When it comes to recruiting I'm using the only statistics available and not leaving anything out so I don't know what you mean. Unless you think Rivals rankings (consensus best recruiting service) are somehow biased. Using NFL draft picks involves coaching them up and I don't know where that data is anyway. What statistics would you use to judge where the top recruits want to go to school other than recruiting rankings?

"slow and sloppy"

Hint: there are other things besides the name of the school that determines where recruits want to go. The fact that, when rolling the dice with NFL unknowns, Pete Carroll turned out to be a way better coach than Charlie Weis has just as much to do with why he got better recruits than the location of the school. In fact, the one year where Weis had some serious credibility when kicking off the recruiting campaign after back to back BCS seasons, ND out recruited everyone, he just went 3-9 that year and never was able to recover after that. There's no reason to believe that if ND had 9 or 10 win season every year they wouldn't shoot right up to the top of the recruiting rankings given that that's what happened when USC found a good coach and that's what happened when ND showed even the slightest signs of recovery.

As for "once every blue moon", Tennessee had the following top 10 (meh, okay, 11) Rivals recruiting classes since 2002:

2002: 2nd
2004: 11th
2005: 4th
2007: 3rd
2009: 10th
2010: 9th currently, though I have no clue how far they're going to drop.

EDIT: Actually, with the way your sentence was structured I'm not sure if "once every blue moon" was supposed to refer to Auburn and Tennessee or South Caroline and Ole Miss.

Notre Dame is not pulling in the same talent, on average as USC, Florida and Texas. That's all I said and it should be pretty obvious to anyone who follows CFB. Can ND pull top 5, even #1 classes? Ya. So can Penn State, LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, etc. But Florida, Texas and USC are doing it more consistently than any of them and it's pretty obvious that they are the "sexiest" brand names in CFB right now. How can anyone argue against that?

LOLOLOL at the absurd recency bias here. i think its safe to say that im the biggest florida homer in SE, and im gonna have to go ahead and say ND > UF. its really close imo but ND gets the nod no questions asked. UF is enjoying a sickhot run right now (due in large part to how bad FSU and Miami have been sucking, which cant last forever). ND is always relevant, even when theyre terrible.

PSU and UT are also massive value destinations.

You also claim USC is a cut above for "obvious reasons". I don't see why its obvious. Didn't a ton of people just pass on that job? Sure there is looming sanctions, but for what you stats show to be significantly the best job in the country... its a little ridiculous.

In addition, I don't think anyone denies the appeal of a certain coach (the idea you're describing when you cull the AL stats).

You also show no regard for coaches in similar circumstances.

Pete Carroll: No college HCing, NFL failure, Blow it up
Steve Spurrier: A+ college HC, NFL failure, CFB failure
Charlie Weis: NFL mastermind, CFB failure, NFL mastermind
Nick Saban: A+ college HC, NFL failure, A+ college HC

Yet somehow in revisionist history, Nick Saban is clearly the greatest and could pull in big time recruiting classes at Northwestern or whatever you claimed?

The people that just passed on USC were current NFL coaches, and a guy who didn't want to leave his program after a year(Sark).

It's not like they offered it to a bunch of mid level guys who dissed them.

I don't know that Tennessee moving forward will get a top ten class in 60% of years, although they probably will 30-40% imo. Just my guess, could be off. Once every blue moon USCeast or MISS or whoever will also get a top ten class.

In fact, went and did a little looking

Here's a list of every team to make the rivals top ten list 2002-2009 (what i could find)

UGA: 9 top tens (only school top ten every year)
USC: 8 top tens
OKIE: 7
TEX: 6
LSU: 6
FSU: 6
UF: 6
TENN: 5
MIA: 5
BAMA: 4
MICH: 4
AUB: 4
tOSU: 4
ND: 3
PSU: 2
USCe: 2
TA&M: 2
MSST, COLO, UCLA, NEB, NCST, UNC, CAL all with one.

Aside from my obvious homer joy that UGA wins, the list is pretty interesting imo. 6 of the top 13 programs (with 4 or more top ten appearances) ranked by recent recruiting are SEC schools.

2010 - 6 out of top ten classes SEC
2009 - 4/10 (and 6 out of top 12)
2008 - 3/10
2007 - 7/10
2006 - 4/10
2005 - 2/10
2004 - 3/10
2003 - 5/10
2002 - 3/10

SEC has 37 out of the last 90 top ten classes, by far the most of any conference, which should explain it's recent dominance more than any other number. The full list is

SEC - 37
Big12 - 18
ACC - 10
PAC10 - 10
BigTen - 10
ND - 3
Big East - 2 (only Miami from 02 and 03)
Any others - none

Lets look at another "Destination Job" at AL, what was the change from mid-level **** of doody 4 coaching hot potato to Nick Saban?... It was Nick Saban.

Its like Pete Carroll. If he does ****ty with the hawks, and goes back to college. He's likely gonna improve the status of where ever he ends up. Its not that San Diego St dickbag school will be a great job, it'll be that he creates goodness.

If you put someone with no pedigree at any top spot, they'll struggle. See Alabama. See Nebraska. See other schools. If you want to argue that these programs lose status and that a "Destination School" changes on a quickly rotating basis. Okay... whatever. But that defeats the whole definition.

Also, i feel like that data proves my point earlier about UGA having the 4th best talent base of any state in the country.

UGA has had a top ten class 9 years in a row now, and they also draw almost all their talent from instate. They are 3rd in the country among BCS schools for % of players from the home state.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...20/recruiting/

GA HS football is goot. behind the big 3 recruiting states, there's none better.

Having given this more thought I'm coming around to the idea that the coach basically makes the programs great.

