Blue Chip Ratio

[RamblinRed]

CBSSports has been producing this for a few years now.
Looks at the ratio of 4 and 5 star players on your roster to 3 star or less.
No team since the inception of this ratio in 2013 has won a NC with less than 50% of their roster being 4 and 5 star players.
Only FSU (2013, 53%), Clemson (2016, 52%) and Michigan (2023, 54%) have won a NC with less than 60% of their roster being 4 and 5 star players.

All the teams that have won NC's also have used the transfer portal sparingly, mainly to fill a spot or two, not for large numbers of rotational players.

Basically, teams that are national title contenders are teams that recruit at the highest level year after year and retain that talent.

Blue-Chip Ratio 2024: These 16 college football teams can actually win the national championship

Breaking down the programs that have done well enough on the recruiting trail to win the first 12-team CFP in the 2024 season

www.cbssports.com

There are 16 teams this upcoming season with a BCR > 50%. FSU is 17th at 49%. 13 of the 16 are in the SEC or B1G. The other three are ND, Clemson and Miami.
No B12 teams are on the list.

"The Big 12 has zero teams who are realistically even three recruiting cycles away from having a team on this list. For national title-winning purposes, the ACC is closer to the Big Ten than it is to the Big 12, at least until the outcome of ongoing lawsuits against the league from Florida State and Clemson are resolved.

In terms of teams outside the Big Ten and SEC, the only programs showing up on this list with any consistency are Clemson, Florida State, Miami and Notre Dame. "

 

[uncle J.R.]

Jacket Nation Remember winning ain't free send a check even if it's only a dollars we need 40,000 fans sending a check every quarter that would be 16 million dollars annually

 

[WreckinGT]

These guys are acting like master statisticians because they figured out that teams with more talent do better than teams with less talent.

 

[g0lftime]

These guys are acting like master statisticians because they figured out that teams with more talent do better than teams with less talent.

Masters of the obvious but it interesting to see the actual statistical corelation.

 

[57jacket]

CBSSports has been producing this for a few years now.
Looks at the ratio of 4 and 5 star players on your roster to 3 star or less.
No team since the inception of this ratio in 2013 has won a NC with less than 50% of their roster being 4 and 5 star players.
Only FSU (2013, 53%), Clemson (2016, 52%) and Michigan (2023, 54%) have won a NC with less than 60% of their roster being 4 and 5 star players.

All the teams that have won NC's also have used the transfer portal sparingly, mainly to fill a spot or two, not for large numbers of rotational players.

Basically, teams that are national title contenders are teams that recruit at the highest level year after year and retain that talent.

Blue-Chip Ratio 2024: These 16 college football teams can actually win the national championship

Breaking down the programs that have done well enough on the recruiting trail to win the first 12-team CFP in the 2024 season

www.cbssports.com

There are 16 teams this upcoming season with a BCR > 50%. FSU is 17th at 49%. 13 of the 16 are in the SEC or B1G. The other three are ND, Clemson and Miami.
No B12 teams are on the list.

"The Big 12 has zero teams who are realistically even three recruiting cycles away from having a team on this list. For national title-winning purposes, the ACC is closer to the Big Ten than it is to the Big 12, at least until the outcome of ongoing lawsuits against the league from Florida State and Clemson are resolved.

In terms of teams outside the Big Ten and SEC, the only programs showing up on this list with any consistency are Clemson, Florida State, Miami and Notre Dame. "

Interesting RR. Thanks for posting.

 

[MWBATL]

Would our 2025 class that folks seem excited about meet this ratio? (My impression is the answer is no...a lot of good 3 star guys we feel we can coach up.)

 

[AE 87]

It will be interesting to see the longer term effect of the transfer portal. Hypothetically, some of the traditional powerhouses might keep high ratios but lose experienced blue-chip, but backup, players to transfers.

 

[roadkill]

247 ranks “Team Talent Composite”, a reasonable proxy for Blue Chip Ratio. https://247sports.com/Season/2023-Football/CollegeTeamTalentComposite/

While the usual suspects are highly ranked, there are a few outliers. Michigan won it all with a 14th-ranked roster. Washington came close with a 26th-ranked roster. We sit at 36 for comparison. My takeaway is that having elite talent greatly increases your chances of success, but just having elite talent at some key positions, and a little luck with injuries, can get you playoff-bound.

Interestingly, a few schools stand out as severe underperformers. In the ACC, Miami (12th) and UNC (17th) are teams we beat last year despite us having significantly inferior overall talent on paper.

 

[bke1984]

Another dirty little secret. The recruiting sites give stars out based on who is recruiting the players. So if all the schools who have been winning national titles recruit a player then he will be deemed a 5*.

Sort of a self fulfilling prophecy isn’t it?

 

[TechPhi97]

Another dirty little secret. The recruiting sites give stars out based on who is recruiting the players. So if all the schools who have been winning national titles recruit a player then he will be deemed a 5*.

Sort of a self fulfilling prophecy isn’t it?

If this is the case then you would see a drop off in performance because the perceived quality was higher than the actual quality. There is a lot of noise in the data as these are subjective rankings, but it may also be that coaches at great performing schools are also good talent evaluators. I may take a look at that data over time with my analyst hat on.

