Which are the most talented college football teams going into 2005? Rivals Recruiting Ranking 2002-2005 1. Southern California 2. Oklahoma 3. Miami 4. Georgia 5. Florida State 6. Tennessee 7. LSU 8. Michigan 9. Florida 10. Texas 11. Auburn 12. Texas A&M 13. Ohio State 14. South Carolina 15. Virginia 16. California 17. Washington 18. Penn State To be included in the ranking a team must have finished in the Top 25 of Rivals recruiting rankings in at least 3 of the 4 years from 2002-2005. I added the rankings up and divided by four and ranked them starting with the lowest rankings. Of course, this does not include 2001 and there are obvious limitations with this type of analysis. This just says what Rivals thought of their recruiting class on signing day. We know that it takes a few years to accurately rank recruiting classes. That said, it gives an interesting look at which teams have the most talent going into the 2005 season and it does reflect how they have finished recently within a certain range. I was most surprised that South Carolina made the list. Alabama did not make the Top 25 in 2002 and 2003 because their class was limited by sanctions. Also, clubs like Purdue and Iowa are starting to have Top 25 classes, recently.
Interesting that OU is #2. We are replacing a ton of starters and seniors this year. This is definitely Stoops' biggest rebuilding year thus far.
This list is also kind of deceptive because it doesn't reflect fall offs. Florida and Tennesse have lost a bunch of recruits. Zook recruited a bunch of JUCO players who never cleared the academic 40% rule. Zook was always trying to stay just one step in front of FireRonZook.com. But that is also why I am pretty confident about Georgia's chances in the SEC East. The talent lost is actually being replaced by the same or better caliber of athletes.
Are these guys good enough to stuff Texas again? I don't ever want to see the Shorthorns elevated to the powerhouse level.
"Also, clubs like Purdue and Iowa are starting to have Top 25 classes, recently". Yep... and quite frankly, we're not sure how to handle it!! In 2003, we had three former walk-ons drafted in the first 5 rounds of the NFL draft... Dallas Clark, first round, Colts; Bruce Nelson, 3rd round, Panthers; Derek Pagel, 5th round, Jets. It was the first time any school had done that. Robert Gallery was a 2 star tight end... Jonathan Babineaux a two star fullback... Bob Sanders, a 1 star cb, etc. The last two guys who came in highly touted and left highly touted were Tim Dwight and Matt Roth. There is an OBVIOUS correlation between top recruiting classes and consistent top rankings... for that, we are thankful we finally got a top class... but we also like the fact that kids come to Iowa and stay five years (w/ red-shirt)... Dallas Clark being the exception. Ther's a whole lot of Iowa fans that would like to keep that "mystique". When LSU won the National Championship... that team was all about chemistry (imo)... my guess is you had more tenured four-star + recruits on the field in the CapOne than you had against Oklahoma... is that right?
In general, I believe you're correct. That being said, it has a lot to do with how the prospects are developed and coached. The concern I have with prospect ratings is that they miss so many quality players and because of NQ/PQ's. Take Alabama for example. Very highly ranked ranked recruiting classes but many are non-qualifiers or Partial-qualifiers that may never see a D-1 field. It's a good rule of thumb, but not an exact science. A few schools attract so much talent that even a poor prognosticator can predict with certainty .... those are the easy ones.
Yeah, I thought so, too. Not that I don't think they have talent--'cause we all know that they do....I just thought they really got hit hard with players graduating. They're still top 10, IMO....but I wouldn't have ranked them 2nd.
It looks to me like the Horns season depends on their being able to throw the football. They lost a huge contributor in Benson but have a couple of pretty good RBs coming back. If they do not have season-ending injuries to key players, they'll be good. The Horns achilles heel is QB Young. If he gets hurt, they're history. A team depending on a running QB and having no backup is flirting with disaster.
