Bruce Wayne
Helluva Engineer
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I realized that I hijacked the Recruiting Q&A thread to respond to IronJacket 7 so decided to create my first thread.
IJ7 was concerned that CPJ could have been signaling a defeatist attitude about getting the highest rated recruits with his comment that Tech has never had top 10 rated recruiting classes before so that should not be an expectation. That made me look at just what goes in to being a top 10 rated class. Here is what I found:
Rivals top 10 for last year (2013 class) averages:
Avg # of commits = 25
Avg # of 5-star = 2.2
Avg # of 4-star = 13.2
% of 4-5 stars per class = 60%
And here are the averages for those teams ranked 11-20 for the 2013 class:
Avg # of commits = 23.5
Avg # of 5-star = .5, in fact and as quite an oddity, all 5 5-star in the 11-20 ranked classes went to the same school and this is why USC ranked 13th with only 12 commits (five 5-star & seven 4-star), but I will keep them in the calculation anyway.
Avg# of 4-star = 8.9% of 4-5 stars per class = 40%
My conclusions:
To get in the top 10 you must oversign and still have over 60% of your commits ranked 4-5 stars.
The top 20 likewise favors oversigning and also demands that 40% or more of the class be rated 4 or 5-star.
First, neither of these outcomes are very likely at Tech.
Secondly, the class rankings and the star assignment favors the factories (even without talking about subscription rate conspiracies). The favoritism is built in by the fact that not only do rankings NOT treat oversigning as unethical, they reward it as a positive good. The assignment of stars to high schoolers also favors the factories since they are based solely on athletic prowess and retain total neutrality as regards intellectual aptitude for college and behavioral/character issues. The factories do not need to worry about scholastic aptitude or character because a) they oversign anyway which means they build-in protection against high attrition; and b) they do not have to worry about athletes attending/passing real college courses.
Here again we see that Tech does not operate in a manner that will allow it to be ranked in the top-10 of recruiting classes and only as a rarity can it hope to crack the top-20.
For my part I do not see how Tech could have both a level of attrition high enough or get a large enough proportion of 4-5 star recruits to crack the top-20 any more frequently than once every two decades. It seems to me that the attrition aspect may happen at best once every 5 years. So in those years where we will take enough recruits what is the likelihood of at least 40% 4-5 star recruits in that class? Maybe 1 in 5? So that means I can reasonably expect Tech to have a top 20 rated recruiting class once every 25 years or so?
One last comment. My look at what it takes to be top 10 or top 20 in recruiting class rankings is coach neutral. I think that the data speaks for itself about how much of an aberration it would be for any coach at Tech to make it into the top-20. So if anything CPJ is being far more optimistic than I am by just saying Tech won't have top-10 rated classes and leaving top-20 an open question.
IJ7 was concerned that CPJ could have been signaling a defeatist attitude about getting the highest rated recruits with his comment that Tech has never had top 10 rated recruiting classes before so that should not be an expectation. That made me look at just what goes in to being a top 10 rated class. Here is what I found:
Rivals top 10 for last year (2013 class) averages:
Avg # of commits = 25
Avg # of 5-star = 2.2
Avg # of 4-star = 13.2
% of 4-5 stars per class = 60%
And here are the averages for those teams ranked 11-20 for the 2013 class:
Avg # of commits = 23.5
Avg # of 5-star = .5, in fact and as quite an oddity, all 5 5-star in the 11-20 ranked classes went to the same school and this is why USC ranked 13th with only 12 commits (five 5-star & seven 4-star), but I will keep them in the calculation anyway.
Avg# of 4-star = 8.9% of 4-5 stars per class = 40%
My conclusions:
To get in the top 10 you must oversign and still have over 60% of your commits ranked 4-5 stars.
The top 20 likewise favors oversigning and also demands that 40% or more of the class be rated 4 or 5-star.
First, neither of these outcomes are very likely at Tech.
Secondly, the class rankings and the star assignment favors the factories (even without talking about subscription rate conspiracies). The favoritism is built in by the fact that not only do rankings NOT treat oversigning as unethical, they reward it as a positive good. The assignment of stars to high schoolers also favors the factories since they are based solely on athletic prowess and retain total neutrality as regards intellectual aptitude for college and behavioral/character issues. The factories do not need to worry about scholastic aptitude or character because a) they oversign anyway which means they build-in protection against high attrition; and b) they do not have to worry about athletes attending/passing real college courses.
Here again we see that Tech does not operate in a manner that will allow it to be ranked in the top-10 of recruiting classes and only as a rarity can it hope to crack the top-20.
For my part I do not see how Tech could have both a level of attrition high enough or get a large enough proportion of 4-5 star recruits to crack the top-20 any more frequently than once every two decades. It seems to me that the attrition aspect may happen at best once every 5 years. So in those years where we will take enough recruits what is the likelihood of at least 40% 4-5 star recruits in that class? Maybe 1 in 5? So that means I can reasonably expect Tech to have a top 20 rated recruiting class once every 25 years or so?
One last comment. My look at what it takes to be top 10 or top 20 in recruiting class rankings is coach neutral. I think that the data speaks for itself about how much of an aberration it would be for any coach at Tech to make it into the top-20. So if anything CPJ is being far more optimistic than I am by just saying Tech won't have top-10 rated classes and leaving top-20 an open question.