 

[GT33]

Another dirty little secret. The recruiting sites give stars out based on who is recruiting the players. So if all the schools who have been winning national titles recruit a player then he will be deemed a 5*.

Sort of a self fulfilling prophecy isn’t it?

When the lowly ranked schools start dominating the playoffs it would suggests the star ratings are bunk, until then they pretty well predict success. If you line up running the same scheme with inferior players, on average you're going to lose more than you win, It's not rocket surgery.

 

[bke1984]

These counter arguments don’t make sense. So let’s take the 15 schools with the massive stadiums and fan bases. Those schools also tend to have excellent recruiting classes. So if I just slap 4* and 5* on the kids that are recruited by these schools, and make the rating higher if they are recruited by more of these schools than I can’t be wrong. One of them will likely win the title and then I can say, “see, the teams with the higher ranked recruiting classes win.”

 

[dressedcheeseside]

If this is the case then you would see a drop off in performance because the perceived quality was higher than the actual quality. There is a lot of noise in the data as these are subjective rankings, but it may also be that coaches at great performing schools are also good talent evaluators. I may take a look at that data over time with my analyst hat on.

It’s not hard to find the 4 and 5 stars and sign them if you’re a factory with gobs of NIL.

 

[stinger78]

Masters of the obvious but it interesting to see the actual statistical corelation.

Correlation does not imply causation.

 

[BurdellJacket]

When the lowly ranked schools start dominating the playoffs it would suggests the star ratings are bunk, until then they pretty well predict success. If you line up running the same scheme with inferior players, on average you're going to lose more than you win, It's not rocket surgery.

HAH. ..."Rocket surgery." I see what you did there!

 

[roadkill]

These counter arguments don’t make sense. So let’s take the 15 schools with the massive stadiums and fan bases. Those schools also tend to have excellent recruiting classes. So if I just slap 4* and 5* on the kids that are recruited by these schools, and make the rating higher if they are recruited by more of these schools than I can’t be wrong. One of them will likely win the title and then I can say, “see, the teams with the higher ranked recruiting classes win.”

There are elements of truth to both disparate viewpoints about star rankings – it's not an either/or issue. It has been shown that recruits committing to a major factory school often get a bump in their ranking. Conversely, it was almost a running joke during the CPJ era that when a recruit committed to GT, they would then lose a star.

We also know that it’s difficult to objectively rate and rank the thousands of two and three-star players. But when you get into the blue-chip level, elite talent becomes more obvious. The rating services like to state that 5-stars project to be first-round NFL picks. That’s why there are only 30-35 of them each year. Studies have shown a strong statistical correlation between the blue chips and the likelihood of success in the NFL. So, the services aren’t likely to be making this stuff up just to satisfy fanbases. However, it would not surprise me if the services allowed offer lists to influence their rating. Some coaches have a good track record at evaluating players – why not leverage that?

Also true, correlation does not imply causation, but it's hard to argue that winning championships causes players to become elite. It's more likely the other way around.

 

[Root4GT]

Correlation does not imply causation.

In the case of college football the correlation has a great deal to do with the causation. It also takes very good coaching as we have seen bad coaches flop with rosters full of 4 and 5 stat players.

The expanded CFP will be interesting with resect to the article Red posted.

My guess is the same core group will continue to be the teams competing for the NC.

 

[stinger78]

There are elements of truth to both disparate viewpoints about star rankings – it's not an either/or issue. It has been shown that recruits committing to a major factory school often get a bump in their ranking. Conversely, it was almost a running joke during the CPJ era that when a recruit committed to GT, they would then lose a star.

We also know that it’s difficult to objectively rate and rank the thousands of two and three-star players. But when you get into the blue-chip level, elite talent becomes more obvious. The rating services like to state that 5-stars project to be first-round NFL picks. That’s why there are only 30-35 of them each year. Studies have shown a strong statistical correlation between the blue chips and the likelihood of success in the NFL. So, the services aren’t likely to be making this stuff up just to satisfy fanbases. However, it would not surprise me if the services allowed offer lists to influence their rating. Some coaches have a good track record at evaluating players – why not leverage that?

Also true, correlation does not imply causation, but it's hard to argue that winning championships causes players to become elite. It's more likely the other way around.

Maybe they’re both true because of coaching, or S&C, or strong position group competition. Could be a lot of factors but there is certainly a positive correlation.

 

[bke1984]

The rating services like to state that 5-stars project to be first-round NFL picks. That’s why there are only 30-35 of them each year.

Yet there’s articles out there (varying) that state that only 50-60% of 5* players get drafted. I’d love to see detailed stats on this, but I don’t have the time to dig them up or compile them so I’ll just blindly trust the internet and hope for the best. What could go wrong…

 

[roadkill]

Yet there’s articles out there (varying) that state that only 50-60% of 5* players get drafted. I’d love to see detailed stats on this, but I don’t have the time to dig them up or compile them so I’ll just blindly trust the internet and hope for the best. What could go wrong…

"Only" 50-60% is an extremely high success rate compared to 3 stars. No one is expecting 100%.