The Transfer Portal is Making the Recruiting Rankings Less Relevant

[DiderotsGhost]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings for not taking more transfers (even though we didn't need more). But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

 

[volroadwarrior]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings because we take too many recruits. But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

As you pointed out there are so many factors to consider that it can be almost impossible to end up with a consensus ranking. In addition to the number of factors you have to determine how to weight each one. The other thing that needs consideration is to what extent a team satisfies its current and future needs. How will new transfers fit into the culture? Maybe someone will figure it out but wouldn't hold my breath. I suppose the only true measure will be made on the field.

 

[TNHopeful505]

I personally have believed for a long time that recruiting rankings and "stars" have ruined college football in some ways by putting unrealistic and unwarranted expectations on kids. I wish that we would stop drooling over their potential and what their star rating says they should be, and just enjoy their development on the field.

For me, it isn't always about the stars. Its about watching a young man fall in love with the University of Tennessee, and watching him choose to be here and give his all to be the best version of his self he can be. Its nice to have really talented players. But what I also really enjoy is getting to watch a player go from a special teams contributor his freshman year, to a backup his sophomore year, to a starter his junior year, to a leader his senior year. And that so rarely happens anymore. But its what made this sport great. I enjoy players that come in and put on the orange, no matter how long they are here. But, I just wonder how much the business of college recruiting has truly helped the game of football.

 

[J C Higgins]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings because we take too many recruits. But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

Re: ".....the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college."

Looking at the ON3 Portal Transfer listings most players are indeed rated the same in high school as now (bottom number of stars = HS, top number of stars = after one or more years in college) but some improved their star ratings and some went down. During the first few days of portal action I noticed those who had improved their ratings in college were quickly picked up by other teams. I don't know if that means "discussions" between the player and receiving school had taken place before the portal was open but it made me wonder.

 

[JAllen18]

Heupel also looks at fit, playing style, chemistry, years to play.. etc.

Overall this was a very very good class.

 

[freedom fighter]

Just trust the coaches and give to NIL

 

[VolTull]

Just trust the coaches and give to NIL

That's a straightforward POV

 

[MontyPython]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings because we take too many recruits. But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

Good points. Returning players that might otherwise go pro also affect the equation. For every Mays and Campbell high-end returnee, there's no need to dip into the transfer portal in hopes of a short-term plug and play a for a position of need. Ironically, such returnees *negatively* affect our recruiting rankings, while in reality they are obviously hugely valuable to our team's competitiveness.

Meanwhile, the team chemistry of the "higher ranked" teams like TAM gets whacked by bringing in 25-ish new bodies through the portal.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Wonder if the transfer portal rankings could be improved by adopting a "net gain" accounting?

So if Louisville loses 18 players to the portal (with a combined value of, say, 65 stars) and gains 26 from the portal (with a cumulative value of 85 stars), their transfer portal score would be a net gain of 8 players, and 20 points.

[the question of how to rate players after a year or three of college is a good and valid one, already raised in this thread by others; not ignoring it here, just setting it aside to focus on this other question]

Meanwhile, another school with much less churn, maybe loses 3 players to the portal (totaling 10 stars) and gains 8 players (combined 32 stars), netting a gain of 5 players and 22 stars.

And a third school loses 10 players to the portal and gains 5, with net loss of 5 players (and -16 stars).

In this made-up case, Louisville would not outscore the second school 85 stars to 32 (or 26 players to 8), but would instead be slightly lower, with net 20 points to the other school's 22 (or slightly higher, with net addition of 8 players compared to the the other school's 5). Louisville (and the second school) would still be rated higher than the university that had a net loss to the portal.

Seems an obvious adjustment to make....

Nice think piece, DG, appreciate it!

Go Vols!


p.s. Follow-on thought...perhaps in this improved portal ranking system, there's even a scoring penalty associated with a lot of churn. Say a decrement in score that gets bigger the more players a team loses and gains. Loss of team cohesion has got to be accounted for somewhere....

 

[Oldvoldad]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings because we take too many recruits. But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

I am waiting on the HS/TRANSFER combo ratings.

 

[njvols]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings because we take too many recruits. But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

Agree. Was thinking this the other day. The portal rankings are clunky. We hit smaller numbers because we had smaller defections but think our quality portal additions at position of need was really good.

 

[posivol]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings for not taking more transfers (even though we didn't need more). But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

add our portal pickups and we are easy top 10 classs

 

[DaddyChad]

Yeah it’s really hard to evaluate all that. I think instead of looking at attrition and all that you just look at star average of what’s on your current roster. Heupel is higher on star average than anyone we’ve had; hard to judge Kiffin bc he recruited one class then was gone and our talent on roster wasn’t as good either. Looking at star average and hell just scholarship players when Heupel started to now makes you appreciate just how good he has been at rebuilding the roster.

