looking at our recruiting class so far is just not very inspiring, little jumps off the page. So I went back and looked at John's recruiting history based on the Rivals database. I looked at each year and then broke it down into two groups, his 5 classes before the 2014 championship and his 5 classes after.
Year---3 star or higher---total signees---% of 3 star or higher
2010 - 9-25-36%
2011 - 17-24-71% (this was the core of the 2014 championship and 2013 title game)
2012 - 11-20-55%
2013 - 11-20-50%
2014 - 11-26-42%
5 year total - 59-117-50.4%, the 59 included 4 4-star players
2015 - 11-26-42%
2016 - 7-28-25%
2017 - 8-19-42%
2018 - 12-29-41%
2019 - 12-33-36%
5 year total - 50-135-37.0%, the 50 included 1 4-star player
So we have seen two things happen since we won the championship in 2014, a decline in the number of higher rated recruits and an increase in the number of players signed, which indicates that the number of props taken has significantly increased and led to over recruiting.
The worse part is that the vast majority of the high recruits in the first five years were kids that were eligible out of HS. In the last 5 years many of the higher rated players have not been eligible. That tells me that we just aren't fighting on the recruiting trail like we did early in John's tenure. He's just taking the higher rated players that others can't, taking them in large numbers, and hoping some of them make it. Since many haven't we end up where we are this year, beating the JUCO trail desperate for bodies so we can have at least a semi legit 2-deep.
Year---3 star or higher---total signees---% of 3 star or higher
2010 - 9-25-36%
2011 - 17-24-71% (this was the core of the 2014 championship and 2013 title game)
2012 - 11-20-55%
2013 - 11-20-50%
2014 - 11-26-42%
5 year total - 59-117-50.4%, the 59 included 4 4-star players
2015 - 11-26-42%
2016 - 7-28-25%
2017 - 8-19-42%
2018 - 12-29-41%
2019 - 12-33-36%
5 year total - 50-135-37.0%, the 50 included 1 4-star player
So we have seen two things happen since we won the championship in 2014, a decline in the number of higher rated recruits and an increase in the number of players signed, which indicates that the number of props taken has significantly increased and led to over recruiting.
The worse part is that the vast majority of the high recruits in the first five years were kids that were eligible out of HS. In the last 5 years many of the higher rated players have not been eligible. That tells me that we just aren't fighting on the recruiting trail like we did early in John's tenure. He's just taking the higher rated players that others can't, taking them in large numbers, and hoping some of them make it. Since many haven't we end up where we are this year, beating the JUCO trail desperate for bodies so we can have at least a semi legit 2-deep.
