I think the correct way to do this is...
[*]Get the final Rivals rankings for all 119 D1 schools since 2000
[*]Get Sagarin's final rankings (takes into account strength of schedule) since 2002/2003.
[*]Stagger the rankings 2 years (maybe 3) and use a 3 year rolling average.
Then you will be able to see who "coaches up" players and those that under achieve.
Yup. Strength of schedule. Lag time. Without these the Sporting News analysis is weak. Then again it would have taken the writer more than a couple of hours to put together a decent analysis. Instead of what he actually produced, which is pretty much worthless.
Or he could have looked at the spreadsheet I posted here 2 years ago with the same information. Why Rivals and Scout don't just have something like that easily available I have no idea.