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Had some time on my hands because work has been slow with the Holidays coming up so I made a linked Google Sheet to 247's database for team recruiting rankings. 247 makes it really easy to scrape data from their database which is nice. I've been curious to see how all of the conferences compare in regards to recruiting rankings. Here is where things stand now.

2021 CFB Team Recruiting Rankings by Conference
Last Update: 12/17/2020 11:30 AM

#1 SEC - 279 recruits | 88.94 avg. rating | 229 avg. points
#2 B1G - 248 recruits | 87.58 avg. rating | 207 avg. points
#3 Big 12 - 169 recruits | 87.02 avg. rating | 194 avg. points
#4 ACC - 285 recruits | 87.00 avg. rating | 207 avg. points
#5 Pac-12 - 198 recruits | 86.92 avg. rating | 192 avg. points
P5 TOTAL - 1179 recruits | 87.54 avg. rating | 207 avg. points

#6 AAC - 196 recruits | 83.56 avg. rating | 150 avg. points
#7 C-USA - 154 recruits | 82.38 avg. rating | 116 avg. points
#8 MWC - 233 recruits | 82.11 avg. rating | 126 avg. points
#9 SBC - 169 recruits | 81.96 avg. rating | 121 avg. points
#10 MAC - 247 recruits | 81.20 avg. rating | 126 avg. points
G5 TOTAL - 999 recruits | 82.20 avg. rating | 128 avg. points

Some quick thoughts, SEC is recruiting head and shoulders above every conference. The AAC is doing the same among the G5 conferences however there is still a considerable talent gap between the AAC and the P5 conferences.

If you all are interested, I could share the Google Sheet after I add some protections to the formulas. It's pretty nifty and breaks down every team/conference's rankings in terms of avg. rating, avg. points, and avg. ranking in both categories inside of pivot tables and automatically updates with any new commitments/decommitments. I could go further and formulate weighted averages, create some google dashboards, and pull historical data as well if there is additional interest. Let me know fellow Bearcats.

Some Bearcat specific data...

The Bearcats are ranked #44 in terms of points which is how 247 calculates their class rankings but only #56 in terms of rating average.

In terms of an average rating, the Bearcats are currently out recruiting 12 P5 teams and tied with one.

#56 Cincinnati - 85.14 avg. rating
#56 Purdue - 85.14 avg. rating
#58 Duke - 85.09 avg. rating
#59 Virginia Tech - 85.08 avg. rating
#60 Boston College - 84.98 avg. rating
#61 Iowa State - 84.76 avg. rating
#64 Syracuse - 84.56 avg. rating
#65 Vanderbilt - 84.53 avg. rating
#66 Kansas - 84.42 avg. rating
#67 Washington State - 84.39 avg. rating
#69 Colorado - 84.16 avg. rating
#69 Illinois - 84.16 avg. rating
#71 Arizona - 83.89 avg. rating
#72 Wake Forest - 83.85 avg. rating

Thanks for sharing!

Surprised that C-USA is the 2nd highest G5 conference. If there historical data on this anywhere?

Will be interesting to see how we compare in 2022. Currently at an avg of 89. Of course that’s going to come down, but I could see us somewhere in the 86.X range putting us on par with the P12 and if we continue performing snd Luke remains here, I see no reason why the clssses won’t continue to improve.

(12-17-2020 12:15 PM)C1ncy4Life Wrote:  Thanks for sharing!

Surprised that C-USA is the 2nd highest G5 conference. If there historical data on this anywhere?

Will be interesting to see how we compare in 2022. Currently at an avg of 89. Of course that’s going to come down, but I could see us somewhere in the 86.X range putting us on par with the P12 and if we continue performing snd Luke remains here, I see no reason why the clssses won’t continue to improve.

Thanks, no problem!

One limitation to this data pull is it does not factor in unrated recruits into average rating so it's buffing them a bit. I'd need to think about how to apply an artificial composite ranking to reflect the unrated. This is why 247 ranks with a point system as opposed to the average rating.

1) Really nice work, love that you pulled this together.

2) Cincinnati with an average recruit rating of 85.14 and 189 points shows that UC's pulling up the average for the conference, as if everything else we know about the 2021 class wasn't clear enough. Also interesting how close the Bearcats are towards the P5.

