re: Bama owns 10% of the nation's Top 100 with ten months to go.

Team rankings, according to Rivals, over the past ten years ...

2004 - 1 SoCal, 2 LSU, 3 FSU, 4 Miami, 5 Mich, 6 Georgia, 7 Florida, 24 Bama (SoCal sucked four years later. UF Gators won 2008 BCSCG)

2005 - 1 SoCal, 2 FSU, 3 Okla, 4 Tenn, 5 Nebraska, 6 Mich, 7 Miami, 8 A&M, 15 Florida, 19 Bama ... (SoCal sucked four years later, Bama won 2009 BCSCG)

2006 - 1 SoCal, 2 Florida, 3 FSU, 4 UGA, 5 Texas, 6 PSU, 7 LSU, 8 Notre Dame, 9 Okla, 10 Auburn, 11 Bama ... (SoCal sucked four years later, Auburn won 2010 BCSCG)

2007 - 1 Florida, 2 SoCal, 3 Tenn, 4 LSU, 5 Texas, 6 SCAR, 7 Auburn, 8 Notre Dame, 9 UGA, 10 Bama ... (Bama won 2011 BCSCG)

2008 - 1 Bama, 2 Notre Dame, 3 Florida, 9 FSU ... (Bama won 2012 BCSCG)

2009 - 1 Bama, 2 LSU, 3 OSU, 4 SoCal, 7 FSU ... (FSU won 2013 BCSCG)

2010 - 1 SoCal, 2 Florida, 3 Texas, 4 Auburn, 5 Bama ... (Auburn wins in same year, 2010) (Playoffs begin four years later, 2014)

2011 - 1 Bama, 2 FSU, 3 Texas, 4 SoCal, 5 UGA (Bama wins in same year, 2011) (Champion yet to be determined in four years, 2015)

2012 - 1 Bama, 2 Texas, 3 Florida, 4 OSU, 5 Stanford (Bama wins in same year, 2012)(Champion yet to be determined for 2016)

2013 1 Bama, 2 OSU, 3 Notre Dame, 4 Florida, 5 Michigan (FSU wins in same year)(Champion yet to be determined in 2017)

2014 1 Bama (a predetermined, foregone, conclusion)

So, it's a fairly safe bet that whomever has the #1 class is not necessarily going to win the championship ... and that was my point. Having the #1 class is almost like winning the Par 3 tourney at The Masters to some degree.


ETA: More years

Signing the top class and winning a national championship in the same year isn't indicative of anything. The vast majority of those players don't contribute in the first year.

It's silly to say it doesn't matter when it's been proven repeatedly that teams that pull in top classes play top bowl games, including most of the title contenders. Hell, Bama won 3 of 4 national titles, so, yeah, recruiting matters. It's not the end-all and be-all, certainly, and the gap between the top 5 recruiting classes (for instance) isn't a huge one except in terms of prestige, but there's a reason why scrappy underdogs with rejects from other teams rarely win big outside of sports movies or 1970s Oakland.

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Signing the top class and winning a national championship in the same year isn't indicative of anything. The vast majority of those players don't contribute in the first year.

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Thank you, you are exactly correct. As the old saying goes and I paraphrase here but, "if you are planning your season around, and relying on freshmen, especially true freshmen, then you are in trouble."

OP used a sample size of 100 in OP, then reduces sample to 1(#1 class) when trying to defend his conclusions. Why not use at least top 10 classes instead of limiting to one.

Not to rain on your theory, but you have to remember that "blue-chip" classes are very different in football than in basketball. UK or Duke can sign an entire starting line-up of top 100 players. No football program, not even USC or Bama, does that. There's always an extremely generous allotment of "blue collar" in the mix. Granted, "blue collar" for those programs may be top-ranked recruits for, say, Vandy, but they're still hardly elite on a national scale.

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That's ridiculous. You're trying to prove that signing #1 ranked recruiting classes doesn't necessarily translate to championships.

I just showed you that 9 of the previous 11 #1 ranked recruiting classes have finished with at least one national championship.

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I think he's focusing a bit too much on semantics. No, nothing's automatic. Yes, there's always going to be an element of chance. No, there aren't any guarantees. But he's making a valid point only in the context of a philosophically specious argument. There will always be exceptions, but they don't in any way support generalizations like the influence of recruiting classes does.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that this whole thread was some ploy to make fans of a team that doesn't recruit particularly well feel better about themselves, while at the same time trying to downplay the domination in recruiting by another team.

Suck it bitches.

Chemistry is the big thing with Bama. It's hard to keep guys motivated to get the same prize every year. You're going to have 2010 & 2013 types of years. This should be Bama's "bounce back" year. I'd give 50/50 odds Bama wins the national title this year. Talent is not an issue.