Next Wednesday, one group of SEC fans will celebrate a signing day championship.* That same evening, a larger group of SEC-backers will claim that recruiting rankings arent accurate.
Both groups will be right.* Sort of.
In order to get a grip on just how accurate recruiting rankings are when it comes to predicting success in the rough and tumble SEC, we went back through 10 years of signing day grades and rankings.* Then we compared those rankings to the actual on-field results from 2006 through 2011.
We found as we have before that recruiting rankings do provide a pretty good ballpark indicator of a programs future success.* But they are far from infallible.
As usual, we pored over the rankings as put together by Rivals.com.* Some prefer ESPNUs rankings, others Scout.com and so on.* We like Rivals.* And the data youll see will explain why.
The general process was as follows:
1.* Tally up the recruiting rankings for all the signing classes that would normally impact a season.* Lets use this past 2011 season as an example.* True freshman signed in 11, sophomores in 10, juniors in 09, seniors in 08, and a few redshirt seniors mightve still been around from the 07 class.* We used Rivals.coms SEC rankings, 1 through 12.
2.* Add up the SEC records for each program in a given year.* The SEC title game didnt count.* We didnt knock off Alabamas numbers due to NCAA penalties.* We wanted to know which teams won the most in-league games only
and we wanted to know who actually won on the field, not who was stripped by the NCAA later.
3.* Finally, we compared the combined recruiting rankings with the SEC records from the season in question.* Pretty simple.
Now, signing classes can be affected obviously by coaching changes, attrition, injuries, transfers, flunk outs, drop outs, dismissals and the like.* So the system isnt perfect.* But its close enough to give us an idea of how accurate the recruiting rankings work.
Looking at the recruiting classes from 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, heres what we found when comparing rankings to actual on-field SEC results in the fall of 06:
School 2002 Rank 2003 Rank 2004 Rank 2005 Rank 2006 Rank Combined Recruiting Rank 2006 SEC Record
Georgia 2 3 2 2 2 11 4-4
LSU 5 1 1 6 3 16 6-2
Florida 7 2 3 4 1 17 7-1
Tennessee 1 7 4 1 7 20 5-3
Auburn 3 6 6 3 4 22 6-2
S. Carolina 4 4 9 7 8 32 3-5
Alabama 9 10 5 5 5 34 2-6
Arkansas 8 8 7 8 9 40 7-1
Ole Miss 10 9 8 9 6 42 2-6
Miss. State 6 5 11 10 11 43 1-7
Kentucky 12 11 10 11 10 54 4-4
Vanderbilt 11 12 12 12 12 59 1-7
Okay, right off the bat youll see that the combined recruiting rankings from 02 through 06 dont provide a perfect team-by-team indicator of success.* Georgia had the five best classes leading up to 2006, yet the Dawgs managed only a 4-4 SEC record.* Arkansas, on the other hand, finished with a 7-1 league mark despite ranking 8th in the SEC for that five-year recruiting window.
Looking at the six seasons from 2006 through 2011, we found that there were always some schools that finished much better or much worse than the recruiting rankings would have suggested.
So recruiting rankings dont work.* Right?* Not exactly.
For kicks we broke the league into fourths.* The idea was to see if recruiting rankings worked on a general basis.* Boy, did they:
The top three teams in recruiting rankings from 02-06 (Georgia, LSU and Florida) combined for a 17-7 SEC record.* Thats a winning percentage of .708
The next three teams in the recruiting rankings (Tennessee, Auburn and South Carolina) combined for a 14-10 SEC record.* Thats a winning percentage of .583.
The next three teams down the list (Alabama, Arkansas, and Ole Miss) notched an 11-13 SEC record.* Thats a winning percentage of .458.
And the three worst teams in Rivals 02 to 06 recruiting rankings (MSU, Kentucky and Vandy) combined for an 8-24 SEC record.* Thats a .250 winning percentage.
