re: How Much Does recruiting rankings mean to your team?

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Well thats a pretty asanine statement. Our 2011 team was one of the best developed and coached LSU teams of all time, regardless if we won an NC or not. Just look at the guys from that year playing in the NFL.

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I'll look at the guys in the NFL from that team, I will conclude the were talented and developed properly, that leads to one piece of the three missing, coaching.

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I think recruiting rankings are inaccurate for UGA in the opposite manner.

UGA should have a NC by now if you based it on recruit rankings.

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UCF, Colorado, and Boise St. should never beat them according to the rankings as well.

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Let's not confuse recruiting rankings with the level of talent on a given roster. Recruiting rankings are determined by questionable people with zero coaching experience

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Many apologies. I was actually referring to recruiting only, not the ranking, although rankings are about the only way that the average fan can determine how his team recruits against the rest of the country. All that being said, I'll still take the #1 ranked recruiting class every year and let the others bring it on!

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That season was coached incredibly though up until the NC game. 2011 was really one of the most enjoyable seasons as a Tiger fan that I can remember in a long time, which is what made 1/9 all the more unbearable. Leading up to the last game coaching of that team was not an issue.

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Obviously, to get to the game, but it only takes one badly coached game to define a season.

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Coaches are the key. Recruiting follows second.

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I dunno. Maybe the rankings themselves means shite, but the recruiting of high-caliber players (recruiting sites aren't as accurate as coaches' evaluations imo) is essential.

You can't make chicken salad without chickens.

Recruiting is a huge part of the game...

Percentages are my opinion...

5 Star Players (85% chance of being a major contributer)
4 Star Players (70% chance of being a major contributer)
3 Star Players (50% chance of being a major contributer)


BOTTOM LINE: The more 4 and 5 star players you have, the greater the chance of them being successful..There will be 5 star bust and 3 stars that turn into NFL players.

On a player-by-player basis rankings aren't super accurate. There are plenty of 4* & 5* busts and 2* & 3* diamonds who play in the NFL. BUT, on the AGGREGATE level, there darn sure is a correlation between the overall ranking of a class and the performance of the team on the field. Anyone arguing otherwise is doing so from the perspective of a fan of a team that doesn't get top talent and is engaging in an excercise of cognitive dissonance.

The question of what do they mean to your team is important though.

Some fanbses are okay with just being competitive, fun to watch, not embarrasing. If that's the case, and you have a coach who has a great system, or is a really good talent identifier who can find the diamonds in the rough, or is just a really good coach with a good staff that can coach 'em up and put them in places to excel, then rankings don't mean much. You'll be competitive, fun and un-embarrasing. This is the case with South Carolina and Missouri. Spurrier & Pinkel can both do some combination of the above and their teams are useually salty and effective without monster recruiting classes.

That said, other fanbases want to or expect to compete for Natties and aren't satisfied with merely being competitive. The hard truth backed by harsh reality is that there hasn't been a team that's won a Natty without at least one Top-10 class. Useually they have a couple Top-10s on campus. This is where the aggregate value of the rankings comes into play. You can talk until you are blue in the face about how Spurrier's coaching ability matters more than talent, but how many Natties has he won at SCAR? None. He isn't going to. He has a talent ceiling there. He'll be COMPETITIVE there until he reties, because he's really good and he can get enough talent to field teams that matter, but he isn't crossing that Top-10 class barrier, so he isn't bringing home the overall title.

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The more fans who buy subscriptions the more stars your recruits get. The more stars your recruits get get the more fans will subscribe

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I guess those subscriptions also equal national championships?

Oh lord......

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but you start getting into the teens and twenties I don't see how you can compete on a regular basis.

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I read where Mizzou has averaged about 36th or so in Rivals recruiting class the last 7 years.

Mizzou has had win totals of 12, 10, 8, 10, 8, 5, and 12 in those 7 years. That seems to be "competing on a regular basis" to me.

For a new coach, you might not have much to go on except for recruiting rankings. For an established coach, though, you can begin to see whether they can evaluate and recruit better than the "rankings" would seem to indicate. When you get to that point, you can pretty much dismiss the recruiting rankings and trust in your staff.