Big Ten spotlight: Inside the recruiting numbers

The Big Ten Conference features a diverse collection of head coaches, with three being on the job more than a decade and three in their first seasons with their respective programs. This week we go inside the recruiting numbers on first year head coaches in the conference.

RELATED: Farrell's best, worst of opening weekend | Michigan downs Florida in opener

While three coaches in the Big Ten lead their teams onto the field for the first time this past weekend, four are actually in the midst of recruiting their first full, recruiting class. That is because Illinois’ Lovie Smith was hired on March 7, 2016 – a full month after National Signing Day, after every other staff in the country had fully implemented their recruiting game plan for that crop of then-juniors. Indiana’s Tom Allen, Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck and Purdue’s Jeff Brohm are also currently recruiting their first, full classes.

The first, full recruiting class is really the one coaches should be judged on. The class that comes in right after a coach is hired is usually cobbled together with leftovers from the previous regime, prospects meant to fill immediate holes and probably a few late reaches, since almost all the top guys are committed or have their top contenders already in mind. The first, full class, however, is when a coaching staff has time to implement their recruiting strategy and start to add players who will be central to the program in years three and four of a regime, which is when the fan base is expecting results.

Kirk Ferentz has been in charge of Iowa’s program longer than Rivals.com has been ranking recruits, so we went into the way-back machine to dig out his first recruiting class. Ferentz inked 21 student-athletes two months after he succeeded another long-time head coach in Hayden Fry. The Daily Iowan noted on National Signing Day 1999, “The new Iowa football coach is trying to maintain the areas that Fry developed, but the team will also benefit from other parts of the country,” and that has been the model Ferentz has recruited from since.

The Hawkeyes signed five in-state prospects in that 1999 class, including eventual No. 2 overall NFL Draft pick Robert Gallery from East Buchanan High School in Winthrop. However, they also signed three players from Florida, two from California and two from Texas. They also landed three players out of the JUCO ranks, which is not surprising for a first-year coach needing immediate help. Besides Gallery, Ferentz’s first recruiting class at Iowa featured eventual all-Big Ten selections Fred Barr, Colin Cole and Howard Hodges. That 1999 class suffered through a 1-10 season in Year 1, but would finish with back-to-back top 10 national rankings before their careers in Iowa City ended.

When Minnesota finally announced P.J. Fleck as its choice for head coach on Jan. 6 of this year, he had just 26 days to pull together a recruiting class before National Signing Day. One other current Big Ten head coach had even less time from his hiring to National Signing Day, though, and that was Penn State’s James Franklin who was hired on Jan. 11, just 25 days before National Signing Day 2014.

Fleck managed to sign 26 commits in the 26 days he had left in the 2017 class and, just as impressively, Franklin ended up signing 25 prospects after having just 25 days before 2014 National Signing Day. Franklin brought several key recruiting assistant coaches with him from Vanderbilt, and managed to hold onto 16 commits from the previous regime. He then added nine more in those 25 days, including current starting quarterback Trace McSorley, who was previously committed to Franklin and Co. at Vanderbilt before flipping to Penn State.

Ohio State officially announced the hire of Urban Meyer on Nov. 28, 2011. He came in cold – not as an assistant coach with the previous regime and having to hire his own staff – but still managed to pull together a recruiting class that ranked No. 4 in the country just two months later. When Meyer had the luxury of overseeing a recruiting game plan from beginning to end, though, he made the first of what has been several strong attempts at Alabama’s recruiting perch atop the college football team recruiting rankings.

That first, full class for Meyer at Ohio State was in 2013 and the Buckeyes finished just behind Alabama and just ahead of Notre Dame and Florida, coincidentally two previous stops on Meyer’s coaching journey. Five players from that 2013 class would eventually become first-round NFL Draft picks: Joey Bosa, Ezekiel Elliott, Eli Apple, Darron Lee and Gareon Conley. Four are in the Buckeyes' current starting lineup as fifth-year seniors: quarterback J.T. Barrett, tight end Marcus Baugh and defensive linemen Tracy Sprinkle and Tyquan Lewis.

Among the impact current Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck had on the Mid-American Conference while the head coach of Western Michigan was forcing the entire conference to recruit to a higher level. In his first, full recruiting year with the Broncos, Fleck brought in the highest-ranked class in conference history. He nearly matched it two years later with the 64th-best class in 2016, but that 2014 class was truly ground-breaking.

The class Fleck signed at Western Michigan in 2014 finished tied with Iowa and was ranked better than three other Big Ten programs that year. The Broncos signed 14 three-star prospects – a designation that denotes Power Five caliber talent – including their current starter at left tackle, Chukwuma Okorafor. The Southfield, Mich., native committed to Fleck and his staff in the spring before of his junior year, but pulled offers from the likes of Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma after a big senior season. He would eventually spurn all those programs, though, and become part of the highest-ranked MAC recruiting class in history.