In other words, recruiting rankings might not tell you exactly how your team will finish in SEC play, but they will give you a pretty good idea.* And we found that to be the case in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Below are the group results for each of those seasons:
2007 Season (2003-2007 recruiting rankings)
1.* Top Three Schools (Florida, LSU, Georgia): 17-7 in SEC, .708
2.* Next Three Schools (Tennessee, Auburn, S. Carolina): 14-10 in SEC, .583
3.* Next Three Schools (Alabama, Ole Miss, Arkansas): 8-16 in SEC, .333
4.* Bottom Three Schools (MSU, Kentucky, Vanderbilt): 9-15 in SEC, .375
2008 Season (2004-2008 recruiting rankings)
1.* Top Three Schools (Florida, Georgia, LSU): 16-8 in SEC, .666
2.* Next Three Schools (Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama): 13-11 in SEC, .541
3.* Next Three Schools (S. Carolina, Ole Miss, Arkansas): 11-13 in SEC, .458
4.* Bottom Three Schools (MSU, Kentucky, Vanderbilt): 8-16 in SEC, .333
2009 Season (2005-2009 recruiting rankings)
1.* Top Three Schools (Florida, Georgia, LSU): 17-7 in SEC, .708
2.* Next Three Schools (Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn): 15-9 in SEC, .625
3.* Next Three Schools (S. Carolina, Ole Miss, Arkansas): 10-14 in SEC, .416
4.* Bottom Three Schools (MSU, Kentucky, Vanderbilt): 6-18 in SEC, .250
2010 Season (2006-2010 recruiting rankings)
1.* Top Three Schools (Florida, LSU, Alabama): 15-9 in SEC, .625
2.* Next Three Schools (Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee): 14-10 in SEC, .583
3.* Next Three Schools (S. Carolina, Ole Miss, Arkansas): 12-12 in SEC, .500
4.* Bottom Three Schools (MSU, Kentucky, Vanderbilt): 7-17 in SEC, .291
2011 Season (2007-2011 recruiting rankings)
1.* Top Three Schools (Alabama, Florida, LSU): 18-6 in SEC, .750
2.* Next Three Schools (Georgia, Tennessee, Auburn): 12-12 in SEC, .500
3.* Next Three Schools (S. Carolina, Ole Miss, Arkansas): 12-12 in SEC, .500
4.* Bottom Three Schools (MSU, Kentucky, Vanderbilt): 6-18 in SEC, .250
Thats pretty impressive.* Breaking six seasons into fourths, there were 24 slots and only two of those slots were a tad off:
* In 2007, the bottom four schools in the recruiting rankings actually outperformed teams 7, 8 and 9 by one game in the SEC standings.
* Last season, teams 7, 8 and 9 finished with the same .500 record in conference play that teams 4, 5 and 6 did.
Other than those two tiny differences, the recruiting rankings provided a good ballpark indicator of teams SEC success.
The trick to reading recruiting rankings, therefore, is to use them as a compass.* Over a span of years, youll find that the teams getting the highest marks on signing day in the SEC will usually do pretty well.* Those that score poorly, usually really wont have good results inside the league.
But recruiting rankings cannot be used as a GPS.* They arent precise.* They arent perfectly accurate.* Almost every year, Arkansas outperforms its recruiting grades.* Meanwhile, a school like Tennessee that has seen massive attrition thanks to back-to-back coaching changes has underperformed based on the caliber of its signing classes.
Recruiting rankings do matter.* The more four-stars your schools signs, the better the odds youll find a great difference-maker.* Its a bit like buying raffle tickets.* The more you have, the better your odds of winning the prize.
Just remember and we cant say it enough these rankings have to be used as a compass to point you in the right direction.* They cant be used as GPS to tell you exactly where your favorite team will finish in a given year.
Finally, as a bonus, weve provided the combined class rankings for each school from 2002 through 2011 below.* Also listed are each schools SEC record for the years 2006 through 2011.* Once again
even these rankings over a such a long period of time delivered a good ballpark read on how things would actually play out on the field over that six-season span of games:
School Combined 2002-2011 Recruiting Rank Combined 2006-2011 SEC Record Group Record Group Winning Pct.
Florida 1st (31 total points) 34-14
Georgia 1st (31 total points) 30-18
LSU 3rd (32 total points) 34-14 98-46 .680
Tennessee 4th (45 total points) 22-26
Alabama 5th (47 total points) 34-14
Auburn 5th (47 total points) 28-20 84-60 .583
S. Carolina 7th (63 total points) 24-24
Ole Miss 8th (80 total points) 12-36
Arkansas 9th (84 total points) 28-20 64-80 .444
Miss. State 10th (92 total points) 16-32
Kentucky 11th (109 total points) 16-32
Vanderbilt 12th (119 total points) 10-38 42-102 .291
And in case youre wondering, the Rivals.com currently ranks the SEC recruiting classes as follows (from first to 14th): Alabama, Florida, Texas A&M, Tennessee, South Carolina, LSU, Auburn, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Missouri and Kentucky.