LSU ranked #4 in first official rivals rankings for 2009

And as another barometer, if you were to look at the top 10 programs in the past............. let's say 15 years...... you'd likely find that about 90% of those teams also were consistently in the top 10 in recruiting year in and year out. Some teams move in and some teams move out but by and large the consequence are fairly evident. Recruiting is the lifeblood of all programs.

Recruiting is not an exact science and neither is the ranking of the classes but they are an extremely good indicator of a program's strength over a period of time. Sometimes a staff can coach players down, some times teams don't hang around around the top 10 in recruiting long enough to have a long term impact, but by and large if a program stays in the top 5-10 in recruiting rankings in either of the 2 major sites rankings the results show those programs will be competing for at least a bunch of conference championships.