 

[LWSVOL]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings for not taking more transfers (even though we didn't need more). But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

Attrition of recruiting classes has always been a hit and yes, the portal is making it worse. Historically, attrition in the SEC was 35-40% of signing classes. This was pre-portal and NIL. I expect you will see that percentage hit 60-70% going forward with Portal.

Here are some numbers. These numbers reflect players that have left for various reasons before playing out their eligibility at the school they signed with. Many of these are portal and covid related.

for the 2019 cycle:

There were 30 top ranked PS-QBs by Rivals. Only 2 completed their time with the school they signed with. Both were drafted into the NFL

20 DT-QBs. 1 completed time with school he signed with. He was drafted into the NFL

10 APBs. 2 finished

55 RBs. 14 finished

100 WRs. 18 finished

40 TEs. 13 Finished

90 OTs. 27 finished

35 OGs. 15 finished

10 OCs 3 finished

55 WDEs 13 finished

65 SDEs. 23 finished

55 DTs. 18 finished

40 ILBs 9 finished

55 OLBs 17 Finished

85 CBs 28 finished

55 Ss 17 finished

75 Aths 18 finished

Some players are still playing from 2019 in their Super Senior season. With free agency, those you sign out of high school not likely to be there for 3 years, many a lot less.

Here is the above data

 

[Concept]

I agree that we seem to be doing pretty well, and that the rapid changes in the sport make predictions less clear. However, I'm seeing a lot of "believe what you want to believe." Just because there's more uncertainty doesn't mean we're suddenly going to win everything (or nothing, for any nega's still out there). I'm seeing a lot of "wizard's first rule": people will believe anything if they want it bad enough, or if they're afraid it might be true. Why should the actual results veer so suddenly to either extreme?

 

[VolBricks]

I think the less "churn" a team has the better it will be for the team. I feel less churn shows team chemistry and that maybe the coaches have chosen players that fit the culture.

 

[J C Higgins]

I am waiting on the HS/TRANSFER combo ratings.

Agree. That's a better indicator of overall team player talent.

2023 College Football Team Talent Composite

In order to create the most comprehensive Team Recruiting Ranking without any notion of bias, 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.

247sports.com

 

[DaddyChad]

I think the less "churn" a team has the better it will be for the team. I feel less churn shows team chemistry and that maybe the coaches have chosen players that fit the culture.

Idk. Arguable in some cases that turning over the roster is better. I do agree identifying fit is an important part probably as much as talent.

 

[JoeMiltonsAgent]

Recruiting rankings have always been a snapshot of talent at best. I've always taken them with a grain of salt to an extent.

No way any of recruiting services could accurately scout the 1000s of high school players across the country.

The transfer portal has just made that even more true at this point.

Just watch the BasketVols and listen to them talk about Dalton Knecht during a game. Different sport but the example stands of a small college guy coming out of nowhere and being a star.

 

[bigorangepoppa]

I think to a certain extent, it really depends on what the players * level was in high school, who they sign with initially, and where they transfer to. Great example, Heard was a 5* out of high school, sign with LSU, entered the portal, signed with Tennessee, and all of a sudden, he's a 4*. I believe Heupel does his due diligence when recruiting, be it high school or portal, to find the guys that are very good athletes, and are also high character type.

 

[USCGVOL]

Garbagey.... I am stealing that word from you. Its mine now. Thanks.

 

[LWSVOL]

I think to a certain extent, it really depends on what the players * level was in high school, who they sign with initially, and where they transfer to. Great example, Heard was a 5* out of high school, sign with LSU, entered the portal, signed with Tennessee, and all of a sudden, he's a 4*. I believe Heupel does his due diligence when recruiting, be it high school or portal, to find the guys that are very good athletes, and are also high character type.

Heard's transfer level dropped as a transfer due to playing as a backup this year at LSU. He only had one start there. Had he started all year, he would have been a 5 star as a transfer. Services have started rating kids as they play in college so they carry a transfer rating. I like that and personally, I think they should rate players after each year of college play. Cam Sutton would have went from a 3 star out of high school to a high 4 star or low 5 star.

