The thing about that is that only a handful of programs have won the CPF. There have been MANY more whose recruiting was supposedly top 10 or even top 5 that didn't... didn't compete... and often weren't good football teams.
Agreed, and discussed much of that earlier in this thread;
Mostly due to mismanagement of good players, inability to hire a good coaching staff, and the inability to obtain a really good quarterback.
Of course, Jimbo Fisher and aTm was a great example of this type of team, but Fisher also underperformed with very high levels of talent at FSU, except for the Winston year.
The truth is that the recruiting sites are FOLLOWING not predicting. The fact that Saban, Smart, and Day sign lots of 5* guys has more to do with THEIR success on the field and a whole lot less with the ability of the fine folks at 247, On3, et al to first find the best players in the country and then compare them accurately to produce a list of the 500 players out of the many tens of thousands out there.
Now, watch this happen over the next few years assuming that there isn't a coaching change at UW or Michigan. Their "high 3*" will start getting a 4th star. They will start creeping up the rankings like Clemson did after winning the NC with supposedly the 11th best roster.
I'm rambling but it would be far more accurate to say that Saban and Smart know how to find talent and win championships than their recruiting ranking predicts that they will. Certain coaches were dominant recruiters long before the advent of recruiting media. If they all disappeared... it is likely the same coaches would continue to find and sign elite talent. If you could somehow keep secret which programs were pursuing which recruits then the sites would be even more inaccurate than they are.
Agreed, and also discussed some of that earlier in this thread, based on some good comments from other posters. You add some additional good insight and thoughts into the rankings processes.
Last point, the recruiting sites always hedge themselves. They aren't trying to slap a 4* label on every player in the country with 4* talent. They artificially limit the number of 4/5* grades they hand out. This is extremely important. It makes them look more accurate than they actually are. Throwing 3* on most other D1 capable players allows them to avoid accountability when they show out.
IF they were actually accurate like some think then one year there would be 100 5* guys and another there might be 20. There might be 800 4* in one year and 250 in another. You would never see a Ricky Gibson or Emmanuel Mosley type of "3 star" surprise.
What is interesting though is that a team which is comprised of >50% of 3* players (i.e. a composite average recruit score of ~88 or less) rarely makes the CFP, and if they happen to make it, they usually get slaughtered.
----->TCU fell into this category in 2022, as well as Washington in 2016, and MichSt in 2015, and they all got slaughtered. Washington again falls into this category this year, and it will be really interesting to see how they fare in a few days.
Which simply means that Saban/Smart/Day/etc have scooped up most of the highly-talented players (which are assigned as 4* and 5* because they were offered by Bama, Georgia, etc, as you allude), and rarely is there an extremely talented young coach out there with a great eye for diamond-in-the-rough talent to piece together a championship-caliber team by identifying enough diamond-in-the-rough 3* players (who can nearly-immediately play on the 4* or 5* level) and/or by coaching up normal 3* players to a higher potential.
----->If Washington competes with Michigan in the CFP this year, then it will qualify as one of those extremely rare cases.
So
for short-term CFP-predicting purposes, even though the recruiting scores are biased and influenced by Saban/Smart/Day's success, we can say with fairly high accuracy that a team with a composite talent score of </= 88% is not going have a shot at winning the CFP.
This is where the "biased" recruit services can still be used as a reasonable predictor. And I think this is why we get wailing and gnashing of teeth on this forum with Vols recruiting in the past decade, where the Vols had been living with a composite talent score of around 88.
It becomes more of a gray area when teams begin snag players that Saban/Smart were targeting, and end up with a composite talent score in the 89-90 range.
That is when we see a 2016/2018 Clemson or 2023 Michigan arrive on the scene for the CFP every now and then, because they managed to get a few of those players that were targeted by Smart/Saban/etc, along with a really good QB and very good coaching, and maybe with a bit of luck along the way.
Since we finally have a good coach and a great QB in Nico, AND our composite recruiting score has now finally crept above 89, and might be near or above 90 after the 2024 cycle closes, we are finally seeing a glimmer of hope for being able to compete on the CFP level.
So whereas the recruiting services indicated in past years that we really didn't stand a chance for making, or competing, in the CFP, those same recruiting services are indicating that we are finally entering the able-to-compete territory (although, of course, it is not a given that we will).
Nothing personal toward you. I appreciate that you did put some of the facts toward the conversation. Not accusing you... but some take what you posted and make ridiculous conclusions like BOT's... that you "CANNOT win the NC without top 5 recruiting classes". He may try to worm out of it... but he's said it repeatedly.
No worries, and no offense taken; just curious.
I have not argued that the rankings are completely inaccurate or useless. I HAVE argued that there was more than enough 3* guys with 4/5* talent out there that if a coach is good enough at evals to find them... he can build a championship roster. BOT goes into a spasm over that simple, factual point.
Agreed, that the services are not completely useless or inaccurate.
And agreed about the 3* vs 4/5*, but with the caveat that an avg team recruit score of around </=88 seems to be the threshold that no coach has ever been able overcome in recent history for competing for a NC.
Based on history, these trends tend to be true (regardless of whether the recruiting services build in bias from successful programs):
1) Top 5 recruiting classes don't guarantee making the CFP, or winning the CFP.
2) A team can win a NC without recurring Top 5 recruiting classes, although it helps to have them.
3) It is extremely rare, unusual, and historically non-existent for a team with a composite recruiting score below ~88 to be able to win (and even compete well) in the CFP. If Washington wins or even doesn't get blown out this year, then they will have bucked this historical trend.
4) A team with a team composite recruiting score in the "transition region" of 89-90 has on occasion, and still can, compete and win the CFP IF they have the right pieces in place.
on. It’s nothing against Heup lol
