Final 247 Composite by Average Player Rank
As we move from a massive class which helped us finish top 5, it's time to change our tune from "final rank matters!!" to "average player rank matters!!". IMO average player rank ALWAYS is the more important thing - quality over volume; of course both help.
Here is how 2017 ended by ave player rank; I'll cluster them in groups rather than go individually as the difference between 91.32 and 90.86 is a rounding error in a great guestimating game. The # in parenthesis is the # of kids in the class.
While OSU had a class for the ages in quality, the fact Bama nearly matched them in player rank WHILE pulling in 8 more players is just as awe inspiring as eventually you run out of top 100 players in the country to land. To put in perspective these numbers the 100th ranked player in the country was a 95.2; the 150th was a 93.3 Showing how difficult it is to get a ranking over 93.
To that end what Stanford and Clemson did is great but "easier" in the fact they only had 14 kids and could be very picky. Something in theory UM should be doing next year. (Granted it's never easy at Stanford as they have actual academic requirements) A 92 ave rank next year should hopefully be a goal with a class most likely of 18-20 pending a lot of firm handshakes and attrition (UM has 75 players with >1 year of eligibility currently).
The data shows UM to have a very high quality class as while it's not Saban-esque (no one is), this is a massive classes that still generated a 91 average - again when you get that large of a class it's difficult to maintain quality throughout unless you are Bama. (Fun fact - UM's largely cursed 2013 class had 27 people with a 91.0 average as well) To that end when balancing quantity to quality I'd say UM was only clearly behind OSU, Bama, GA. And in the conversation with USC/LSU in size of class to player rank balance.
Damn son:
- OSU 94.5 (21)
- Bama 93.6 (29)
Spectacular in almost any other year; esp GA
- GA 92.7 (26)
- Stanford 92.4 (14)
- Clemson 92.1 (14)
Still awesome
- USC 91.6 (25)
- LSU 91.4 (24)
- FSU 91.0 (24)
- UM 90.9* (30)
Noice
- Oklahoma 89.9 (27)
- Auburn 89.2 (23)
- Fig Things 89.2 (21)
- UF 88.8 (24)
- PSU 88.8 (21)
- The U 88.7 (27)
- Washington 88.4 (18)
Sometimes you let your little brother get Malik McDowell; other years you let him battle Bowling Green, Colorado State, South Alabama, Purdue, and the police department for 'croots
- Disrespekt 85.1 (23)
Worst Power 5:
- Purdon't 82.0 (21) - yes...behind Kansas, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, and Boston College.
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Other notables - Mike Riley had an impressive class actually; Durkin is doing things at MD. NW.... with actual academic standards ...matched MSU.
- Neb 87.6 (20)
- MD 87.0 (29)
- UCLA 88.0 (19)
- Texas 87.5 (18)
- Ole Mi$$ 85.9 (23)
- Utah 86.8 (16)
- NW 85.1 (19)
*includes a 73 punter
February 2nd, 2017 at 4:13 AM ^
All of our 5 stars will become 6 stars, and all of our 4 stars will also become 6 stars. These are facts the recruiting sites tend to overlook.
February 2nd, 2017 at 4:43 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 5:12 AM ^
We improved our team by adding the #1 punter in the country and his 2 star 72 grade knocked our avg player ranking down quite a bit. I think we were around the 91.6 range before we added him.
Maybe they need to rethink the grading system for the special teamers. In the last two years, Kenny Allen and Blake O'Neill have done great things for us with their punting. Iowa's punter beat us this year. OSU's punter has been off the charts. Punters have the ability to change a game with one kick. I think they should get a little more love from the recruiting sites.
February 2nd, 2017 at 5:27 AM ^
Yes removing him gives you a 91.5 but I'm sure other schools had reaches (i.e .their Dennis Norfleets) on the last day to fill classes too - not quite the 73 of a kicker but some upper 70s/low 80s etc. OSU was over 95 before they added their last recruit, a 3*.
February 2nd, 2017 at 6:56 AM ^
Last minute commit but not one who brought the average down.
February 2nd, 2017 at 7:45 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 9:57 AM ^
This is a good idea. Or at least when comparing two teams, you should count only their top X players, where X is the smaller number of recruits between the two schools. For example, why should a class of five 0.99 rated players be better than a class of five 0.99 rated players and one 0.98 rated player?
