USA TODAY International Edition
Recruiting has clear impact on success
Schools such as Alabama, Ohio State keep stockpiling
Games are won with Jimmies and Joes and not X’s and O’s, former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer said, an adage that can be condensed into simpler terms: Talent wins championships.
National signing day is in our collective rearview mirrors, with the start of the 2017 college football season seven months away. The interim will be filled with clichés — teams will get stronger in the weight room and will play a more physical brand of football, to name two.
But there is a direct line from signing day to September. In fact, projecting how the 2017 season will unfold is as simple as connecting the dots.
Looking back at how each team from the Power Five conferences has recruited during the last five cycles — a period that would encompass every class from the incoming freshmen signed Wednesday through fifth- year seniors — might be the strongest predictor for the coming season.
It’s a simple formula: Using the composite standings compiled by 247Sports. com, I’ll provide the average final class ranking for each Power Five team during the last five years. If sorted by conference or division, these numbers should at least give an early suggestion about what to expect once college football returns in August.
Atlantic Coast: A clear top two in Florida State ( 5.2 five- year average) and Clemson ( 14.3); a talented yet somewhat underachieving program in Miami ( Fla.) at 17.2; depth in the Coastal Division. Sounds about right. Then again, the fact that Georgia Tech ( 56.2) is last in the division might very well be an outlier.
Big 12: Here are the first two noticeable flaws in this project. One is Kansas State’s Bill Snyder, who has proved over the course of decades that where his class lands on the signing day rankings is a poor barometer for how his team will look in the fall. The Wildcats’ five- year average is 60. Second is Texas ( 15.2) and Baylor ( 33.8), which might rank in the top three in this five- year recruiting glance but will struggle to match that in the standings.
Big Ten: This helps to represent two factors. The first is that Ohio State ( 3.6) has taken a distinct overall advantage against the rest of the Big Ten in terms of overall talent level — a gap widened over all but a handful of conference foes during last week’s signing day. The second is how the East Division has been by far the stronger of the two divisions on signing day, a fact reflected during the last several regular seasons.
Pac- 12: Well, this one’s a mess. Oregon ( 20.4) isn’t winning the North Division in 2017; it will be either Washington ( 26.6) or Stanford ( 23.6), programs that tend to allow others to win in February while cleaning up in the fall. While Southern California ( 7.8) is the likely favorite in the South, the recruiting standings overlook the tremendous work Utah ( 46.4) does developing talent and the class Colorado ( 63) signed on the heels of its Alamo Bowl berth.
Southeastern: Five years, five No. 1 signing classes. Such is life at Alabama. And this trend paints a frustrating picture for the rest of the SEC. To the East Division, it stands to reason that Georgia’s top- tier recruiting efforts — including the nation’s No. 3 class Wednesday — should pay off for Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs ( 7.2).