Win the Offseason: The Importance of Recruiting for Championships in College Football By Bud Davis

How well do you have to recruit in order to win it all? Let's dive into the numbers.

Dec 03, 2021

TLDR

We have developed six criteria that evaluate a program’s ability to recruit both elite talent and roster depth. Based on observations from championship winning teams, we have found that in order to win a national title, a program's average class over a four-year period needs to finish approximately in the Top 10, with at least one class ranked in the Top 6.

Motivation

While most CFB fans intuitively know recruiting is important to on-field success, the exact recruiting qualifications a program needs to compete for a national title remains poorly constrained. Bud Elliot has been trying to quantify this criteria for awhile and his Blue Chip Ratio pieces, are some of my favorite articles every season (seriously go read them if you haven’t). However, given its importance to success in CFB, the topic of what exactly “Championship Caliber Recruiting” entails could probably use a deeper statistical analysis.

From my perspective, recruiting must accomplish two non-exclusive goals:

Land Elite Talent
Build Roster Depth

The Blue Chip Ratio that Bud Elliot developed is great for measuring the roster depth needed to win a title. If a roster consists of more than 50% Blue Chip prospects (4-Star & 5-Star recruits), then the odds are you have the depth to substitute one talented player for another.

However, only 11 men can be on the field at any given time and not all Blue Chippers are created equally. The #1 recruit in each class (the highest 5-star prospect) has historically generated about 17 times as much value in the NFL Draft as the #300 recruit (a low 4-star prospect). Together, these observations suggest that we should evaluate new minimum criteria to quantify the top-end elite talent that program’s must land in order to compete for a title.

It is important to clarify that while the criteria we will develop below are necessary conditions for winning a national title, they do not guarantee that a program who meets the criteria will win a championship. This is because multiple programs will meet these minimum criteria every season, but only one program will win a national title.

Methodology

All of our data will come from 247 Sports Composite Team Rankings & Ratings. Using these data we will examine the properties of recruiting classes that won a national title in the four-year period after they were signed.
For each championship-winning recruiting class we will look at three properties:
1. Class Score
2. Blue Chip Ratio
3. Average Recruit Ranking

Next, for each of the above class properties we will establish two metrics:
1. Best Class: the highest recruiting class value over a four-year period; useful for evaluating elite talent on a roster
2. Weighted Average: a four-year average of the recruiting class properties, weighted by the number of commits from each class; useful for evaluating the depth of a roster

Using these combinations of 3 properties and 2 metrics, we can develop 6 criteria that establish the minimum levels of recruiting a program should reach to be classified as Championship Caliber.
We can then compare these criteria to historic observations of recruiting class rankings, to get a generalized sense (Top 3, Top 5, Top 7, etc) of what level of recruiting a program needs to compete for a title
Lastly, we will apply our criteria to the 2021 season and evaluate which teams current satisfy our conditions for Championship Caliber Recruiting.

Data & Outliers

Below are three figures, one for each recruiting class property of interest (Class Score, Blue Chip Ratio, and Avg. Recruit Rating). Each figure shows the properties of the four recruiting classes that the championship-winning team landed prior to winning their title. While older recruiting data may be considered suspect, we have included these data to increase sample size.

For each year, note the Best Class and Weighted Average that the title-winning team landed over the previous four seasons. Most championship-winning teams show similar high levels of both elite and depth recruiting. However, one championship winning team is dissimilar from the others: 2010 Auburn. That Auburn squad had a generational CFB-talent in Cam Newton. Similar to Bud Elliot, I view Auburn as an outlier and will not be using their recruiting data in development of minimum recruiting criteria.

2016 Clemson is another potential outlier in the dataset. This team has the lowest recruiting values for all six metrics we evaluated. However, given that Clemson won during the CFP-era, and that many of their data-points are similar to those of other championship-winning teams, they have not been excluded from the analysis. As such, Clemson essentially defines the minimum level of recruiting a team might need to compete for a national title.

