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Recruiting rankings: Why they matter

If you ask any recruiting analyst, they will tell you the degree of difficulty in projecting how a high school athlete will fare on the college level is fairly high. Players are far from a finished product when they sign with college football programs and are generally untested against elite competition. Then there are injuries, academics, coaching changes and countless other variables that will affect a player's career.
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And yet, when you look at the Rivals.com team recruiting rankings over the last four classes and add them up, the top three schools on the list are Alabama, Ohio State and Florida State. All three just happen to be playing in the first College Football Playoff in January. So maybe these rankings that come out each February, despite their inherent flaws, do translate to on-field success.
"They're never going to be perfect," Fox Sports senior college sports columnist Stewart Mandel said. "But there's a pretty strong correlation between the (Rivals.com team) rankings and who's playing for the national championship. There's always going to be a team like Michigan that has two great recruiting classes like (Brady) Hoke did and it doesn't show up on the field. I think people focus too much on the (rankings) misses. I think (Rivals.com) does a really good job and if you look at it from a macro perspective versus the botched classes, there's a correlation between top 25 recruiting classes and national championships."
Oregon, the fourth member of this year's playoff field, has a cumulative ranking of No. 16 over the last four years.
There are plenty of misses, to be sure. Florida is the overall No. 4 and Michigan is No. 14 -- two programs who fired their coaches after multiple sub-par seasons. And Baylor (No. 39), TCU (No. 32) and Mississippi State (No. 34) all far out-performed their four-year team recruiting rankings on the field in 2014.
"I think too much value is put on (recruiting team) rankings," Yahoo Sports college football columnist Pat Forde said. "People get far too excited about February in terms of what happens in the future. Rankings have gotten better and they're more accurate. People are paying closer attention, and I guess this year it so happens that the higher ranked schools ended up in the playoffs. But that wouldn't have been the case if the selection committee comes to a slightly different -- and in my mind -- a more sound conclusion."
Just like the team rankings, the CFP selection committee will have plenty of critics. With only four playoff spots are available, determining which programs fill those spots will always come down to a polarizing debate.
However, there's little doubt that recruiting the highest-ranked players will give you a great chance of landing one of those four playoff spots.
"The quickest way to compete is to sign the top recruits," Sports Illustrated senior writer Andy Staples said. "That's been proven."
Staples believes that the reason Alabama and Florida State have been so successful is that they not only sign the top recruits, they know how to help the talent reach its potential.
"It's important to have a plan," Staples said. "Florida State and Alabama know exactly what they're looking for. If a player has long arms and can run fast, he is probably also a five-star. But Alabama also takes players like Terrence Cody (now playing for the Baltimore Ravens) when no one wanted him. (Jimbo) Fisher does the same thing. (Urban) Meyer doesn't do it the same way, but he knows what he wants. You have to have a plan to get them and then make them successful. With Florida, they had no plan. They went through three offensive coordinators in four years. Talent goes to waste when that happens. It doesn't matter what star the prospect is then."
More to the point of having a plan for recruits, some programs like Baylor, TCU and Mississippi State have proven to be able to do more with less.
"Those schools have done a great job of evaluating and developing talent," Forde said. "Maybe they did a better job of finding diamonds in the rough that fit their system."
Mandel agrees, pointing out that those schools lost out to the more prominent schools for elite talent in previous recruiting classes.
"With TCU," said Mandel, "there's no doubt in my mind (the state of Texas) has some of the top talent, but they don't get those players because they're signing with Texas and Oklahoma. So TCU has to go to that next (tier). But the thing with states like Texas and Florida and California, is that third and fourth wave (of recruits) are still really good. There may not be much difference in a kid ranked high in the state versus a kid ranked No. 57 in the same state. Some schools have the ability to get the best players and others have to rely on the system. Oregon is a great example of that. They get fast players and they're starting to build up with that profile."
Lack of exposure could also affect a player's Rivals.com ranking. Often times, schools see a player they like, but hold out on offering him, hoping he stays unnoticed for a longer period of time.
"(Mississippi State coach) Dan Mullen told me he's hesitant to offer a kid," Staples said. "He's worried because once he offers, then everyone finds out about him and jumps on him (with an offer)."
With regards to recruiting rankings, there will always be hits and misses, but pundits of the process should realize the science that goes into it, Rivals.com national recruiting director Mike Farrell said.
"Anyone who looks at the rankings and tries to play Monday morning quarterback should know the process," Farrell said. "It's very difficult to project what a kid is going to turn out to be when he's 15, 16 and 17. They're playing college football at 22. There's off-field concerns, academic issues and can't-miss kids who completely bust out. J.J. Watt went unnoticed. Same with Jordy Nelson and they both became (NFL) superstars."
So while some recruits slip through the cracks, the process has become more efficient over time.
"It's definitely a lot easier now," Farrell said. "We have more to go on. When I first started, I was checking my mailbox for VHS tapes from a school. The mailman hated me. Now you have the ability to upload film and watch it online, there's more camps and all-star games to attend and more opportunities to compare good kids against other good kids. That takes away a lot of the guess work."
FAQ: The Rivals.com Team Rankings Formula
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Rivals.com 2015 Team Rankings
Adam Krohn
Feature Writer
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