Which college football programs do the most with the high school talent they recruit?

February 4, 2015

I wrote an article today for FiveThirtyEight about college football and National Signing Day. I compared the four-year average recruiting class to how well each school did on the field (measured using Massey ratings). Here’s a snippet from the article.

“I looked at how well schools’ recruiting classes translate into wins on the field and created a rating of how much each program underperforms or outperforms.”

“Anchoring the top of the overachievement scale is Wisconsin, who on average finishes 32 spots higher than predicted. Also at the top of the scale is Oregon, which turns top-30 recruitment years into top-10 finishes, and Missouri, which has turned top-40 recruits into two top-5 seasons. The chart also shows that Georgia Tech’s overachievement in 2014 was not an anomaly. Despite having had just one top-40 recruiting class since 2002, the Yellow Jackets have had multiple strong seasons over the past decade.”