Recruiting Class Score Criteria

Observations from the class scores of championship winning teams, suggest that recruiting Class Scores should have a four-year Best Class over 278.0 in conjunction with a Weighted Average greater than 260.9, in order to meet the minimum requirements to be considered Championship Caliber.

Blue Chip Criteria

The observed minimum criteria for Blue Chip Ratio on title-winning teams is extremely similar to that suggested by Bud Elliot. Our evaluation suggests that to be considered Championship Caliber, over a four-year period, a program must land a Best Class with a Blue Chip Ratio of at least 0.57 while maintaining a Weighted Average Blue Chip Ratio of approximately 0.50.

Average Recruit Rating Criteria

Observations from the Average Recruit Ratings of championship winning teams, suggest that program’s looking to compete for a national-title must land at least one Best Class with an Avg. Recruit Rating above 90.3, and maintain a Weighted Average greater than 89.1, over a four-year period.

Class Rank Implications

To get a more-intuitive sense of our Championship Caliber Recruiting criteria, we can look to the historic record of recruiting class ranks. It is worth noting that there is significant variability in the quality of each class rank from year to year (i.e., the #5 ranked class can vary significantly in quality every cycle) so the below measures should be considered approximations only.

In general, for the Class Score criteria, a team should aim for a Best Class in the Top 6, and maintain a Weighted Average similar to a Top 10 class. For the Blue Chip Ratio criteria, teams need a Best Class in the Top 7, and a Weighted Average similar to a Top 8 ranked finish. For Avg. Recruit Ratings, a team again needs a Best Class in the Top 7, and a Weighted Average in the Top 11. Overall, if a team’s recruiting class is in the Top 10 every cycle, and has at least one class in the Top 6, then it is likely meeting our Championship Caliber Recruiting criteria.

Results

Based on the recruiting histories of national title winning teams, we have developed 6 minimum criteria for recruiting to be considered Championship Caliber:

Best Class (elite talent)
- Class Score: >278.0 (Top 6)
- Blue Chip Ratio: >0.57 (Top 7)
- Average Recruit Rating: >90.3 (Top 7)
Weighted Average (roster depth)
- Class Score: >260.9 (Top 10)
- Blue Chip Ratio: >0.50 (Top 8)
- Average Recruit Rating: >89.1 (Top 11)

Additionally, we have found that to win a national title in college football, a program's average class over a four-year period should finish approximately in the Top 10 and have at least one class in the Top 6.

Shortcomings & Limitations

This analysis takes recruiting class information at face value. We have not attempted to adjust the data to reflect roster attrition due to enrollment issues or transfers. Older recruiting data may be approximate. There are sample size issues with only having fifteen championship teams and sixty recruiting classes in our dataset. The dataset encompasses both the pre-CFP and post-CFP era, which may affect the ability of a team to win a national title.

Application

We can evaluate which 2021 teams meet our criteria for Championship Caliber Recruiting by looking at recruiting classes from the 2018-2021 cycles. This application suggests that nine programs have recruited enough elite talent and roster depth to compete for the 2021 CFP Title:

Alabama
Georgia
Ohio State
Clemson
LSU
Texas
Texas A&M
Oregon
Oklahoma

Additionally, there were five programs that were close to meeting our requirements for Championship Caliber Recruiting, but failed due to either lacking elite talent or roster depth.

Three programs met the Best Class criteria, but failed the Weighted Average criteria:

USC
Penn State
Miami

Two programs met the Weighted Average criteria, but failed the Best Class criteria:

Florida
Notre Dame

Final Thoughts

Above we have established minimum criteria for Championship Caliber Recruiting. However, I can’t stress this enough, programs that strongly exceed these minimum criteria will be more likely to win a title than those that barely exceed it. When we look at what percentage of each class rank has won a title in the subsequent four seasons, we see that #1 classes have experienced twice as many titles (55%) as #2 classes (25%). I think this result really highlights the importance of elite talent on a roster. Teams need top ranked players and lots of them. Probably the main takeaway from this should be that when it comes to winning championships, your recruiting can always be better.

If you want to see more amazing deep dives like this one, follow @JBudDavis on twitter.

College Football Analytics Newsletter

Discussion about this post