recruited talent disparity in the b1g
- Thread starter vm7118
- Start date
No one is asking to call off the season but if you think this trend will continue 3-5 Big Ten seasons than you know jack ship about college football. The stupidity of the defenders on here never stops
All spots aren't created equal meaning spots are discrete increments whereas the separation from 1 to 10 is going to be different than 10 to 20. I also think the classes should be weighted giving the 4th year class more value than the incoming freshmen.
As such I started putting this B1G Recruiting spreadsheet together about a year ago:
http://1drv.ms/1u6hpE9
(Note there are 2 tabs, one for data entry, and one for the 4 year summary)
My graph shows OSU is recruiting significantly better than anyone in the league. Michigan is alone in second. MSU, Nebraska and PSU are grouped together as a 3rd tier. RU and MD are grouped together in a 4th tier. Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, & Northwestern are groupd in a 5th. And the bottom tier is Purdue, Illinois, & Minnesota.
Which representation do you guys think is more accurate?
As such I started putting this B1G Recruiting spreadsheet together about a year ago:
http://1drv.ms/1u6hpE9
(Note there are 2 tabs, one for data entry, and one for the 4 year summary)
My graph shows OSU is recruiting significantly better than anyone in the league. Michigan is alone in second. MSU, Nebraska and PSU are grouped together as a 3rd tier. RU and MD are grouped together in a 4th tier. Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, & Northwestern are groupd in a 5th. And the bottom tier is Purdue, Illinois, & Minnesota.
Which representation do you guys think is more accurate?
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Something also of note B1G schools sign on average 20 less players per 5 years than SEC schools. That makes "missing" on a player much more forgivable and makes depth easier. #Oversigning
Rankings not talent. Minnesota was probably the 4th best team in the conference last year.
One major flaw in this graph is that it doesn't take into account strength of schedule. Iowa is in the blue only because they avoid Ohio State, MSU and Michigan. Rutgers and Maryland are primarily in the red because they play in the Big East.
It's obviously a decent representation of talent level across the conference but there are several teams that are out of place.
It's obviously a decent representation of talent level across the conference but there are several teams that are out of place.
Defender of what? Reality? Not only are you a "star geek", you live in a day dream.
Rutgers not only plays in the East but their two crossovers games are with the top two teams in the West last season and this season. Plus Rutgers are playing two Power 5 schools in OOC.
welp!
welp!
The good news for us is that Minnesota was pretty good last year. MD was in the top half of the conference and Michigan was in the bottom half. These things arent set in stone.
The bad news is - well only so many teams are going to paly above their talent, and so far we havent been one in the Flood era.
The bad news is - well only so many teams are going to paly above their talent, and so far we havent been one in the Flood era.
You mean it DOES take into account SOS. Thats the whole point. Not to rank the conference as a whole, but to rank the teams vs the teams they actually play. Also remember - the 4 years also includes our best class ever. When that drops off the board, and assuming this class ends up like its looking (in the 40s if things go well) we will drop to the bottom of this chart.
Last year's 2*'s are not even on campus yet, and the previous class were true freshman last year. Shouldn't the heart of the team be the 3rd, 4th and 5th year players?
Thanks for doing this. Here's what has people nervous:
RU's Big Ten Recruiting rankings
2011 - 4
2012 - 3
2013 - 10
2014 - 12
2015 - 11
the simple fact is that no matter what your position is on "stars", it does make a difference. Yes, there are always those guys who are not heralded that turn into stars on the field, And, there are always the top recruits who either never play well or flunk out. The bottom line is that if you continue to rake in top recruits year in and year out, you stand a hell of lot better chance of winning than a bunch of lower rated guys and looking for those diamonds in the rough. This simply does not bode well for the future of the program in league play.
Interesting that Michigan has such an apparent advantage (#2), and has gone 6-10 in conference over the last 2 years. Also that MSU is #4, but has gone 15-1 in conference over the last two years. TTFP is on the plus side and #5, but have gone 4-12 the last two years.
Meanwhile, at the very bottom, Minnesota has gone 9-7 the last two years.
Comparative recruiting rankings within a conference, taken in a vacuum, don't appear to be very good at predicting actual performance.
Meanwhile, at the very bottom, Minnesota has gone 9-7 the last two years.
Comparative recruiting rankings within a conference, taken in a vacuum, don't appear to be very good at predicting actual performance.
