The CF Recruiting National Championship

Riddlewire

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*This probably belongs in the college football forum, but the threads there are almost exclusively solely for individual teams. I definitely consider this to be a College Football topic, though, and not a high school football topic.

All (or most) of the LOIs are signed. The recruiting classes are complete. The coaches got who they wanted, or their chosen backups. It's now time to evaluate the coaches. Who did a good job? Who got the best class? The major sports outlets have already weighed in on this. Most recognize Alabama as the 'winner' of the recruiting national championship (although ESPN says Miami). But, obviously, we here at CF have different criteria for what makes a successful recruiting class. To that end, I intend to grade the recruiting classes based on my own standards, that (I hope) are shared by the majority of posters on these forums.
Here are the important points:
-Stars are meaningless. That should be obvious.
-Classes are ranked based upon the number and 'quality' of white players signed. It doesn't matter if a team's percentage is high (ex: 3 out of 6 total signees).
-There is a point system that determines the quality of a recruit. This point system is as follows
K/P=0
OL=1
QB/ATH/TE=2
FB/S/LB/DT/DE/WR=3
CB/RB=4
That ought to be self explanatory. And yes, I'm serious, you don't get any points for kickers/punters.
-Teams will be evaluated inside conferences first. The conference champions will then be compared.
-In the event of a points tie, I will cast the deciding vote based on which school seems to be putting forth the greater effort. For example, if Florida State and Duke both tied for points, I would put Florida State over Duke. I hope the reasons are obvious.

Notes: Mixed-race players aren't white. In situations where it's impossible to decide, I left them out of the count. My justification for such an action is the perfectly white-looking (yet half-black) lead actor from a certain FOX tv show about breaking out of prisons.
As far as deciding on who gets which points, I have to use best guesses in most cases. Sometimes a player is listed as fullback, sometimes as runningback. Major difference, and different point values. Scouring local media can frequently lead to additional information that contradicts what Scout and Rivals think.

Finally, I have no idea if I'll have the energy to finish this. It's a major project. Just doing one 12-team conference took hours, and it was the easiest conference to do since so much information is available on those players (try finding a picture of a no-star safety commit to middle tennessee).
I'd like it if other people could maybe contribute by taking a conference and using my system. But I won't hold my breath.
Ok, enough talking. Time to get to the first results.
 

Riddlewire

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The SEC

This conference was easy. It gets the most media coverage and information about all the players is pretty easy to come by. Although it still took hours to compile the results.

The winner of the SEC recruiting season is:
Vanderbilt
Vandy signed 11 white players with a point total of 23. The rest of the conference is as follows (point totals are the given number, with total number of white players in parentheses):

Vandy: 23 (11)
LSU: 19 (10)
Auburn: 15 (6)
Ole Miss: 12 (6)
Tennessee: 11 (5)
Florida: 10 (5)
Kentucky: 10 (5)
Arkansas: 9 (5)
Alabama: 9 (6)
Georgia: 7 (5)
MissSt: 7 (5)
SouthCarolina: 5 (4)

Congrats to Bobby Johnson on a fine 2008 recruiting class.
Nuts to Steve Spurrier and his treason.

I have the position breakdowns as well, but I'm not gonna post all those unless someone asks.
I hope at least one person found this information useful/entertaining.
It might be a while before I finish the next one.
 

Riddlewire

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Big East

The winner of the Big East recruiting season is:
Cincinnati
The Bearcats signed 11 white players with a total of 26 points.

Cincy: 26 (11)
Pitt: 21 (10)
Syracuse: 18 (9)
UConn: 17 ( 9)
Louisville: 13 (8)
SouthFla: 12 (7)
Rutgers: 9 (4)
WVU: 8 (5)

Shame on Rutgers.
 

jared

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You started in some pretty firm caste country with those two conferences. Cheer up, it gets better as you move west.
 

backrow

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nice work riddle. LSU stays pretty white, as far as SEC goes, that is good to see.
 

Colonel_Reb

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Riddlewire wrote "try finding a picture of a no-star safety commit to middle tennessee."


Ha ha! Welcome to my world brother! Nice stuff! I think you are correct in that it belongs in the college football forum. Very useful info here.
 

Riddlewire

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I wasn't going to continue if I didn't get at least one reply (this takes a hell of a lot of work). I believe I shall continue now. Next up: The Sun Belt.
 

Colonel_Reb

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Riddlewire, trust me when I say I know exactly how much work it takes.However, Ido think it is best to dosuch tedious researchbecause you want to and not because others want you to.
 

Riddlewire

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Sun Belt

The winner of the Sun Belt recruiting season is
Arkansas State
The Indians signed 9 white players with a total of 21 points (Four white wide receivers!
smiley32.gif
)

Arkansas State: 21 (9)
ULM: 12 (8)
ULL: 9 (5)
UNT: 9 (6)
FlaAtl: 7 (3)
Troy: 5 (2)
MidTenn: 4 (4)
FlaInt: 4 (2)

Overall, this conference was not very white-friendly this recruiting season. Wouldn't you hate to be one of those two white guys in Florida International's Freshman class? That was the team that got into a brawl with Miami two seasons ago.

p.s. It took 5 hours to find pictures for all these guys. I don't know why the schools can't just put pics up for their incoming class.Edited by: Riddlewire
 

Riddlewire

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Pac 10

The winner of the Pac 10 recruiting season is
Washington State
The Cougars signed 13 white players for a whopping total of 31 points.