February 2nd, 2017 at 11:31 AM ^
is in the 93 range. Backing that up with more quality recruits should not be looked at as a negative. This tightens the gap on OSU.
Alabama on the other hand is jsut rediculous.
February 2nd, 2017 at 3:44 PM ^
which is the crux of the "average player rating" vs. "overall class rank" argument.
Our quality recruits from 22-30 take up a scholarship for the next four years. OSU can use those scholarships on more players in the future that average in the 95, 94, 93 or whatever range.
Over the course of several years, class sizes even out, so it's better in the long run for your class rank to be boosted more by higher rated players than a high quantity of players.
February 2nd, 2017 at 12:06 PM ^
This is why I like the average of the top 15 or so guys approach. It adjusts for class size and stuff like this where ST specialists don't affect the average.
February 2nd, 2017 at 2:19 PM ^
Yes removing him gives you a 91.5 but I'm sure other schools had reaches (i.e .their Dennis Norfleets) on the last day to fill classes tooBut a star punter shouldn't be considered a "reach" at all. They need to rethink how they evaluate specialists.
February 2nd, 2017 at 4:56 PM ^
Removing a punter to get the 91.5 avg is different than removing a "reach" at other positions. The point is that the best punter in the country often has a score in the 70s, the best kicker or full back is often in the low 80s. Not true for other postions. Since some teams don't rely on full backs and punters/kickers are not taken most years, keeping these in the averages adds more noise than signal.
February 2nd, 2017 at 9:07 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 9:37 AM ^
I've seen multiple references to the punter as "The #1 punter in the country" but 247 composite has him as #13. Where are people getting this #1 stuff?
February 2nd, 2017 at 9:43 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 2:13 PM ^
God damn you... Take your upvote.
February 2nd, 2017 at 10:01 AM ^
Kornblue Kicking (LINK), My understanding is that the traditional recruiting services put little effort into kickers and especially punters (I think two of the services don't even have Brad Robbins rated). Therefore, these kicking evaluator specialists are a "more trusted" source, but there's possibly some bias for us choosing to use their rankings in this case (though Quinn Nordin was also #1 at Kornblue last year as well as 247 composite).
February 2nd, 2017 at 5:25 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 6:41 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 6:34 PM ^
When you look at Kornblue's punter rankings, it's amazing how few have Power 5 offers.
Many of the bowl games were affected by poor punting field position.
February 2nd, 2017 at 5:44 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 7:10 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 5:56 AM ^
How does this years class compare to last years?
February 2nd, 2017 at 6:08 AM ^
It was nearly identical to Oklahoma's this year
2016: 89.9 (28)
February 2nd, 2017 at 7:17 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 7:57 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 12:06 PM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 8:40 AM ^
is that they were all smart enough to select Michigan above all their other offers. That level of intelligence and clear thinking under pressure will help us win games in the future. Go Blue!
February 2nd, 2017 at 8:50 AM ^
I really don't think average rating is the way to rank classes. Big classes like ours will always be at a disadvantage.
February 2nd, 2017 at 8:50 AM ^
I really don't think average rating is the way to rank classes. Big classes like ours will always be at a disadvantage.
February 2nd, 2017 at 9:00 AM ^
Exactly. When you have a smaller class, you don't have the luxury of taking "risks" with 3* guys and you don't want a 2* punter...
February 2nd, 2017 at 1:47 PM ^
If you allow class size to play too much of a role, you can have a top 10 class with a large class of mediocre recruits who are unlikely to be able to keep up with the players Bama or OSU are getting. And you punish a Stanford, which did a great job bringing in quality to a small class.
On the other hand, as you so clearly point out, our class is superior to Stanford's or Clemson's because they took only 14 and our top 14 are better than their class. So neither tell the full story by themselves.
February 2nd, 2017 at 9:49 AM ^
In cases like this years class Stalin's famous quote applies -- quantity is its own quality (or something to that effect). Some of those lower 4 starts and 3 stars could turn out to be exceptional players. I am particularly optimistic about Steuber.
February 2nd, 2017 at 10:47 AM ^
Except that in modern times, 10 American jets could shoot down 100 Soviet/Russian jets. At some point sheer quantity can not make up for a lack of quality.
This applies to recruiting as well. 30 man classes of 3-stars are not going to catch up with 20-man classes that are made up of 4/5-stars.
