Despite their popularity with fans, recruiting rankings (rankings of college football programs based on the perceived quality of their high school recruiting classes each year) sometimes bear little relation to the success of those programs in the field in later years.
Of the eight teams ranked in the top 10 in recruiting by each of the three national recruiting websites for 2006, six (USC, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Penn State and Notre Dame) failed to rank in the top 25 in the end. Associated Press poll after the 2010 football season.
Most of the players drafted in 2006 would have completed their final year of eligibility in the fall of 2010, when they could be expected to be among the most experienced and skilled players on a particular team, contributing the most to the team’s success in games during the season.
A senior high school recruiting class might be expected to mean superior performance for a varsity team as those players move to starting positions on the field as college seniors. In the 2010 season, that didn’t happen for some teams with top-tier recruiting classes in 2006.
But that is not all.
Even more revealing is that many of the most successful college programs in the field in 2010 were far down the recruiting rankings for their high school recruiting classes in 2006.
For example, TCU, which was ranked No. 2 in the final AP poll for the fall 2010 season, and Stanford, which was ranked No. 4, were not among the top 50 recruiting classes designated by a major site. in 2006. The same site ranked Oregon’s Recruiting Class of 2006 only at No. 49, however, Oregon played in the national championship game and finished as No. 3 in the final AP poll after the 2010 fall season. Other recruiting websites also rated these teams’ 2006 recruiting classes as low.
This discrepancy between the perceived potential of high school football players and their final performance points to one of the great challenges in high school recruiting by universities: knowing which new high school players will be able to fit in. to the physical and emotional demands and faster pace of the college game. Other factors include the nearly 50 percent turnover rate among NCAA Division I head coaches every three years. New coaches often bring different offensive and defensive schemes that may not fit with the skills and talents of players recruited by a previous coach.
Interest in high school and college recruiting rankings based on the perceived quality of various college recruiting classes peaks with the annual National Signing Day, which is typically scheduled for the first Wednesday of February each year. anus. National Signing Day is the first day eligible high school football players can commit in writing, by signing a National Letter of Intent, to play in a particular college football program.