I think using your line of thought there are no destination jobs. Notre Dame, Michigan and Alabama have all had recent problems hiring coaches after 10 years of getting unexceptional results. Carroll wasn't USC's first choice either after they had a similar bad run. Florida missed on a few targets before getting Zook to replace Spurrier and that was after just a couple of seasons where they were merely very good instead of elite.

So either there are no destination jobs or there are a lot more of them than just a few. There just aren't enough examples of guys being HC of a pretty good program and moving to a great one and loads of examples of them turning those down. For example, when Bellotti was at Oregon he turned down an offer from USC and apparently rejected Ohio State as well after interviewing with them.

I meant to ask this earlier, do you guys know of any data on how good these rankings are? For example, if you look at individual schools, how much does the number of stars correlate with playing time? If you control for schools, is there a strong correlation between national ranking 3-4 years after the recruiting ranking?

This is an excellent question. I'm sure there absolutely has to be some correlation. But the real question is how strong is the correlation.

I think Oregon should be ranked higher.

Obviously you get a great stadium, fan base, good recruiting area, PAC-10 Conference and solid history.

But the best thing is Nike. Phil Knight writes you a check for ANYTHING you need.

Every locker has a plasma TV... and the BEST training staff...

Pretty sure even Kirk ferentz at Iowa makes 3 mil a year. so much for you're theory

Yeah, Phil Knight is giving you an unlimited budget, but why hasn't Oregon gotten over the hump as a national powerhouse?

Something's amiss in Eugene.

and has been for over a decade: Aliotti as DC.

he's gotta go for O to reach the next level, IMO

I understand they were chasing Mike Riley from OSUw.

in general, this is basically right, however, there are certain places you cannot win at long term. schools that kids don't want to go, or schools that are not spending money on athletics.

it might be possible to make iowa into a school every kid wants to go to. however, its going to be pretty tough when you don't have huge population bases near the school.

so its obviously easier to win at USC, Texas, Ohio State. However, if you do get a great coach at a decent school, he can make it look like a great job. But you have to have some resources.

The problem with lumping schools like Texas, Florida, and partially USC so high is that they are the top dog in a big state and have been pwning recruiting, but they aren't the only show in town. FSU and Miami used to be even bigger deals in Florida, and all those easy recruits still had 3 big time programs to go to. A real question is if those programs stay down as 2nd tier, or if they can rise back to where they once were. If they do, Florida's not quite as good of a job as it seems to be right now. Even then, it's still a damn good job.

Texas has less of an issue since A&M seems to not be coming back to compete any time soon. Tech really isn't getting in their face. Baylor, LOL. There still are a ton of other D1-A schools like SMU, TCU, Houston, UTEP, Rice (not sure if I missed anyone). They also have a lot of competition on their borders from Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, LSU. They still are top dog with pretty much no huge competition for recruits, so it's pretty high.

USC has even more schools competing for talent, such as UCLA, Cal, and even Stanford now. Oregon and Oregon State can peel off some recruits as well. If any of the Pac-10 programs in-state can rebound, it would hurt USC to not be quite as easy as it once was. We'll see how Kiffin does, and if any sanctions come into play.

While Ohio is probably a bit lower in terms of recruiting prospects than say Texas, Florida, or even California, there is less overall competition for those players than any of those states. There is Ohio State, and there are MAC schools (and now Cincinnati, who plays in the MAC+). Pennsylvania has similar issues with not much competition (although Pitt is there). Ohio still has a lot of players go to Michigan or Notre Dame, but no more of a loss than Texas players going to Oklahoma, or California players going to Oregon.

Absolute mortal locks on coaches (barring NFL moves, coaches leaving to sanctions, etc...):
Texas/USC/Ohio State/Penn State/Notre Dame/Alabama/Michigan

Teams that a very close to locks, but have a bit more competition:
Florida/LSU/Florida State/Miami/Georgia/Oklahoma/Nebraska

Florida is the closest one I can think of to move up, it's just so hard to judge fairly due to recency bias, and having Miami and FSU not really be as good as they were. They just have a lot of local competition, which can make it easy to slip off to not being that great of a job. They seem to bring in tons of money, so I guess that will almost always make up for it. I wouldn't object to moving them up to the top list.

Danny- What that list really shows is a pervasive overrating of Southern recruits by Rivals. UGA hasn't had nearly the success on the field or produced the same quantity of NFL players as USC. USCe being tied with Penn State and ahead of VT, WVU, Oregon, etc. strikes me as a pretty big flaw.


If Auburn and Tennessee are actually recruiting better talent than Ohio State that doesn't say a lot about the coaching and training staff people at those two schools.


That said, grouping Georgia in with GTech is hilarious recency bias. If Penn State had won 7 games this year, would Pitt be as attractive a destination? I think PSU:Pitt::UGA:GT is a pretty solid analogy.

I love people talking about 'recency bias' with Florida, while somehow completely forgetting about the 90's.

The greatest recruiter, yes. Saban's last 2 classes at LSU were #1 and #2. His last 2 at Bama were both #1 and he is #3 this year. Spurrier has nowhere near the rep as a recruiter that Saban has. Nobody does. Carroll comes close, but I think his recruiting success may be more tied to USC. I think everyone who follows recruiting closely would agree that Saban could pull in top 5 classes at any top 25ish program, should he leave Bama.

Does it really matter why a job is what it is (To steal Nicky's favorite phrase?) Take all the current coaches away tomorrow and give them equal returning talent and everything else being equal, a random coach will have a better chance to succeed at USC, Texas, or Florida, than ND or Bama, or anywhere else. Will it be that way forever? Of course not. The thread isn't about which job will be best in 10 years. It's about right now. USC, Texas and Florida are the easiest places to win at right now, current coaching and playing talent aside.