Both arguments are right and wrong in this debate . . . you can't just go by average recruit ranking, but you can't overweight class size either at the expense of average recruit ranking.
It would be an interesting study to see where that line falls over time, but we know emperically that there clearly is a line somewhere.
February 2nd, 2017 at 6:27 PM ^
The jet analogy isn't apt as you aren't relying on a certain amount of luck for the American jet to be elite. 4 and 5 star kids don't always produce, for a variety of reasons. If you have twice as many near-elite athletes your odds of fielding an elite squad goes up dramatically.
February 2nd, 2017 at 9:57 AM ^
I say Coaching matters much more than all that player ranking stuff . Its nice to have a highly ranked class , but its what you do with those players that matters more.
Im pretty sure Brady Hoke had highly ranked classes but couldnt coach them well enough to convert that into wins .
February 2nd, 2017 at 12:45 PM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 10:05 AM ^
Statistical analysis is nice (no snark), but context is important. Harbaugh accomplished exactly what this program needed - an influx of talent throughout the roster to reduce the dropoff in cases of injury, transfers, etc. This class will be the backbone of the team for the next 4 years. No DISRESPEKT to last year's class, but I think this group will produce nearly double the amount of starts (snaps) when it's all said and done. There will obviously be excellent players from last year's class (oh hi Rashan!), but when the class of '17 become upperclassmen, UM will be a force. The fact that this class has absurd high end talent too is just the cherry on top.
February 2nd, 2017 at 11:52 AM ^
Realistically our class compares favorably to pretty much everyone except Bama/OSU. I have some charts comparing us to each of the first 3 categories (Damn Son, Spectacular, and Still Awesome). My embedding skills are subpar apparently though, so I'll just post the link.
February 2nd, 2017 at 11:50 AM ^
February 2nd, 2017 at 1:50 PM ^
right in between Paye and Vilain
February 2nd, 2017 at 1:47 PM ^
I think the people in this thread have done a pretty good job of demolishing the argument of why using "avg star rank" would be a good idea. When you start to take away lower rated people to equal the numbers of the other teams smaller classes you get a wildly different result. I'd rather be the team with 20 4-5 stars and 8 3 stars than a team with just 5 5 stars.
And no, the average star rank does not extrapolate to years when these schools have bigger classes. Look at OSUs bigger class last year, it looks much like ours this year. Less recruts means choosier commitments. Your class isn't any better because it has less people in it.
You actually seemed to acknowledge this with this quote..."To that end when balancing quantity to quality I'd say UM was only clearly behind OSU, Bama, GA. And in the conversation with USC/LSU in size of class to player rank balance."
That would seem to indicate you agree with the final total class ranking when ranking the classes and not using average star rank.
February 2nd, 2017 at 1:49 PM ^
So basically, Michigan should have a talent parity/advantage against basically everyone they play against...except Alabama. So that'll be nice in a couple of years.
Coaching staff did great this year. Let's see Georgia looks recruiting next year; my guess is this was a 1-year bump due to excitement under Smart and they'll settle into the "noice" category going forward.
February 2nd, 2017 at 1:53 PM ^
if so Georgia will continue to recruit at a mysteriously high level until Freeze'd.
February 2nd, 2017 at 2:39 PM ^
In theory, it shouldn't be that mysterious: Georgia has over 10 million people and UGA is the main local school (GT has more stringent admissions standards, IIRC). It's just that they used to have a reputation as a relatively clean school and now there are whispers that they've started to follow the practices of their SEC brethren.
February 2nd, 2017 at 5:19 PM ^
I am not sure if average star rating is as important as sheer number of 5 and 4 star players. A large recruiting class can drop your average if you have a lot of 3 stars and some 2 star players. However, how many starter poisitions can you potentially fill with top talent?
For example, FSU has a slightly higher average. But would you rather have Michigan's 21 four and five star players (2/19) or would you rather have FSU's 12 (4/8)?
I'd emphatically state that I would rather have a slightly lower average and 21 top talent guys than 12.
February 2nd, 2017 at 6:23 PM ^
I would rather have 30 players averagin 91 than 14 players averaging 93. You've got more than twice as many chances to make stars out of players who are all in very similar talent ranges.
February 2nd, 2017 at 6:51 PM ^
I guess the true success of a class is developing, yes, but also holes you plugged on your roster with the class.
Love the WR class this year...duh. Hoping for a OLine class next year, like the WR class this year.