Last year (vs 4 year recruiting avg)
Team – Record vs worse recruiting | Record vs Better Recruiting
9-0 OSU | 9-0 | 0-0
3-5 Mich |3-4 | 0-1 ( - OSU)
5-3 Neb |5-3 | 0-0
7-1 MSU |5-0 |2-1 (Neb, Mich – OSU)
3-5 RU | 2-2 |1-3 (Mich, – OSU, Neb, MSU)
2-6 PSU |1-3 |1-3 (RU – Mich, OSU, MSU)
4-4 Iowa |4-2 | 0-2 (Wisc, Neb)
4-4 MD |1-1 | 3-3 (Iowa, PSU, Mich – RU, OSU, MSU)
7-2 Wis |3-1 | 4-1 (Iowa, MD, RU, Neb – OSU)
3-5 Ill |2-1 |1-4 (PSU – Neb, Wisc, OSU, Iowa)
1-7 Ind |1-0 | 0-7 (-MD, Iowa, MSU, Mich, PSU, RU, OSU)
3-5 NW |1-1 |2-4 (Wis, PSU – Neb, Iowa, Mich, Ill)
5-3 Min |1-0 |4-3 (Mich, NW, Iowa, Neb – Ill, OSU,Wisc)
1-7 PD | 0-0 | 1-7 (Ill – Iowa, MSU, Minn, Neb, Wis, NW, Ind)
Overall | 38-18 | 19-39
I obviously misallocated one game here (two sides should be mirrored), but I couldn’t find it and I don’t want to go back through the data. Anyway, you get the idea.
Team – Record vs worse recruiting | Record vs Better Recruiting
9-0 OSU | 9-0 | 0-0
3-5 Mich |3-4 | 0-1 ( - OSU)
5-3 Neb |5-3 | 0-0
7-1 MSU |5-0 |2-1 (Neb, Mich – OSU)
3-5 RU | 2-2 |1-3 (Mich, – OSU, Neb, MSU)
2-6 PSU |1-3 |1-3 (RU – Mich, OSU, MSU)
4-4 Iowa |4-2 | 0-2 (Wisc, Neb)
4-4 MD |1-1 | 3-3 (Iowa, PSU, Mich – RU, OSU, MSU)
7-2 Wis |3-1 | 4-1 (Iowa, MD, RU, Neb – OSU)
3-5 Ill |2-1 |1-4 (PSU – Neb, Wisc, OSU, Iowa)
1-7 Ind |1-0 | 0-7 (-MD, Iowa, MSU, Mich, PSU, RU, OSU)
3-5 NW |1-1 |2-4 (Wis, PSU – Neb, Iowa, Mich, Ill)
5-3 Min |1-0 |4-3 (Mich, NW, Iowa, Neb – Ill, OSU,Wisc)
1-7 PD | 0-0 | 1-7 (Ill – Iowa, MSU, Minn, Neb, Wis, NW, Ind)
Overall | 38-18 | 19-39
I obviously misallocated one game here (two sides should be mirrored), but I couldn’t find it and I don’t want to go back through the data. Anyway, you get the idea.
Not sure if I'm reading that correctly. You have Wisconsin as going 4-1 against teams with better recruiting... but then list Iowa, MD, RU, and Nebraska as teams with better 4-year recruiting averages? Are you using a very different data set than the graph above? I wouldn't have thought RU and MD had better 4-year recruiting averages than Wisconsin.
I used the excel file linked above
recruited talent disparity in the b1g
The graph above is a different data set, and goes by disparity in the upcoming year over opponents, not absolute Big Ten recruiting avg last year.
So the differences are:
Last year vs this year
Wisc plays an easier schedule, so they don't have as large a disparity with their opponents.
RU has a big disparity not because it ranks at the bottom of recruiting but because it plays all of the highest rated classes and only 1 low rated team.
recruited talent disparity in the b1g
The graph above is a different data set, and goes by disparity in the upcoming year over opponents, not absolute Big Ten recruiting avg last year.
So the differences are:
Last year vs this year
Wisc plays an easier schedule, so they don't have as large a disparity with their opponents.
RU has a big disparity not because it ranks at the bottom of recruiting but because it plays all of the highest rated classes and only 1 low rated team.
I'll take "How to present a multiplier effect on a single stat without regard to actual results" Alex.
Thanks for this. Recruiting isnt a prefect predictor, but its about 2/3rds right. If you know nothing expect which teams recruited better over the previous four years, you would still have a 2 in 3 shot of getting the winner correct.
I would guess if you performed the same analysis over several years, it would be even more conclusive.
Not sure if you guys saw but I added a 3rd tab last night. I did the difference in recruiting scores vs conference opponents, to compare against the graph. I'm not sure what it tells me other than Michigan has been inexcusably bad and Minnesota has been unpredictably good.
I'm thinking about tweaking my algorithm to count the 5th class partially too. I also think the 3rd & 4th year classes are slightly overweighted accounting for 70% of the four year score. 50% would be equal weighting but I feel like most teams 3rd & 4yr year players account for more than half the guys getting meaningful PT. I'm thinking 60-65% would be a better representation for the upperclassmen. Any opinions?
I'm thinking about tweaking my algorithm to count the 5th class partially too. I also think the 3rd & 4th year classes are slightly overweighted accounting for 70% of the four year score. 50% would be equal weighting but I feel like most teams 3rd & 4yr year players account for more than half the guys getting meaningful PT. I'm thinking 60-65% would be a better representation for the upperclassmen. Any opinions?
I don't know that there is a correct formula. It depends upon how many kids from each class are still there and that shifts by team. At the end of the day, outside of schools that have wild swings in their class ranks (er, RU), it probably doesn't matter that much.
No matter how you slice it the picture remains the same. Better recruiting is pretty highly correlated with more wins.
Thanks for putting it together.