 

[VolatileVol]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings for not taking more transfers (even though we didn't need more). But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

I agree the ranking system has become much more flawed over the course of the past decade. However, the Vols traditionally finish in the 10-15 range nationally just about every single season no matter who is coaching. Personally, I think the high school rankings are inflated more than in past decades, but still by far the most important grading tool we have. I personally see McIntyre as Erik Ainge 2.0, but McIntyre is rated MUCH higher than Ainge was when he came out which really baffles me. Secondly, the transfer portal grading system is all over the place. The issue with transfers is you seem to want to grade them strictly from an athletic point of view, but the reality of a transfer is they left a school for a reason(s) which doesn't seem to even be factored into the grade itself. IMO, the best way to view recruiting is an average star basis which combines both metrics into one grade. Teams are always going to have years where they can sign more or less players and artificially inflate their class ranking, but the per recruit average will remain consistent throughout these years. Overall, we seem to be recruiting equally to what we have done in the past (slightly higher nationally, but 2nd tier in the SEC still). Regarding Brazell, there's a simple reason he isn't ranked higher. There are certainly questions whether he is big and/or fast enough to succeed in the SEC. While you would argue the portal is under-ranking us, I would argue those relying on more portal players have a much higher likelihood of volatility and locker room issues at the very least. I am of the opinion reporting agencies should be docking those teams relying on portal players more than those recruiting well out of high school.

 

[njvols]

I think the less "churn" a team has the better it will be for the team. I feel less churn shows team chemistry and that maybe the coaches have chosen players that fit the culture.

100%. I also think that if culture and opportunity matches what coaches sold during recruiting, you have better retention. How many years did Butch have pretty decent classes, yet was seemingly always a “young” team… b/c guys left when they got on campus and found out he was an idiot.

 

[pimo1]

The recruiting rankings have always been flawed to some extent, but we know factually that teams that had higher rankings have tended to perform better than teams that didn't. It's far from a perfect correlation, but the relationship stood true for much of that 2000 - 2020'ish period. Now, I think the relationship will start to break down a little bit due to the portal.

For example, Tennessee is currently ranked #13 in recruiting and #27 in transfer on 247. But by any standard, we've improved our position significantly. Our recruiting ranking suffers because we only recruited 21 players. So for example, LSU and Oklahoma are ranked above us, but only because they took more players. By average recruit ranking, we would be #9 in 247.

But the transfer rankings are even more absurd, since the teams at the top are often the ones with the most attrition who are forced to take a bunch of transfers. Texas A&M, for example, is #2 because they have 25 transfers! However, they lost 23 players, so they had to take a lot of transfers to fill out their roster. It's a silly reason for them to be ranked #2. Basically, if you lose half your team and then recruit half a team via transfers, you get to be #1 in the transfer rankings. Likewise, Louisville is #4 in the transfer rankings because they took 26 transfers! They lost 18 players to the portal!

247 also has a combined rating, but it still suffers from the same flaw of rating quantity over quality. On that system, we're ranked #12, but we're below Oklahoma because we have 29 recruits / transfers and Oklahoma has 38.

I'm not saying these rankings are complete garbage, but I suspect the correlation between "team success" and "recruiting ranking" has declined in the transfer portal era. If you lose your top 10 players to the portal and you then recruit 10 more players that are "good, but not as good as the players leaving", you do well in the transfer and overall rankings even though you got worse. If you use the portal to fill a lot of your needs, you suffer in the 'recruit ranking'. It's a weird system now.

Also, the transfer star ratings seem a bit garbagey. It seems like they rate them more based on high school rating than what they did in college. For example, Brazzell was a huge get for us, but he was only rated #69 in the portal and the #15 Wide Receiver. Do we really think there were 14 better WRs in the portal? Dude balled out last season at Tulane. Sure, he played in the AAC, but 700+ yards as a Freshman in the AAC is much better than 700 yards in high school. And a lot of the guys above him have barely played a snap of college ball. I'm not saying factually that Brazzell will be a stud at UT --- just that I don't think the recruiting services put a lot of thought into these transfer ratings. They base their recruiting rankings to a large extent on offer sheets --- player recruited by 10 tier 1 schools is probably a "blue chip", but the transfer portal doesn't work the same way. Most of these guys quickly narrow down to 2-3 schools and we never even know who else wanted them.

All the said, I think we actually have a top 5-8'ish class overall for 2024. It just doesn't show up because the asinine way the services now rank classes. We get penalized on the recruit rankings for getting help from the portal. And we get penalized on the transfer ratings for not taking more transfers (even though we didn't need more). But our "average recruit ranking" is 9th and our average "overall rating" is 7th. We actually got a lot of really high-level portal guys, who are probably under-rated, since they the services still seem to rank players on high school performance rather than what they did in college.

Tl;dr --- the recruiting rankings don't seem to do a very good job factoring in the current climate in college football, failing to capture the transfer portal in any meaningful way.

Glad someone picked up on that. How recruiting rankings will have to be rethought post NIL/Portal. But first, the COVID super seniors have to sunset. I think a lot of people have not thought about how much the 6+ year super seniors have changed the game. Just at UT look at how many 6th year guys have made major impacts on the past few seasons. even more how many guys turned that extra year into a spot on an NFL roster or higher draft pick. Especially positions like Oline that are most likely gonna sit their first year got an extra year of development and guys that would have been UDFA's ended up late-round picks. Or the Hendon Hookers and Joe Miltons of the world.