players short when they have a shot at making a natty run. Not that a 10 or 11 win season isn’t awesome, but it’s also not an undefeated season or playing for a natty.

Our starters may be on par with bama or usc or Ohio st or Oklahoma or Clemson, but what happens if Simmons gets hurt? We don’t have a stud waiting behind him to pick up the slack. It will really hurt our defense. Bama is more prepared to lose a guy like that and keep rolling because behind their starters they have another 4 or 5 * ready to get his shot. We have a development 3* guy not ready to take on a full time role.

This is rambling because it’s not a black and white issue and there’s lots that go into discussing recruiting rankings besides claiming they mean everything or they mean nothing. But simply go look at the teams that have played for the national title in the last decade. Almost every one of them averaged a top 10 recruiting ranking the previous 4 season cycles. The ones that didn’t were still top 15 and had a transcendent QB (cam, mariota, Watson) and/or coach ahead of his time (chip Kelly). I’m not saying it’s impossible to win a natty with our talent, but our margin of error is very very thin. We’d need to avoid injuries, fitz would need to continue to develop into a heisman contender, and Mullen would need to resist the urge to tuck his wiener in upcoming big games, and then we’d have to still execute at a high level.

So yeah, stars matter. QB, coaching staff, and health are the 3 things that can lead to overachieving or underachieving. Fortunately we have 2 of the 3 right now that are key to overachieving.

there's a lot of truth in this^....

I bothered to run a few numbers:

I used SEC recruiting ranks (per 247) for years 2008-2014 and compared them to SEC wins 2010-2016 (A&M/Mizzou are not included due to lack in sample size)...

here are some of the notable discoveries:
1. The top 5 ranking teams in recruiting (UA, AU, LSU, UF, UGA) were also the top 5 teams in SEC wins.
2. The 2 worst ranked teams in recruiting (UK & Vandy) had the fewest SEC wins.
3. Of the remaining 5 teams, 3 (SC, OM, ARK) fell within 1 spot re: Stars Ranking vs SEC wins.
4. The remaining 2 teams (MSU & UT) were the only significant outliers.

[confucius say]

OM doesn’t really have more talent than we do even by star ratings now that the nkemdiche/treadwell/tunsil class is gone. Tennessee, a&m, and Florida haven’t recruited significantly better than us over the previous 4-5 years and are definitely within some reasonable range of volatility where 1 or 2 guys underperforming/overperforming can swing the perception of the class.

If we could keep our QB and coaching staff (and assuming lsu’s front 7 is healthy), I’d swap the rest of the roster with lsu’s. Fortunately for us, QB, coaching, and lsu’s lack of health in the front 7 let us dominate that game. A bad QB and a shit head coach can definitely sink an otherwise great roster.

Right now the sec recruiting talent can be tiered:
Tier 1: bama
Tier 2: lsu, uga
Tier 3: a&m, Florida, auburn, Tennessee, usce, MSU, OM (pre-NCAA trouble at least)
Tier 4: Arkansas, Kentucky
Tier 5: Missouri, vandy

The problem is so many of y’all look at the trees you miss the forest. Is the difference between a 88 and a 89 rated player significant? Nope. If your coach prefers the 88 rated guy then let the coach get the one he likes better with complaining about choosing the lower rated guy, even if it slightly hurts your recruiting rankings. A 2* turning into a stud doesn’t mean the recruiting rankings are bullshit, it means that they aren’t perfect. That’s just how it is.

But you literally can’t look at the meta-data and tell me there’s no difference in signing a bunch of 4-5* players and a bunch of 2-3* players. The math proves that 4-5* players become college starters, all conference players, and nfl draft picks at a much higher rate than 3* players, and likewise 3* guys succeed at a higher rate than 2* guys. That’s just a fact.

Now can a coach with superior player evaluation and development skills nail the right 2-3* guys at a higher rate than average? Sure they can, and some have made a great career out of it. Mullen, ferentz, gundy, Beamer, snyder, whoever coaches Wisconsin (since it doesn’t seem to matter), etc. have done it. But most of those guys also hit a ceiling and seem to come up 1 or 2 players short when they have a shot at making a natty run. Not that a 10 or 11 win season isn’t awesome, but it’s also not an undefeated season or playing for a natty.

