2023 Recruiting Rankings

[EdwardDrayton]

MSU Overall Ranking: 33 (Recruit 25, Portal 34)
OM Overall Ranking: 20 (Recruit 27, Portal 13)

For those of you who follow recruiting closely, don't understand how eight transfers can have such an impact on our overall ranking when there are 27 players in our recruit class.

And are we concerned about the portal rankings? Looking to understand these things beyond the superficial. But want to know what's real, not what makes us feel good.

[viverlibre]

It would be interested to see how portal rankings are calculated. UM is likely buoyed by two high profile QBs and only one (and possibly neither) will play. Spencer Sanders is likely one of the higher rated transfers, but he is also on par with their retiring QB, so even if he starts, he probably won't improve the team much over Dart starting.

[TNDawg35]

On3 had us at 25 and OM at 21. Those weren’t portal tho, just the high school. These rankings are all bullshit anyway…

[parabrave]

Check back in 3 years

[Cowbell]

These rankings should look at net gain instead. You have to factor in portal losses.....

[99jc]

dak says 17 stars

[EdwardDrayton]

Check back in 3 years

Yeah, would be interesting if the ranking sites would later reconcile actual team performance with the original rankings. Either they've never attempted it or they have and the correlation was not pretty.

[EdwardDrayton]

dak says 17 stars

Ha. Yeah there certainly are examples of recruit and develop that we love to trot out. But we have to get beyond these feel goods, understand the broader rankings, determine if indeed we need to do better and how to accomplish that.

[mo7888]

These rankings should look at net gain instead. You have to factor in portal losses.....

Good point

[Hot Rock]

Rankings matter and to say they don't is incorrect.

Looking at who wins national championships, they get the most 4 & 5 star players. This is not up for debate, it's facts. You can end up like A&M if the coaching is subpar but you cannot win a title without the best players and then good coaching, in that order but:

The gap between the #1 vs 15 ranked team in talent is much much greater than the 15th ranked to the 30th or even 40th ranked team.

Many times the 50th ranked team is better than teams that have recruited in the top 30. 3 stars often are better than lower to middle 4 stars after a couple years of growth and development. How hard they work & some mature later in life. There are a lot of factors that go into how good a player is in HS to how good he can become. A proper diet and training can transform players greatly and then you look at some of these kids have terrible technique and need to learn how to play vs others that have had excellent coaching.

I like signing Mississippi players or guys in the 250-300 mile radius of Starkville because a lot of those guys go unnoticed just like Jonathan Davis. He didn't go to camps, blossomed later and if he had been a known commodity, he possibly would have been a 4 star. he definitely has NFL upside. You can with those guys, no matter their recruiting rank.

[EdwardDrayton]

These rankings should look at net gain instead. You have to factor in portal losses.....

Yeah, that seems to make sense. Because it's feasible a team could lose more talent than they get. So, yes, the net gain/loss seems more indicative of the talent improvement or deterioration as a team.

[Hot Rock]

Good point

Around the start of the season, 247 puts out a team talent ranking. I like to look at that but I still take it with a grain of salt.

[EdwardDrayton]

And because it's just too tempting, the Bear Reb Sharts had the #2 portal class in the country last year, including four-star Jaxson Dart. 24-22.

[Johnson85]

Rankings matter and to say they don't is incorrect.

Looking at who wins national championships, they get the most 4 & 5 star players. This is not up for debate, it's facts. You can end up like A&M if the coaching is subpar but you cannot win a title without the best players and then good coaching, in that order but:

The gap between the #1 vs 15 ranked team in talent is much much greater than the 15th ranked to the 30th or even 40th ranked team.

Many times the 50th ranked team is better than teams that have recruited in the top 30. 3 stars often are better than lower to middle 4 stars after a couple years of growth and development. How hard they work & some mature later in life. There are a lot of factors that go into how good a player is in HS to how good he can become. A proper diet and training can transform players greatly and then you look at some of these kids have terrible technique and need to learn how to play vs others that have had excellent coaching.

I like signing Mississippi players or guys in the 250-300 mile radius of Starkville because a lot of those guys go unnoticed just like Jonathan Davis. He didn't go to camps, blossomed later and if he had been a known commodity, he possibly would have been a 4 star. he definitely has NFL upside. You can with those guys, no matter their recruiting rank.

