Matt Hinton has annually done the yeoman’s work showing year after year showing how recruiting rankings matter. Brian linked to this year’s edition already and it’s worth taking a look at. Building off of that idea, I wanted to look at which teams and coaches were the biggest over and under achievers in the business.
Methodology
Every recruit gets a numerical rating from 0 (anonymous MAC recruit) to 99 (consensus #1 rated recruit) based on all available recruiting services.
Each player on the roster is given an adjustment factor based on how old they are. 75% reduction for first year players up to a 60% bump for upperclassmen.
This generates a total point value for each roster based on attrition, age/experience and recruiting rankings. The top teams since 2003 are dominated by Pete Carroll era USC. His 2005-09 teams take up 5 of the top 7 spots along with 2006 LSU and 2006 Miami.
Each game since 2003 is then compared against each team’s roster rating and the final score. The resulting best fit is 0.007 * (Home Team’s Roster Rating – Road Team’s Roster Rating)+4 –> Final margin. The R squared is .17.
There is obviously a lot of variance that goes into every game but there is no doubt that there is a strong correlation between recruiting success and team success. Today we’ll take a look at the teams and coaches that have maximized and wasted their talents the most.
Stars Don’t Matter (In a Good Way)
Using the above calculated fit, I looked at each true home game since 2003 and compared roster predicted results with actual game scores.
Over the last 11 seasons, the biggest overachieving teams have been:
| Team | Points vs Recruiting |
| Boise St | +20.6 |
| Oregon | +12.4 |
| TCU | +12.2 |
| Northern Illinois | +11.9 |
| Wisconsin | +10.6 |
Not a lot of surprises on the list, five teams that have certainly had success beyond their recruiting profiles. Boise dominates the list with their amazing run of late and little to no major recruiting wins.
Northern Illinois made the list with four different coaches while TCU did it all under Gary Patterson.
Here is how the Big Ten stacks up (Big Ten games only):
| Team | Points vs Recruiting |
| Wisconsin | 11.3 |
| Iowa | 4.2 |
| Michigan St | 4.1 |
| Ohio St | 2.8 |
| Penn St | 1.1 |
| Northwestern | 1.0 |
| Minnesota | -1.3 |
| Purdue | -1.3 |
| Nebraska | -2.7 |
| Michigan | -5.2 |
| Indiana | -7.3 |
| Illinois | -8.8 |
Wisconsin has been the clear leader and right behind are Iowa and the Big Ten’s biggest cheerleader for Star’s Don’t Matter, Michigan St. Despite being the Big Ten’s strongest recruiter, OSU has still managed to generate above average results from their talent. Michigan sits at the low end of the spectrum, down over 5 points per game versus talent and ahead of only Indiana and Illinois.
Other conference results from conference games only:
SEC
Best: Texas A&M (+13), Missouri (+7), Alabama! (+7)
Worst: Tennessee (-10), Ole Miss (-5)
Big 12
Best: Missouri (+9), Oklahoma St (+7)
Worst: Kansas (-7), Texas A&M (-6)
Pac 12
Best: Oregon (+13), Oregon St (+9)
Worst: Colorado (-19), UCLA (-6)
ACC
Best: Virginia Tech (+11), Georgia Tech (+7)
Worst: Miami (-9), Duke (-5)
Big East
Best: West Virginia (+10), Virginia Tech(+9)
Worst: Syracuse (-7), Pitt (-3)
Ranking the Coaches
For some programs the coach and the team are interchangeable but here are how the 2014 Big Ten coaches have done as head coaches at all of their D1 stops since 2003.
| Coach | Team | Points vs Recruiting |
| James Franklin | Penn St | +12.0 |
| Gary Andersen | Wisconsin | +6.7 |
| Urban Meyer | Ohio St | +6.7 |
| Kirk Ferentz | Iowa | +5.0 |
| Jerry Kill | Minnesota | +4.7 |
| Mark Dantonio | Michigan St | +4.3 |
| Randy Edsall | Maryland | +2.7 |
| Pat Fitzgerald | Northwestern | +1.4 |
| Brady Hoke | Michigan | +1.4 |
| Bo Pelini | Nebraska | +0.9 |
| Tim Beckman | Illinois | -3.9 |
| Darrell Hazell | Purdue | -4.0 |
| Kevin Wilson | Indiana | -5.2 |
| Kyle Flood | Rutgers | -6.1 |
The East and the West may be highly imbalanced in terms of recruiting profile but they are pretty balanced in what the coaches have done with the talent. James Franklin has the second shortest head coaching tenure on the list, so there are some sample size issues, but James Franklin has so far proven himself to be a significant over achiever with his talent. Coach Hoke sits in in the middle of the back at slightly above average. Hoke’s numbers have progressed at each stop in his career, going from –0.4 at Ball St, +1.0 at San Diego St and +4.9 so far at Michigan.
Lloyd Carr’s five eligible years would have put him towards the bottom of the list at –2.9. Carr presided over some stacked teams and Michigan’s style often meant closer games than the talent would dictate. Of all the disastrous metric for RichRod, this may be the worst. After going +14.5 at West Virginia, his three years at Michigan inverted and were –13.9 versus what the roster would project. In his two years Arizona he has moved toward the middle at +4.3.
Here are your top rated coaches of the last 11 seasons with at least 4 season.
| Coach | Points vs Recruiting | Primary School |
| Chip Kelly | +21 | Oregon |
| Chris Petersen | +20 | Boise St |
| Kevin Sumlin | +15 | Texas A&M/Houston |
| Bobby Petrino | +13 | Louisville/Arkansas |
| Glen Mason | +12 | Minnesota |
| Gary Patterson | +12 | TCU |
| Jimbo Fisher | +11 | Florida St |
| Paul Johnson | +10 | Georgia Tech/Navy |
| Frank Beamer | +10 | Virginia Tech |
| Bret Bielema | +9 | Wisconsin |
Looking Ahead To 2014
I am hoping to have a post up later this offseason about the “secret sauce” for BCS champions, but one thing they all share is a place in the top 10-12 spots of roster success. As noted above, there is lots of variance in the middle, but if you want to play for a championship, you have to have an elite roster. Projecting 2014 rosters is a bit tricky on a large scale, but here are my early projections for roster strength for this coming season.
| Projected Rank | Team | Conference | Coach Rating |
| 1 | Texas | Big 12 | +7.7 |
| 2 | Alabama | SEC | +8.3 |
| 3 | Georgia | SEC | +0.1 |
| 4 | Florida | SEC | -6.2 |
| 5 | Ohio St | Big Ten | +6.7 |
| 6 | USC | Pac 12 | +0.2 |
| 7 | Auburn | SEC | +6.6 |
| 8 | Florida St | ACC | +11.2 |
| 9 | LSU | SEC | +3.3 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | Big 12 | +4.4 |
| 11 | Clemson | ACC | +2.4 |
| 12 | Michigan | Big Ten | +1.4 |
Each of the five auto-qualifying conferences have at least one team on the list and the Pac 12 is the only one with a single entry. Unsurprisingly, the SEC leads the list with five entries.
If you are looking for early title favorites, take the top coaches ratings for the 12 on this list and that leaves Texas, Bama, Ohio St, Auburn and Florida St as the first teams I would look at.