Our starters may be on par with bama or usc or Ohio st or Oklahoma or Clemson, but what happens if Simmons gets hurt? We don’t have a stud waiting behind him to pick up the slack. It will really hurt our defense. Bama is more prepared to lose a guy like that and keep rolling because behind their starters they have another 4 or 5 * ready to get his shot. We have a development 3* guy not ready to take on a full time role.

This is rambling because it’s not a black and white issue and there’s lots that go into discussing recruiting rankings besides claiming they mean everything or they mean nothing. But simply go look at the teams that have played for the national title in the last decade. Almost every one of them averaged a top 10 recruiting ranking the previous 4 season cycles. The ones that didn’t were still top 15 and had a transcendent QB (cam, mariota, Watson) and/or coach ahead of his time (chip Kelly). I’m not saying it’s impossible to win a natty with our talent, but our margin of error is very very thin. We’d need to avoid injuries, fitz would need to continue to develop into a heisman contender, and Mullen would need to resist the urge to tuck his wiener in upcoming big games, and then we’d have to still execute at a high level.

So yeah, stars matter. QB, coaching staff, and health are the 3 things that can lead to overachieving or underachieving. Fortunately we have 2 of the 3 right now that are key to overachieving.

TL/DR.

1. According to rankings, We are not in same tier as fla, tenn, auburn, or Aggie. More like ark. Look at rankings. However, we do have more talent than all four. Which proves my point that the number assigned to a player is irrelevant unless it's accurate, and it's inaccurate at least 50% of the time.

[confucius say]

there's a lot of truth in this^....

I bothered to run a few numbers:

I used SEC recruiting ranks (per 247) for years 2008-2014 and compared them to SEC wins 2010-2016 (A&M/Mizzou are not included due to lack in sample size)...

here are some of the notable discoveries:
1. The top 5 ranking teams in recruiting (UA, AU, LSU, UF, UGA) were also the top 5 teams in SEC wins.
2. The 2 worst ranked teams in recruiting (UK & Vandy) had the fewest SEC wins.
3. Of the remaining 5 teams, 3 (SC, OM, ARK) fell within 1 spot re: Stars Ranking vs SEC wins.
4. The remaining 2 teams (MSU & UT) were the only significant outliers.

We are second in the west in wins the last 3.5 seasons and are sixth or seventh by a significant margin in recruiting rankings.

Why? Bc 81 fitz should have been a 95. 79 Deion Calhoun should have been a 90. 80 taveze Calhoun should have been a 90. 85 dak should have been a 95. 80 Preston smith should have been a 92. I could literally do this all night but you get the picture.

[TUSK]

TL/DR.

1. According to rankings, We are not in same tier as fla, tenn, auburn, or Aggie. More like ark. Look at rankings. However, we do have more talent than all four. Which proves my point that the number assigned to a player is irrelevant unless it's accurate, and it's inaccurate at least 50% of the time.

I'd go with more Tiers...
(based on 247 2017 Team Talent)

Alabama

Georgia

LSU
AU

TN
A&M
FLA
OM

ARK
MSU
SC
KY

Mizzou
Vandy

[TUSK]

We are second in the west in wins the last 3.5 seasons and are sixth or seventh by a significant margin in recruiting rankings.

Why? Bc 81 fitz should have been a 95. 79 Deion Calhoun should have been a 90. 80 taveze Calhoun should have been a 90. 85 dak should have been a 95. 80 Preston smith should have been a 92. I could literally do this all night but you get the picture.



maybe Mullen just does an exceptional job at finding and developing talent that others miss and UT sucks at it.... I admit MSU is definitely an "outlier"...

regardless, data is data....

note of correction: For the 08-14 recruiting period, MSU was 10th in recruiting and for the 10-16 seasons, MSU was 7th (4th in the SECW) in SEC wins.

[confucius say]

I'd go with more Tiers...
(based on 247 2017 Team Talent)

Alabama

Georgia

LSU
AU

TN
A&M
FLA
OM

ARK
MSU
SC
KY

Mizzou
Vandy

I agree with your tiers according to the rankings.