3) Can you run this for the 2020 class as well? I know some schools like Tulsa only have like 6 commits so they're pulling down the AAC's ratings. Additionally, it looks like several MWC and C-USA schools have less than 10 commits. In general I'd be curious to see these trends when all schools have "complete" classes so it's closer to an apples-to-apples comparison.

(12-17-2020 12:22 PM)cinbinsportsfan Wrote:  1) Really nice work, love that you pulled this together.

2) Cincinnati with an average recruit rating of 85.14 and 189 points shows that UC's pulling up the average for the conference, as if everything else we know about the 2021 class wasn't clear enough. Also interesting how close the Bearcats are towards the P5.

3) Can you run this for the 2020 class as well? I know some schools like Tulsa only have like 6 commits so they're pulling down the AAC's ratings. Additionally, it looks like several MWC and C-USA schools have less than 10 commits. In general I'd be curious to see these trends when all schools have "complete" classes so it's closer to an apples-to-apples comparison.

Sure thing

2020 CFB Team Recruiting Rankings by Conference

#1 SEC - 318 recruits | 89.39 avg. rating | 250 avg. points
#2 B1G - 309 recruits | 87.06 avg. rating | 213 avg. points
#3 ACC - 299 recruits | 86.67 avg. rating | 208 avg. points
#4 Big 12 - 227 recruits | 86.67 avg. rating | 208 avg. points
#5 Pac-12 - 267 recruits | 86.60 avg. rating | 210 avg. points
P5 TOTAL - 1420 recruits | 87.34 avg. rating | 219 avg. points

#6 AAC - 272 recruits | 82.96 avg. rating | 159 avg. points
#7 C-USA - 284 recruits | 82.01 avg. rating | 153 avg. points
#8 SBC - 263 recruits | 81.27 avg. rating | 141 avg. points
#9 MWC - 280 recruits | 81.26 avg. rating | 144 avg. points
#10 MAC - 313 recruits | 80.95 avg. rating | 142 avg. points
G5 TOTAL - 1412 recruits | 81.66 avg. rating | 147 avg. points

The AAC, as of now, is recruiting about half a point better in terms of average rating than 2020 which is encouraging to see. The SEC hasn't been as dominant recruiting this year versus 2020 as their average rating has dropped by about half a point.

Would be interesting to see how conferences like the ACC, Big Ten, and SEC do without their primary outliers (Clemson, OSU, and Alabama).

(12-17-2020 12:41 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Would be interesting to see how conferences like the ACC, Big Ten, and SEC do without their primary outliers (Clemson, OSU, and Alabama).

2021 CFB Conference Recruiting with/without top team

ACC - 87.00
ACC (without Clemson) - 86.48
Difference = 0.52

B1G - 87.58
B1G (without OSU) - 87.04
Difference = 0.54

SEC - 88.94
SEC (without Bama) - 88.50
Difference = 0.44

BIG 12 - 87.02
BIG 12 (without Oklahoma) - 86.33
Difference = 0.69

PAC 12 - 86.92
PAC 12 (without Oregon) - 86.44
Difference = 0.48

Big 12 is officially the most carried conference lol. It's crazy how poorly Texas is recruiting this year relative to years past. Oh how the mighty have fallen

So our average truly isn't far off from the average in the Big 12, Pac 12, and ACC with nowhere near the resources they have. Really makes you wonder how high we could climb if we were at the table.

(12-17-2020 01:02 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  So our average truly isn't far off from the average in the Big 12, Pac 12, and ACC with nowhere near the resources they have. Really makes you wonder how high we could climb if we were at the table.

That’s why we are not invited to the table.

(12-17-2020 02:23 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  

(12-17-2020 01:02 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  So our average truly isn't far off from the average in the Big 12, Pac 12, and ACC with nowhere near the resources they have. Really makes you wonder how high we could climb if we were at the table.

That’s why we are not invited to the table.

Absolutely...I have little doubt that should we sit at the $40M TV Money table we'd be up in the Top 20 or so programs in the country in short order.

UCbball21, thanks for your efforts. Very much appreciated.

(12-17-2020 04:15 PM)QSECOFR Wrote:  UCbball21, thanks for your efforts. Very much appreciated.

Agree - love the analysis. Thank you.