Analyzing College Football’s Relationship Between Recruiting Class Rankings and Wins

Only seven Power Five schools have averaged at least 10 wins per season over the last four seasons: Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Georgia, Wisconsin and Stanford.

That group is largely a who’s who of many of the best college football programs this decade — one that has combined for 15 of the 20 College Football Playoff appearances during the playoff era.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that with the exception of Wisconsin, those programs have recruited at a nationally elite level. From 2015 to 2018, Alabama had anĀ average national recruiting class ranking of 2.0, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, thanks to three consecutive top-ranked classes.

Ohio State (3.8) and Georgia (4.0) also had an average ranking inside the top five, while the average recruiting classes at Clemson (10.8) and Oklahoma (12.8) ranked just outside the top 10 in the country.

Here’s a scatter plot of the relationship between wins in the last four seasons and the average recruiting class ranking from 2015-18 for every Power Five college football program, plus Notre Dame.

The win totals are not adjusted for NCAA violations.

In general, there’s a negative relationship between recruiting class rankings and win totals, meaning the lower the number of a school’s recruiting class ranking (thanks to signing better players), the more games its football team will win on the field.

It’s fair to say this recruiting-to-win-total relationship is stronger in football than it is in men’s basketball, where many programs have won at a high level in recent seasons thanks to veteran cores rather than one-and-done talent, transfers and players who redshirted.

But like college basketball, there’s no shortage of programs that have over and underachieved on the field based upon their annual recruiting class rankings in relation to the rest of the Power Five schools.

With an average recruiting class ranking of 39.8 from 2015-18, Wisconsin is certainly an overachiever.

Across their four recruiting classes from 2015 to 2018, the Badgers signed a combined seven 4-star prospects and zero 5-star prospects, building their roster around 3-star recruits.

Schools with similar average recruiting class rankings won anywhere from 24 games (Missouri) to 37 (Oklahoma State) during that span.

Instead, Wisconsin won 42 games in the last four years, including a 13-1 season in 2017 and a pair of Big Ten West titles.

It’s not a perfect model, but if you imagine a line drawn on the scatter plot from Kansas (average recruiting class ranking of 68.5, six total wins) to Alabama (average recruiting class ranking of 2.0, 55 total wins), you have established a general standard to judge the rest of the Power Five programs.

Programs above the line have overachieved on the field based on the talent they’ve enrolled, compared to the rest of the Power Five schools, while schools below the line have underachieved.

Schools on the line or very close to it have generally met expectations in terms of their win totals compared to their Power Five peers.

The scatter plot below shows some schools that have overachieved the most, relative to the rest of the Power Five.

The scatter plot below shows several notable schools that have recruited at a high level, but have failed to win at the level you would expect for a program that enrolls classes that rank in the top 10 to 20.

It’s worth noting that UCLA and Texas fall in a similar category in both football and men’s basketball as schools that recruit at a high level, but have struggled in recent years to win at a level that’s commensurate with their recruiting rankings.

Below is a conference-by-conference breakdown for each school’s win total and average recruiting class ranking from 2015 to 2018. They’re listed in descending order of wins.

The last column, labeled “Difference,” shows the difference between where a school ranks in its conference in win total in the last four seasons compared to its average recruiting class ranking in the conference during that span.

For example, if a school had the sixth-best average recruiting class ranking but ranked fourth in its conference in win total, its difference is +2. If a school has the second-best recruiting class average but the sixth-highest win total, its difference is -4.

ACC

School Win Total Avg. Recruiting Class Ranking (conference rank) Difference
Clemson 55 10.8 (2) +1
Miami 34 17.3 (3) +1
NC State 32 40.0 (8) +5
Virginia Tech 32 30.3 (5) +2
Florida State 32 5.8 (1) -2
Pittsburgh 28 39.8 (7) +1
Duke 27 48.8 (9) +2
Louisville 27 33.8 (6) -1
Wake Forest 25 60.0 (13) +4
Boston College 24 69.0 (14) +4
Georgia Tech 24 51.5 (10) 0
North Carolina 24 27.3 (4) -6
Syracuse 22 55.8 (11) -2
Virginia 20 57.5 (12) -2

Big 12

School Win Total Avg. Recruiting Class Ranking (conference rank) Difference
Oklahoma 46 12.8 (2) +1
Oklahoma State 37 39.3 (5) +3
TCU 35 28.3 (3) 0
West Virginia 33 41.5 (6) +2
Kansas State 28 63.3 (9) +4
Texas 27 11.3 (1) -5
Baylor 25 36.3 (4) -3
Texas Tech 23 49.3 (7) -1
Iowa State 22 56.5 (8) -1
Kansas 6 68.5 (10) 0

Big Ten

School Win Total Avg. Recruiting Class Ranking (conference rank) Difference
Ohio State 48 3.8 (1) 0
Wisconsin 42 39.8 (7) +5
Michigan 38 18.0 (3) 0
Penn State 38 13.8 (2) -1
Iowa 37 46.5 (8) +5
Northwestern 36 53.8 (10) +4
Michigan State 32 26.8 (5) -2
Minnesota 27 51.5 (9) +1
Nebraska 23 25.5 (4) -5
Indiana 22 54.3 (11) +1
Purdue 18 67.5 (14) +3
Maryland 18 33.5 (6) -6
Illinois 14 55.0 (13) 0
Rutgers 11 54.5 (12) -2

Pac-12

School Win Total Avg. Recruiting Class Ranking (conference rank) Difference
Stanford 40 23.5 (5) +1
Washington 39 23.3 (4) +2
Washington State 37 46.8 (9) +6
Utah 35 37.0 (7) +4
USC 34 5.0 (1) -4
Oregon 29 18.8 (3) -3
California 25 44.3 (8) +1
Arizona State 25 28.0 (6) -2
Colorado 24 56.3 (11) +2
Arizona 22 49.3 (10) 0
UCLA 21 16.0 (2) -9
Oregon State 9 59.8 (12) 0

SEC

School Win Total Avg. Recruiting Class Ranking (conference rank) Difference
Alabama 55 2.0 (1) 0
Georgia 42 4.0 (2) 0
LSU 36 7.3 (3) 0
Florida 33 14.5 (6) +2
Auburn 33 9.5 (4) -1
Mississippi State 32 24.3 (10) +4
Texas A&M 32 14.8 (7) 0
Kentucky 29 34.5 (12) +4
Tennessee 27 14.0 (5) -4
Ole Miss 26 21.3 (9) -1
South Carolina 25 21.0 (8) -3
Missouri 24 38.5 (13) +1
Vanderbilt 21 52.3 (14) +1
Arkansas 21 30.0 (11) -3

 

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