What college is the best at developing talent?

As soon as the whistle blows on the last bowl game, the college football world turns its attention to recruiting. There is an amazing amount of attention put on this and this is especially true when you realize we are tracking the whims of 18 year olds. The funny thing is every college team has 85 players on scholarship but can only start 22. This means that while every highly regarded high school player feels they are destined to be a star in the NFL that facts are that only about half will ever even be a starter in college. The problem for the college coaches is it is really tough to know just how good a high school player will be when they get to college. One thing to consider is the NFL has a lot more information on their draft picks and every year there are numerous player picked in the first round that never make it in the pro's. The college coaches have less information and have to account for varying levels of coaching instruction given to high school players and the fact that recruits are at least 2-3 years from reaching their body's maturity. Still ... there is an attraction to recruiting. Recruiting is the future of every program and since it is impossible to know the true rank of a class it can be fun to follow.



The key in my mind is how the coaches take the raw talent and develop it. Ultimately this will mean winning seasons for the college and hopefully a shot at the NFL for the players. This thought got me to open up Excel once again and see if I couldn't come up with some way to see which schools are the best at this. The methodology I came up with is quite simple. Every year the recruiting services give every player a grade level from 1 to 5 stars. At the end of recruiting season, these services then rank all the classes for and come up with the "winners" in the recruiting battle. The question in my mind is how these rankings related to the NFL draft 4 years later. I took the recruiting classes for the years 2002-2005 and compared it with the NFL draft in 2006-2009. The list below is listing of the colleges ranked by number of 3*+ players that were recruited then the number of players drafted by the NFL in parenthesis.

89 - Oklahoma - (18 - 20%)
89 - Georgia - (21 - 24%)
87 - Florida State - (17 - 20%)
86 - Tennessee - (15 - 17%)
86 - LSU - (25 - 29%)
84 - Auburn - (17 - 20%)
84 - Miami-FL - (18 - 21%)
84 - USC - (37 - 44%)
83 - South Carolina - (12 - 14%)
81 - Texas A&M - (9 - 11%)
81 - Florida - (17 - 21%)
80 - Michigan - (18 - 23%)
79 - Alabama - (12 - 15%)
78 - Texas - (22 - 28%)
76 - Ohio State - (27 - 36%)
72 - Maryland - (11 - 15%)
72 - Arizona State - (11 - 15%)
72 - Arkansas - (12 - 17%)
71 - UCLA - (7 - 10%)
71 - Virginia - (14 - 20%)
68 - Nebraska - (14 - 21%)
64 - California - (16 - 25%)
62 - Oregon - (16 - 26%)
62 - Penn State - (18 - 29%)
61 - NC State - (13 - 21%)

Looking at this list you can see that if you were a 3* or higher recruit then your best chances to get drafted by the NFL was to goto USC (44%), Ohio State (36%), LSU (29%), Penn State (29%), or Texas (28%). Some of this is due to better talent but it isn't the only thing. The top colleges with 4*+ recruits was as follows during the 2002-2005 time frame and you can see that recruiting better talent isn't the only answer:

62 - Florida State - (17 - 27%)
59 - Oklahoma - (18 - 31%)
57 - USC - (37 - 65%)
56 - Miami-FL - (18 - 32%)
56 - Tennessee - (15 - 27%)
52 - LSU - (25 - 48%)
52 - Texas - (22 - 42%)
52 - Georgia - (21 - 40%)
49 - Michigan - (18 - 37%)
44 - Ohio State - (27 - 61%)

There are a few things that could account for the fact that some schools put a higher percentage of their recruits into the pros.

• Players turning pro early affecting the years selected
• Career ending injuries to a recruit
• Grade issues / leave school
• Luck
• Better Recruiting Evaluation
• Better Physical Training Program
  
• Better Coaching

I would think that the first 4 should be limited a bit due to the sample size but certainly they will affect the numbers. That shouldn't understate importance the last three items and I believe this has to be part of why some programs excel.

Looking at the top programs selfishly of course I notice that Ohio State is the second on the list in terms of percentage. With Pete Carroll's departure at USC that means that Jim Tressell and his staff are the best that remain in college football. While preparing players for the NFL is a small part of what college coaches do, it is a fact that many high school players make their choices based on this. I'd be surprised if the Ohio State staff didn't emphasize their past success getting players to the pro's in their recruiting battles the next few weeks.