Now look at those tiers and tell me how anyone can say the numbers assigned to players are accurate a large amount of the time. To do so, you would have to say vandy, sc, ky, msu, om, fla, tn, Aggie, aub, and Lsu are coached by outliers bc their teams are either way outperforming (first 4) or underperforming (final 6) their recruiting rankings.

[confucius say]

maybe Mullen just does an exceptional job at finding and developing talent that others miss and UT sucks at it.... I admit MSU is definitely an "outlier"...
.

That's just it. Dan is not some kind of ninja wizard who can magically develop sucky two stars into great players at EVERY position. The truth is he finds a bunch of kids that should be 90+ but are rated 78-83 at linebacker, corner, o-line, d-line etc.. it's bc he can evaluate talent better than yancy and chuck.

[TUSK]

I agree with your tiers according to the rankings.

Now look at those tiers and tell me how anyone can say the numbers assigned to players are accurate a large amount of the time. To do so, you would have to say vandy, sc, ky, msu, om, fla, tn, Aggie, aub, and Lsu are coached by outliers bc their teams are either way outperforming (first 4) or underperforming (final 6) their recruiting rankings.



I think it's premature to evaluate 2017 data. How many SEC games have we had? 3??? Not sure, I'm remote.

[TaleofTwoDogs]

Good article. But our best player is a 5 star. Just sayin. Subjective yes. But let's no go crazy about taking 2 stars over 5. Some 5 stars work hard too! Just like some 2-3 stars don't.

^^THIS^^

Do we even have any 2 stars on the roster? We recruit 3 stars and 4 stars and rarely a 5 star. Give me a hard working class of 50% 3s, 40% 4s and 10% 5 stars and you will be in the hunt for championships.

[Homedawg]

TL/DR.

1. According to rankings, We are not in same tier as fla, tenn, auburn, or Aggie. More like ark. Look at rankings. However, we do have more talent than all four. Which proves my point that the number assigned to a player is irrelevant unless it's accurate, and it's inaccurate at least 50% of the time.
We have more talent than auburn? Really? No. Just no. We might beat them. It it won't be because we have more talent.

[Jack Lambert]

OM doesn’t really have more talent than we do even by star ratings now that the nkemdiche/treadwell/tunsil class is gone. Tennessee, a&m, and Florida haven’t recruited significantly better than us over the previous 4-5 years and are definitely within some reasonable range of volatility where 1 or 2 guys underperforming/overperforming can swing the perception of the class.

If we could keep our QB and coaching staff (and assuming lsu’s front 7 is healthy), I’d swap the rest of the roster with lsu’s. Fortunately for us, QB, coaching, and lsu’s lack of health in the front 7 let us dominate that game. A bad QB and a shit head coach can definitely sink an otherwise great roster.

Right now the sec recruiting talent can be tiered:
Tier 1: bama
Tier 2: lsu, uga
Tier 3: a&m, Florida, auburn, Tennessee, usce, MSU, OM (pre-NCAA trouble at least)
Tier 4: Arkansas, Kentucky
Tier 5: Missouri, vandy

The problem is so many of y’all look at the trees you miss the forest. Is the difference between a 88 and a 89 rated player significant? Nope. If your coach prefers the 88 rated guy then let the coach get the one he likes better with complaining about choosing the lower rated guy, even if it slightly hurts your recruiting rankings. A 2* turning into a stud doesn’t mean the recruiting rankings are bullshit, it means that they aren’t perfect. That’s just how it is.

But you literally can’t look at the meta-data and tell me there’s no difference in signing a bunch of 4-5* players and a bunch of 2-3* players. The math proves that 4-5* players become college starters, all conference players, and nfl draft picks at a much higher rate than 3* players, and likewise 3* guys succeed at a higher rate than 2* guys. That’s just a fact.

Now can a coach with superior player evaluation and development skills nail the right 2-3* guys at a higher rate than average? Sure they can, and some have made a great career out of it. Mullen, ferentz, gundy, Beamer, snyder, whoever coaches Wisconsin (since it doesn’t seem to matter), etc. have done it. But most of those guys also hit a ceiling and seem to come up 1 or 2 players short when they have a shot at making a natty run. Not that a 10 or 11 win season isn’t awesome, but it’s also not an undefeated season or playing for a natty.

