Wow, what a day for the Tigers yesterday!!! They finished even better and stronger than originally anticipated by almost everyone, and filled some key needs, too, which was one of the gripes going into the day. The rankings by the different national services seem to be fairly discrepant. About the only thing they agree on is FLA at or near the top. I am hoping others more capable than me, i.e. Bhelm, Izzy, would care to list the rankings from the main services, compare them and comment which seems to be the most reflective/accurate and why. For example USC is listed #1 by Rivals, but #7 by ESPN. Espn has FLA#1, and TX #2, which doesn't seem unreasonable, but USC #7? I know most here prefer Rivals, but I am curious why that is and why such a discrepancy? Irrespective of the rankings, it sounds like CLM is very pleased with the class, not only from the level of athletes, which is what the rankings mostly reflect, but also from the perspective of quality of character, something that is very difficult to quantitate and rank. For this reason, I am very excited and pleasantly surprised by this class. I think I was expecting a bit of a down year for us, and did not follow the process nearly as closely as last year. But, it seems we crossed the finish line in fantastic shape! Thanks for any input.
ESPN makes their 150 pretty early and doesn't seem to make many changes after the all star games. Rivals moved their top 100 around a lot after the All Star games. USC got 5 five stars on Rivals which shot them above everyone even though they were overloaded at certain positions and almost all of their top players are on offense. ha, like 3 of the top Tight Ends Florida's class was mostly on D but their class was more complete. I would still say Florida #1 and Texas #2
Did you notice Rivals rated Miami #24, and tOSU #26? Wow. tOSU only had 18 commits, no 5*s, and more 3*s than 4*s. Those poor NC showings may be catching up in the recruiting results. For all of the complainers here, LSU has continued to stockpile talent with top recruiting class after top recruiting class. No severe dips like the two above!
Not only that but OSU missed out on the top 4 prospects in their state and only landed 2 or 3 in the top ten.
The average Rivals star rank of their 2010 class (3.39) is #14, tied with Penn State, Notre Dame, and Oregon. Still a low star average for Ohio State standards--they had 3.76 last year, 3.85 before that, 3.80 before that, 3.60 before that, 3.50 before that, 3.24 before that (2004), 3.38 before that (2003) and 3.65 before that (2002). It is interesting to note that their two worst classes came right after they won the 2002 National Championship (their 2003 class was #41 going by the Rivals point system... they only signed 16 that year). It's also interesting that the Big Ten did so well on the field this season (three teams finished in the Top 10... #5/5 Ohio State, #7/#7 Iowa, and #8/9 Penn State)... yet the Big Ten only got one Rivals 5-star recruit in 2010 (Michigan State). The SEC got 11, the Pac-10 got 9, the ACC got 3, the Big 12 got 2, the Big East got 1. And 7 of them (26 total) were from Big-Ten states...1 from Michigan (went to Mich State), 1 from Minnesota (went to USC), 1 from Illinois (went to USC), 1 from Penn (went to Florida), 3 from Ohio (went to WVU, Texas, and LSU).
Including losing all three of the Rivals 5-star players from Ohio. Could you imagine the melt-down on Ohio State forums?
