There ARE anomalies, and there are plenty of them if you want to pick and choose over a 10 year period. The thing is, every school has them. There are success stories all over, even at schools like Miami, OU, Ohio State, Texas that will the majority of their classes with highly ranked talent, but still have players that weren’t as highly touted coming out of high school that became stars at the next level.
My argument is to not look at the aberrations like a Terrance Newman or John McGraw that buck the trend, but look at the big, cumulative picture. And when you do that, it becomes pretty clear, that the teams that the experts assess are recruiting at a high level based on cumulative, aggregate rankings, more often than not are the ones achieving the most, consistently, on the field success down the road.
What you really have to depend on to stay consistently at a high level and be in position for a National Title, is to recruit at a high level as well, and that means landing players that are highly coveted by other BCS programs.
As far as the NFL draft first round goes, for every one late blooming Terrence Newman there are 25 decorated high school all-Americans like Reggie Bush and Jamarcus Russell that comprise the majority.
Seriously, look at this breakdown of recruiting rankings alone in comparison with the NFL draft.
43 – Number of five and four star prospects in their high school class taken in the top 100 draft picks. Among the top 100 draft picks were 10 five-star prospects in their high school classes and 33 four-star prospects.
3.63 - Rivals.com's average star ranking for the first-round draft picks out of high school.
3.29 - Rivals.com's average star ranking for the top 100 draft picks out of high school.
Again, there are aberrations, but look at the big picture. It’s not just the recruitment of 1, 2 star. It’s when the majority of the class is comprised with them, that the cumulative rankings prove time and again that the margin for success becomes narrower and narrower.