Our starters may be on par with bama or usc or Ohio st or Oklahoma or Clemson, but what happens if Simmons gets hurt? We don’t have a stud waiting behind him to pick up the slack. It will really hurt our defense. Bama is more prepared to lose a guy like that and keep rolling because behind their starters they have another 4 or 5 * ready to get his shot. We have a development 3* guy not ready to take on a full time role.

This is rambling because it’s not a black and white issue and there’s lots that go into discussing recruiting rankings besides claiming they mean everything or they mean nothing. But simply go look at the teams that have played for the national title in the last decade. Almost every one of them averaged a top 10 recruiting ranking the previous 4 season cycles. The ones that didn’t were still top 15 and had a transcendent QB (cam, mariota, Watson) and/or coach ahead of his time (chip Kelly). I’m not saying it’s impossible to win a natty with our talent, but our margin of error is very very thin. We’d need to avoid injuries, fitz would need to continue to develop into a heisman contender, and Mullen would need to resist the urge to tuck his wiener in upcoming big games, and then we’d have to still execute at a high level.

So yeah, stars matter. QB, coaching staff, and health are the 3 things that can lead to overachieving or underachieving. Fortunately we have 2 of the 3 right now that are key to overachieving.

So you would trade our defense?

[TUSK]

^^THIS^^

Do we even have any 2 stars on the roster? We recruit 3 stars and 4 stars and rarely a 5 star. Give me a hard working class of 50% 3s, 40% 4s and 10% 5 stars and you will be in the hunt for championships.

10% 5 stars will put ya in the mix fo sho. 50% 4-5 stars & it'd take a horrible coach to keep you out of the top 10-15.

[dawgs]

^^THIS^^

Do we even have any 2 stars on the roster? We recruit 3 stars and 4 stars and rarely a 5 star. Give me a hard working class of 50% 3s, 40% 4s and 10% 5 stars and you will be in the hunt for championships.

That 50/40/10 ratio is like a top 5-10 class.

[TUSK]

That 50/40/10 ratio is like a top 5-10 class.

Top 10, as things stand now...

good call, buddy...

[NYDawg]

FWIW, this is the average national recruiting ranking (per 247) over the last four years in the west:

1 Alabama (1,1,1,1)
4 LSU (2,5,2,7)
8 Auburn (6,8,9,9)
11.75 A&M (5,11,18,13)
17 OM (15,17,5,31)
25.25 Arkansas (29,22,23,27)
26.5 MSU (36,18,28,24)

[confucius say]

We have more talent than auburn? Really? No. Just no. We might beat them. It it won't be because we have more talent.

we have more players on our team that will be on a nfl roster/practice squad than auburn does.

[fader2103]

Bo Bounds had a good quote today on his show. There might be 35, 5***** players every year across the country. The reason for maybe 75, 5 star players are all about click bait (paraphrasing of course)

[confucius say]

FWIW, this is the average national recruiting ranking (per 247) over the last four years in the west:

1 Alabama (1,1,1,1)
4 LSU (2,5,2,7)
8 Auburn (6,8,9,9)
11.75 A&M (5,11,18,13)
17 OM (15,17,5,31)
25.25 Arkansas (29,22,23,27)
26.5 MSU (36,18,28,24)

Yet we've won more games during that time than every team listed except Bama. All hail dan the ninja wizard!

[dawgs]

Bo Bounds had a good quote today on his show. There might be 35, 5***** players every year across the country. The reason for maybe 75, 5 star players are all about click bait (paraphrasing of course)

There aren’t 75 5* guys, it’s usually 25-35 according to 247 composite

For 2018 there’s currently 25
2017 - 33
2016 - 25
2015 - 36
2014 - 33
2013 - 34

I think that’s going back far enough to establish general range. If you switch it to 247 only rankings (and 247 is easily the best rating service out there), the numbers are roughly the same, so more than 1-2 changes in the number of 5* guys. Now there is some volatility in who is ranked as a 5*, so maybe he mean that between 247, scout, rivals, and ESPN, around 75 guys can call themselves 5* recruits. But if you put stock in substandard recruiting rankings, that’s your own damn fault.

[Bothrops]

Mullen's evaluation method comes from camp, where 2 and 3* players are often indistinguishable from 4* players...and sometimes outperform them. This proves to be a much better measuring system than recruiting services.