A Brief History of Nebraska Recruiting Rankings: 1987-2012

[Nexus]

Charts & graphs included in article. Just click the link at the bottom.

FYI, Brandon Vogel wrote this article and it may look familiar to some of us who follow NU recruiting closely because he also wrote this article for Big Red Network last February. We have a couple of discussions on HB about the latter article here and here.

On the surface, recruiting class rankings are an exercise in subjectivity. Individual players are rated by individual experts and you inherently get some wildly divergent opinions on the hundreds of high school player who end up playing college football. With that many kids scattered across the country, it would be more surprising if there weren’t differences of opinion.
But overall the recruiting services do a good job of evaluating high school talent. Matt Hinton — of CBSSports.com, SB Nation and Yahoo! Sports fame — has done excellent work showing each season how star rankings relate to overall individual success. His findings from the most recent recruiting cycle showed that a 5-star recruit has about 1 in 12 chance of becoming an All-American. Those odds drop to 1 in 32 for 4-star players and on down the line.

Continue Reading

 

[Eric the Red]

Charts & graphs included in article. Just click the link at the bottom.

FYI, Brandon Vogel wrote this article and it may look familiar to some of us who follow NU recruiting closely because he also wrote this article for Big Red Network last February. We have a couple of discussions on HB about the latter article here and here.

On the surface, recruiting class rankings are an exercise in subjectivity. Individual players are rated by individual experts and you inherently get some wildly divergent opinions on the hundreds of high school player who end up playing college football. With that many kids scattered across the country, it would be more surprising if there weren’t differences of opinion.
But overall the recruiting services do a good job of evaluating high school talent. Matt Hinton — of CBSSports.com, SB Nation and Yahoo! Sports fame — has done excellent work showing each season how star rankings relate to overall individual success. His findings from the most recent recruiting cycle showed that a 5-star recruit has about 1 in 12 chance of becoming an All-American. Those odds drop to 1 in 32 for 4-star players and on down the line.

Continue Reading

That's a hell of an article.

 

[Nexus]

Charts & graphs included in article. Just click the link at the bottom.

FYI, Brandon Vogel wrote this article and it may look familiar to some of us who follow NU recruiting closely because he also wrote this article for Big Red Network last February. We have a couple of discussions on HB about the latter article here and here.

On the surface, recruiting class rankings are an exercise in subjectivity. Individual players are rated by individual experts and you inherently get some wildly divergent opinions on the hundreds of high school player who end up playing college football. With that many kids scattered across the country, it would be more surprising if there weren’t differences of opinion.
But overall the recruiting services do a good job of evaluating high school talent. Matt Hinton — of CBSSports.com, SB Nation and Yahoo! Sports fame — has done excellent work showing each season how star rankings relate to overall individual success. His findings from the most recent recruiting cycle showed that a 5-star recruit has about 1 in 12 chance of becoming an All-American. Those odds drop to 1 in 32 for 4-star players and on down the line.

Continue Reading

That's a hell of an article.

Agreed. At the very least we have a general idea how we fared during the 80s and 90s.

 

[Hedley Lamarr]

Charts & graphs included in article. Just click the link at the bottom.

FYI, Brandon Vogel wrote this article and it may look familiar to some of us who follow NU recruiting closely because he also wrote this article for Big Red Network last February. We have a couple of discussions on HB about the latter article here and here.

On the surface, recruiting class rankings are an exercise in subjectivity. Individual players are rated by individual experts and you inherently get some wildly divergent opinions on the hundreds of high school player who end up playing college football. With that many kids scattered across the country, it would be more surprising if there weren’t differences of opinion.
But overall the recruiting services do a good job of evaluating high school talent. Matt Hinton — of CBSSports.com, SB Nation and Yahoo! Sports fame — has done excellent work showing each season how star rankings relate to overall individual success. His findings from the most recent recruiting cycle showed that a 5-star recruit has about 1 in 12 chance of becoming an All-American. Those odds drop to 1 in 32 for 4-star players and on down the line.

Continue Reading

That's a hell of an article.

Agreed. At the very least we have a general idea how we fared during the 80s and 90s.

It also seems apparent that a top ten class can amount to big things a few years down the road.

 

[blessed2bahusker]

Thanks for posting Nexus. I haven't seen all of those rankings put together. It kind of puts things into perspective. I think this year should help get Pelini close to the average. I think the next few years will only get better with our consistency in scheme and coaching staff and being able to have relationships with kids for multiple years. Settling into the B1G and having a softer schedule should help as well. In a couple years I don't think that there will be much to complain about in terms of Bo's recruiting relative to our past coaches.

 

[NUance]

Great article. I do think the #35 ranking in Brandon's chart for 2012 is a bit misleading. Last year's class gets dinged a bit because it's a bit small. Only 17 players, as opposed to the 30 or so players hauled in by those southern gentlemen in the SEC schools. Despite the small class-size, the 2012 squad has a LOT of talent. Imani Cross, Tommy Armstrong, Vincent Valentine, Mohammed Seisay, Michael Rose (and I'm probably forgetting some). These guys will contribute.

 

[kchusker_chris]

Great article. I do think the #35 ranking in Brandon's chart for 2012 is a bit misleading. Last year's class gets dinged a bit because it's a bit small. Only 17 players, as opposed to the 30 or so players hauled in by those southern gentlemen in the SEC schools. Despite the small class-size, the 2012 squad has a LOT of talent. Imani Cross, Tommy Armstrong, Vincent Valentine, Mohammed Seisay, Michael Rose (and I'm probably forgetting some). These guys will contribute.

we hope. only time will tell. I thought 2011 was better than it turned out to be.

There was only 20, and the top 5 aren't even on the roster anymore. Peat's constantly injured. Carter didn't live up to expectations, etc. I think we'll still get some good athletes out of that class (Turner, Abdulla, Santos, Allen, Heard). But considering how that class was shaping up - I expected 8-10 in the 2 deep this season.

 

[da skers]

Often that swing has to to do with the position we saw as important to take in those years to. TO recruited by need for his system while BC recruited by athletic measurables.

 

[blessed2bahusker]

Good point. TO used to take a lot of rbs and move them elsewhere as well. They might not have been as highly ranked as rbs but they excelled at other positions.