The Bodda Getta

Let me preface by saying that missing on many of our top recruits is disappointing. This post isn't intended to spin or sugar coat that fact. Goldman, Williams, Kwon, etc....all disappointing to get close and come up short.

But with Avery Young committing and Ricardo Luis coming back on board, I was curious how the class was starting to stack up to the last two classes, 2010 in particular.

I have ESPN3 on my computer while I'm working, and I noticed that Louis was pretty high on the ESPN150. So I went on their site to see exactly how high. While there, I figured I'd compare the 2012 class to the past couple years.

Compared to the 2010 class on ESPN, the 2012 class is missing the headliners, but it's not far off overall.

Players rated a 79 or higher:
2010 - 15
2012 - 13

Players rated 81 or higher:
2010 - 6
2012 - 4

Four star players:
2010 - 11
2012 - 10

Average rating of top 5 players:
2010 - 82.8
2012 - 81.2

Avg top 10 players:
2010 - 81.4
2012 - 80.2

Avg top 15 players:
2010 - 80.6
2012 - 79.7

As you can see, it's not as good as the 2010 class, but it's not far off.

I took a quick look at the way Rivals looked at the 2011 class compared to this year's class.

Four star recruits:
2011 - 14
2012 - 11

Average rating of top 10 players:
2011 - 58.8
2012 - 58.2

On 247, this class probably compares decently to the 2010 class, but their evaluations weren't complete on all of the players in that class since they were just getting the site rolling. As it was evaluated, the 2010 class had 10 4-star recruits, and the 2012 class has 10 4-star recruits.

For comparing the 247 rankings of the 2011 class vs the 2012 class, it's not that close overall. But that 2011 class had an average rating of 85.35 compared to the average rating of 89.95 for the 2012 class.

However, the top of the 2011 class was clearly better with the Top 15 players averaging 94.2 and the top 15 players of the 2012 class averaging a 91.1. But the top 10 players comparison was much closer, with 2011 averaging 95.1, and the top 10 of the 2012 class averaging 93.3.

Anyway, just thought I'd put some numbers to the class compared to classes of the last two years by different evaluations.

EDIT: Right now we're ranked #17, #14, #11, and #16 on the four major sites. Three of those sites allow you to sort by "average rating". When sorted like that, our talent level is #14, #8, and #10. To me, I'm comfortable calling this a Top 15 team. Not great, but not bad at all. There is a difference in #15 and #5, but very little difference in #15 and #10.