Talent matters and rankings, while imperfect, are a proxy for that. But I think rankings are going to be even worse going forward than they have been. Too few high school signees are going to stick with their original team to make hs signing classes predictive. Nobody is going to watch enough football to really be able to predict how transfers will impact a team. You might get some conference specific guys that stay knowledgeable on a single conference. Or that do their homework for a dozen blue bloods. But just too hard to quantify based on stats. The team talent rankings will probably be the best tool, but they are probably going to overrate teams getting a lot of busts transferring to the team because they're weaker and underrate the teams that poach late bloomers from weaker teams.

[PMDawg]

Rankings matter and to say they don't is incorrect.

Looking at who wins national championships, they get the most 4 & 5 star players. This is not up for debate, it's facts. You can end up like A&M if the coaching is subpar but you cannot win a title without the best players and then good coaching, in that order but:

The gap between the #1 vs 15 ranked team in talent is much much greater than the 15th ranked to the 30th or even 40th ranked team.

Many times the 50th ranked team is better than teams that have recruited in the top 30. 3 stars often are better than lower to middle 4 stars after a couple years of growth and development. How hard they work & some mature later in life. There are a lot of factors that go into how good a player is in HS to how good he can become. A proper diet and training can transform players greatly and then you look at some of these kids have terrible technique and need to learn how to play vs others that have had excellent coaching.

I like signing Mississippi players or guys in the 250-300 mile radius of Starkville because a lot of those guys go unnoticed just like Jonathan Davis. He didn't go to camps, blossomed later and if he had been a known commodity, he possibly would have been a 4 star. he definitely has NFL upside. You can with those guys, no matter their recruiting rank.

I feel the same way. I don't get too worked up over whether we are 20th or 35th. Now, if we start approaching top 15, or sub 45th, wake me up. Everything else is more of the same. As long as we stay between 15 and 45, we're a 6 to 8 win team, with an outside shot at moving 1 or 2 games in either direction when things "line up" to create that situation. We're not going to be a 10+ win team on a regular basis unless we move to a top 15 recruiting average for 3 to 4+ years.

[EdwardDrayton]

Around the start of the season, 247 puts out a team talent ranking. I like to look at that but I still take it with a grain of salt.

Was not aware of that. Yes, that would seem to be more relevant than the recruiting ranking without the portal departures.

[PMDawg]

Talent matters and rankings, while imperfect, are a proxy for that. But I think rankings are going to be even worse going forward than they have been. Too few high school signees are going to stick with their original team to make hs signing classes predictive. Nobody is going to watch enough football to really be able to predict how transfers will impact a team. You might get some conference specific guys that stay knowledgeable on a single conference. Or that do their homework for a dozen blue bloods. But just too hard to quantify based on stats. The team talent rankings will probably be the best tool, but they are probably going to overrate teams getting a lot of busts transferring to the team because they're weaker and underrate the teams that poach late bloomers from weaker teams.

Ranking high school kids may get worse, but ranking transfers should be pretty easy. At least a lot easier than ranking a high school junior.

[EdwardDrayton]

I feel the same way. I don't get too worked up over whether we are 20th or 35th. Now, if we start approaching top 15, or sub 45th, wake me up. Everything else is more of the same. As long as we stay between 15 and 45, we're a 6 to 8 win team, with an outside shot at moving 1 or 2 games in either direction when things "line up" to create that situation. We're not going to be a 10+ win team on a regular basis unless we move to a top 15 recruiting average for 3 to 4+ years.

I agree. But are we resigned to this or is there a path to more wins on a regular basis. I hate to admit we have to be satisfied with 6-8 win seasons. I would have said NIL is the answer but the Bear Sharts had the number 2 portal class in the country last year. 24-22. And then there's A&M.

[Hot Rock]

Was not aware of that. Yes, that would seem to be more relevant than the recruiting ranking without the portal departures.

https://247sports.com/Season/2022-Football/CollegeTeamTalentComposite/

Last year State was 29th but even then you have to look at individual players that play above their grade and State usually have several of those and I think more than most.

[Hot Rock]

If you compare the final rankings to the college team talent, you will see that they have a huge correlation but there will always be some teams play way better than their rankings but with some exceptions. Look at the top ten in both who finished ranked and who wins titles etc... The title winner always has top talent and most of the top ten with a couple outliers that play over their grade.

This year Oregon State, Fresno State (77th), Tulane (75), Troy (98th), TCU (32nd), Pittsburg (46) and Kansas State (70th) all finished ranked. While other teams like Oklahoma - 9th, Auburn - 18th , Ole Miss - 22nd and Tex A&M - 4th !!! all finished well below their talent grades for various reasons.

I find it interesting myself.