College Football Recruiting

Bet you can’t guess the top 5 college football recruiting teams of the internet ratings era

Let’s make an all-time ranking since modern recruiting ratings became a thing.

Feb 14, 2018, 1:00 PM UTC

High School Football: National Signing Day-Greg Johnson

Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports

Who’s been the top recruiting team of the entire internet rankings era? The answer will probably surprise you.

The list of current FBS teams, going back to 2002, or the oldest year before the recorded rankings start getting pretty weird (recruiting ratings have been around forever, but only became a casually accessible thing around the turn of the millennium):

Average recruiting ranking, 2002-2018

Overall	Team	Current conference	Average ranking
1	USC	Pac-12	4.8
2	Georgia	SEC	6.8
3	Florida State	ACC	7.1
4	Florida	SEC	7.7
5	LSU	SEC	7.8
6	Texas	Big 12	8.5
7	Ohio State	Big Ten	10.2
8	Alabama	SEC	10.2
9	Oklahoma	Big 12	10.4
10	Michigan	Big Ten	12.6
11	Miami	ACC	12.8
12	Notre Dame	Independent	13.6
13	Tennessee	SEC	13.7
14	Auburn	SEC	13.8
15	Texas A&M	SEC	17.5
16	Clemson	ACC	19.3
17	South Carolina	SEC	20.5
18	Oregon	Pac-12	22.7
19	Penn State	Big Ten	22.7
20	UCLA	Pac-12	24.7
21	Nebraska	Big Ten	26.1
22	North Carolina	ACC	27.5
23	Ole Miss	SEC	27.8
24	Virginia Tech	ACC	27.9
25	Arkansas	SEC	28.7
26	Mississippi State	SEC	28.8
27	Washington	Pac-12	29.7
28	Stanford	Pac-12	30.2
29	Arizona State	Pac-12	31.8
30	Oklahoma State	Big 12	31.9
31	California	Pac-12	32.1
32	Maryland	Big Ten	32.8
33	Michigan State	Big Ten	33.4
34	Missouri	SEC	36.0
35	Wisconsin	Big Ten	39.4
36	West Virginia	Big 12	40.4
37	Virginia	ACC	40.7
38	Pittsburgh	ACC	41.3
39	Arizona	Pac-12	41.4
40	NC State	ACC	41.8
41	Texas Tech	Big 12	42.8
42	Iowa	Big Ten	42.9
43	Louisville	ACC	44.4
44	Baylor	Big 12	45.2
45	Illinois	Big Ten	45.3
46	TCU	Big 12	45.8
47	Rutgers	Big Ten	45.9
48	Colorado	Pac-12	47.0
49	Kentucky	SEC	47.6
50	Oregon State	Pac-12	48.5
51	Georgia Tech	ACC	50.4
52	Kansas State	Big 12	51.1
53	Utah	Pac-12	51.7
54	Washington State	Pac-12	52.0
55	Boston College	ACC	52.1
56	Minnesota	Big Ten	52.6
57	Kansas	Big 12	55.0
58	Iowa State	Big 12	55.7
59	Purdue	Big Ten	56.3
60	BYU	Independent	56.6
61	Vanderbilt	SEC	58.2
62	Syracuse	ACC	58.2
63	USF	AAC	59.1
64	Duke	ACC	60.1
65	Indiana	Big Ten	62.1
66	Northwestern	Big Ten	62.1
67	Houston	AAC	65.8
68	Wake Forest	ACC	67.2
69	UCF	AAC	67.7
70	San Diego State	MWC	69.0
71	Southern Miss	C-USA	69.1
72	Boise State	MWC	70.7
73	Cincinnati	AAC	71.7
74	SMU	AAC	73.8
75	Marshall	C-USA	74.0
76	Memphis	AAC	74.6
77	East Carolina	AAC	80.0
78	Tulsa	AAC	80.4
79	Tulane	AAC	81.8
80	Temple	AAC	82.4
81	Colorado State	MWC	82.8
82	Toledo	MAC	83.4
83	UConn	AAC	84.1
84	Fresno State	MWC	84.7
85	Louisiana Tech	C-USA	86.2
86	Western Michigan	MAC	87.2
87	UAB	C-USA	88.7
88	Middle Tennessee	C-USA	89.2
89	Hawaii	MWC	89.5
90	San Jose State	MWC	91.6
91	Troy	Sun Belt	91.7
92	Nevada	MWC	92.5
93	Northern Illinois	MAC	93.0
94	Bowling Green	MAC	94.3
95	UNLV	MWC	94.5
96	New Mexico	MWC	94.6
97	Arkansas State	Sun Belt	95.5
98	Miami (Ohio)	MAC	96.5
99	Ball State	MAC	96.9
100	North Texas	C-USA	97.9
101	Utah State	MWC	99.5
102	UL Lafayette	Sun Belt	100.4
103	Central Michigan	MAC	100.5
104	Wyoming	MWC	101.7
105	Texas State	Sun Belt	101.8
106	FIU	C-USA	102.9
107	Rice	C-USA	103.1
108	Ohio	MAC	104.2
109	ULM	Sun Belt	105.1
110	UTSA	C-USA	105.3
111	South Alabama	Sun Belt	105.8
112	Akron	MAC	105.9
113	Kent State	MAC	107.5
114	Buffalo	MAC	107.9
115	Old Dominion	C-USA	109.4
116	Florida Atlantic	C-USA	109.5
117	Eastern Michigan	MAC	110.0
118	New Mexico State	Sun Belt	111.3
119	Georgia State	Sun Belt	113.2
120	Air Force	MWC	113.4
121	Army	Independent	114.5
122	Navy	AAC	115.3
123	UTEP	C-USA	116.6
124	Charlotte	C-USA	116.8
125	Western Kentucky	C-USA	120.5
126	Georgia Southern	Sun Belt	127.0
127	Appalachian State	Sun Belt	127.6
128	UMass	MAC	130.7
129	Coastal Carolina	Sun Belt	143.0
130	Liberty	Independent	157.9

