Recruiting 101: The rankings, Part I

CLASS OF 2020 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position | Team

MORE RECRUITING 101: The calendar | The offer | The commitment

Recruiting is known as the “lifeblood” of a college football program, but the complexity of the process can be confusing for prospects and college football fans alike. In our Recruiting 101 series, we will look to clarify some basic topics and explain more advanced topics about college football recruiting, while also answering those questions you have been afraid to ask. This week’s topic is about the rankings.

Rankings are the measuring tool of the recruiting process. It is an answer to the question, who will this player be at the next level? Here we discuss Rivals.com’s rankings which, in its current form, have been around since 2001 with only a few minor tweaks in those 18 years. This is Part 1 of the lesson on recruiting rankings. Look for Part 2 next week.

The star system is the most widely recognized rating mechanism in college football recruiting. Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) caliber prospects are rated between two stars and five stars. It’s important to note that we do not rate prospects below FBS caliber. Every prospect we rate, whether a two-star or a five-star, is considered FBS-caliber and capable of playing at the Group of Five or Power Five level.

Additionally, at Rivals.com, we also employ the Rivals Rating as a more precise measurement of prospects. That scale ranges from 5.2 to 6.1, and directly correlates to the star rating system. A Rivals Rating of 5.2-5.4 equates to two stars, 5.5-5.7 equates to three stars, 5.8-6.0 equates to four stars and 6.1 is a five-star.

The higher you go in stars or rating, the fewer prospects who qualify for those tiers. Every year there are more two-stars than three-stars. There are more three-stars than four-stars and more four-stars than five-stars.

The two-star/three-star borderline can also be considered the distinguishing point between Group of Five and Power Five caliber prospects, where two-stars are considered Group of Five or mid-major caliber and three-stars, four-stars and five-stars are considered Power Five caliber.

The terms “ratings” and “rankings” tend to be used interchangeably, but they are actually two different measurements. A rating measures a prospect’s ability, while a ranking measures that ability as it relates to other prospects in his class, position, state, etc.

A prospect’s rating – his Rivals Rating or star rating – changes only when a new evaluation dictates that the previous rating of that prospect was too high or too low. However, a prospect’s ranking may change even if his rating did not change.

When we update the Rivals100, Rivals250, position and state rankings, only a portion of those prospects in the ranking have seen their rating change. A prospect who has seen his rating increase will also see the appropriate ranking change. Let’s say, for example, that increase means he moves up 20 spots within a ranking. In order for that prospect to move up 20 spots, 20 players have to move down one spot. Twenty players had to “fall” in the ranking for that one player to rise.

After every rankings update we hear complaints like, “most of my team’s commitments dropped in the rankings.” However, the majority of those drops are like the one I just explained. The reason why most prospects “slide” in a rankings update is because it takes 20 prospects moving down one spot for one prospect to move up 20 spots.

The next time one of your team’s commits drops 10-20 spots in the Rivals250, remember it was likely due to the movement of players around them and only equals about a 0.5 percent move among FBS prospects. It doesn’t mean their stock fell or we think of them as a lesser player today than last time. It only means other players in that ranking upped their stock since the last update of the Rivals250.

Starting with the 2013 class, the Rivals.com team rankings underwent changes to make the process easier to understand. The results did not change much – Alabama had won the previous two recruiting titles, and would go on to win the next three – but the system by which the results were calculated was streamlined and the methodology posted on the site for all to see and tally on their own.

The Football Team Rankings FAQ page has a full breakdown of how those results are tabulated, but there are a couple key points to make here based on questions we field frequently.

The first point I want to make is that not all four-stars count equally towards the overall team rankings and not all three-stars count equally. The highest-ranked four-star in the 2019 class contributed 186 points to his team’s overall class ranking, while the lowest-ranked four-star contributed 105. That can create situations where one team is ranked below another despite having more four-stars in their class.

The second point is that the Rivals Team Rankings only count the top 20 ranked prospects within a class. Class sizes vary significantly, so a statistical constant accounts for those differences and neutralizes major outliers, like the Ole Miss classes of a decade ago that got as high as 37 total prospects. Signing a small class still does not put you on par with schools that sign a full class, but the schools that are over-signing are not getting an unfair advantage with that 20-player cutoff employed.

An argument a few college football fans make every year is that average star rating is a better indicator of class value. In the Rivals team rankings formula, however, average star rating is not factored in, precisely because it is not a good indicator of class value. Here is an example that makes this crystal clear:

You have a choice between two classes. Class A consists of 10 four-star prospects and average star rating of 4.0. Class B consists of 10 four-star prospects and 10 three-star prospects with an average star rating of 3.5. Which one do you choose?

No one in their right mind would choose Class A, and certainly no college coach would choose Class A just because it has a higher average star rating. Adding prospects to a class enhances the value of the class, but average star rating can reward not taking additional prospects in many cases. Class value involves both quality and quantity.

Check back next week for Part 2 of Recruiting 101: The Rankings. In the meantime, if you have questions you would like answered as part of the Recruiting 101 series, send them to @JoshHelmholdt via Twitter.