Washington State: 31 (13)
Stanford: 17 (9)
UCLA: 16 (8)
Oregon: 15 (6)
Arizona: 11 (5)
Arizona State: 11 (7)
Washington: 11 (5)
Cal: 7 (5)
Oregon State: 7 (3)
USC: 7 (4)

Other than Wazzu, the rest of the conference was pretty miserable. Stanford's class was a disappointment. OSU in particular was upsetting, with only three white players in the class.
 

Riddlewire

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WAC

The winner of the WAC recruiting season is
Boise State
The Broncos signed 7 white players with a total of 16 points.

BoiseSt: 16 (7)
FresnoSt: 15 (8)
SanJoseSt: 13 (4) -went for quality positions (2LB1FB1CB)
LouisianaTech: 11 (5)
NewMexicoSt: 11 (5)
Hawaii: 10 (4)
Nevada: 9 (5)
Idaho: 7 (5)
UtahSt: 6 (3)

What the heck is going on in the WAC? This is the worst conference so far. Look at Utah State. They only signed three white players out of a class of twenty. How can their coach justify that? In Utah for cryin' out loud...
 
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Washington State looks very promising. That was their coaches first class, could we be seeing another White friendly program taking shape? It would be nice to see at least one of the Pac-10 schools go that route, considering the demographics out West and the abundance of White High School talent.
 

jared

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I menat to comment on Washington State earlier. They really put together a hell of a white-friendly recruiting class this year. Well done.
 

Colonel_Reb

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Utah State is a perenial loser who can't get much Utah talent, so they go for black rejects from other areas. The coaches seem to gravitate toward the black "mobile" QBs as well. They signed just 3 players from Utah last week. USU is probably the most diverse D1 school in Utah, they field the blackestD1 team in the state, and they are usually the worst (record wise) D1 team in the state. Is it any wonder?
 

Riddlewire

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It will probably be another day before I can get to the next conference. It'll most likely be the Big Ten, since that should only take a little over an hour.

I hope everybody understands what these lists mean. These are tools for evaluating current and new coaches. Also, these are the players who will make up the majority of the starters on these teams three years from now. So we know what to expect in the future. And if there are coaching changes later on, we'll know who to blame/credit.
 

Riddlewire

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Big Ten

The winner of the Big Ten recruiting season is
Iowa
The Hawkeyes signed 13 white players with a total of 32 points.

Iowa: 32 (13)
Wisconsin: 27 (14)
Northwestern: 26 (12)
Ohio State: 18 (9)
Indiana: 16 (7)
Michigan State: 14 (7)
Penn State: 14 (6)
Purdue: 13 (9)
Michigan: 9 (6)
Minnesota: 4 (2)

Stark contrasts in this conference. On one hand you have Wisconsin, signing the most white players of any team so far (and Iowa close behind with an even better point total), and on the other you have Minnesota, who, according to all the 'experts' signed a "Fantastic" class, supposedly a major victory for their embattled new coach. Yet they had the worst class of any BCS conference team. There are definite heroes and villains among the coaches of the Big Ten.
And it's a good thing McGuffie is so comfortable around the bruthas. He's going to be surrounded by a lot of them.


*Edited to correct previous error. Wisconsin actually signed the most white players, not Northwestern. Although Iowa still won the point total.Edited by: Riddlewire
 

forty-four

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I'm hoping the ACC will look good, but I doubt it. I'm predicting UVa will do better than Va Tech, but neither will approach Washington State.
 

Riddlewire

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ACC

The winner of the ACC recruiting season is
Boston College
The Eagles signed 11 white players with 23 points.

Boston College: 23 (11)
Wake Forest: 15 (7)
Miami: 13 (6)
North Carolina State: 10 (5)
Virginia: 10 (7)
Clemson: 10 (8)
Virginia Tech: 9 (4)
Florida State: 7 (5)
Georgia Tech: 6 (3)
Duke: 6 (5)
Maryland: 4 (3)
North Carolina: 4 (2)

Wow. Just wow. Dark days ahead for the Atlantic Coast Conference. And I don't want to hear this board complaining about the SEC any more...
 

Riddlewire

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Big 12

The winner of the Big 12 recruiting season is
Nebraska
The Cornhuskers signed 13 white players with a total of 30 points.

Nebraska: 30 (13)
Colorado:26 (11)
Kansas State:17 (8)
Missouri:16 (8)
Texas A&M:15 (9)
Kansas:14 (8)
Iowa State:13 (8)
Texas Tech:12 (6)
Texas:11 (7)
Oklahoma:8 (6)
Baylor:7 (5)
Oklahoma State:4 (4)

On average, this conference performed exceptionally well. Nebraska, in particular, had a very good class. Although, as with every conference, there were dogs. The 40 year old man turned in a real stinker.
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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great work, Riddlewire! keep it up, man.

nice to see Arkansas pulling their weight in the struggle.
smiley4.gif
smiley32.gif
 

eaxs

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Duke with 5? Georgia Tech with 3? Baylor with 5? Ain't good news for those schools considering all three of those schools hired new coaches this off season. Dark times indeed.

Good to see Nebraska getting back up there though.
 

voice

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Nice one Riddlewire..this is an excellent way to evaluate it!

As someone from MN who started watching the Goofers, Tim Brewster makes me physically sick and I am thinking of writing him a letter and posting on Castefootball..
 

Riddlewire

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Ugh.
Six hours worth of work and I've only finished four MWC schools. I hate this conference. They don't recruit players with pictures.
Expect the results later this afternoon.
 
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