247Sports Composite, except for certain bizarre outlier classes. For example, several old classes by Kentucky, Iowa, and Ohio State appear far lower than they should, so I used Rivals for those teams in those years.

Let’s ponder this.

1. Nick Saban has not coached at Alabama forever, actually.

It’s harder and harder to remember, but the Tide were a joke around the early 2000s, with scandals, constant coaching changes, two losing records in four years, and losses to three mid-majors. Old Bama recruiting classes ranked as low as No. 47, meaning Saban’s 11 straight top 10s and seven straight No. 1s were a drastic course correction.

2. USC’s starting 22 can almost always hang with anybody. The other stuff, however ...

The Trojans rank No. 1 here because they were in the top five in 12 of 17 years measured, never falling below 2013’s No. 12 ... and even that class, which was limited by NCAA sanctions, was literally nothing but blue-chips.

That’s despite those depth-crippling sanctions and constant coaching turmoil for something like four years. USC had nine AP top-six finishes in this span anyway, mostly before and after the mayhem.

3. The Georgia thing was even more complicated than most people realized.

A pile of narratives:

Mark Richt wasted all that Peach State talent. Did he? His Dawgs very nearly played in three BCS title games and would’ve made the Playoff a few times, if it’d existed. Change a handful of plays, and UGA might’ve had a minor dynasty.
But that didn’t happen. Waste. OK.
Richt let all that Peach State talent leave the state. Basically never ranking outside the top 10 in recruiting suggests otherwise. It’s easy to remember Cam Newton and Deshaun Watson leaving, but Richt’s Dawgs held up their borders comparably to other major powers, at one point ranking among the top five teams in top-25 locals signed.
Kirby Smart has taken Richt’s program to a whole new level. That one is pretty hard to argue against, after UGA nearly finished No. 1 on the field and then did so in recruiting, taking full advantage of the No. 1 dual-threat QB living in Metro Atlanta.
Seeing all those national titles won by the top eight teams on this list, while seeing Georgia with zero in this span, is really awkward. Really awkward.

4. Look at all the national title games in that top group.

The top nine teams here are 13-10 in title games in this span, with most of those games against each other. (No. 10, Michigan, is another team that’s come brutally close.)

The lower programs in title games — Auburn, Clemson, and Oregon — are still near-annual top-20 recruiters who’ve brought in top-10 classes. Each of their title-run teams either had Heisman-worthy quarterbacks, elite talent accumulation in a short period, and/or world-ending wackiness.

5. Conference rankings show something like four tiers.

Average rankings, based on current membership (that’s imperfect, since teams have changed conferences, but it’s what’s happening here):

SEC, 23.2
Pac-12, 34.7
Big 12, 38.7
Big Ten, 38.8
ACC, 39.4
American, 77.9
Mountain West, 90.2
Conference USA, 99
MAC, 101.4
Sun Belt, 111.8

The SEC stands alone, which makes sense. It dominates the most talented region and doesn’t depend on just a couple teams to bring in all its five-stars, like most other power leagues usually do. For all the talk about the SEC being top-heavy in the Alabama era (which is sometimes true in individual seasons), the league’s had four different schools win titles since 2002. The Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac-12 have one title-winning school each in that span.

The AAC and MWC stand apart from the Group of 5, and not just because their numbers include lots of rankings by once and future Power 5 teams.

6. Your top non-power recruiters:

USF
Houston
UCF
San Diego State
Southern Miss
Boise State
Cincinnati

Makes sense, right? Add in power-conference jumpers TCU and Utah, and that’s almost every non-power BCS/NY6 rep ever, though Cincinnati technically was a power at the time. (NIU is your outlier.)

USF’s never made a big bowl, but can console itself with memories of hitting No. 2 in the country that one time. USF’s so high here partly because of its 29-man 2009 class, which included four-stars like Jason Pierre-Paul and ranked an amazing No. 26.

7. Your hardest power-conference jobs, more or less:

Wake Forest
Northwestern
Indiana
Duke
Syracuse
Vanderbilt
Purdue

Northwestern’s had a handful of 10-win seasons, but S&P+ has Indiana as the best recent program in this group. The numbers evidently prefer a team that nearly beats elite teams to a team whose games are always 17-10, no matter the opponent.

Please never forget that time Wake Forest won the ACC.

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