Tennessee's four-year recruiting rank

[BanditVol]

I was kicking around on Scout yesterday, and found this nice feature.  4-year recruiting ranking based on current roster.

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Football/CollegeTeamTalentComposite/



Tennessee is....15th!  Way higher than I think most if not all on here would think.  Let me help us all be succinct.

1. I realize recruiting ratings are not perfect.
2. I think this definitely helps show that our talent is underdeveloped.
3. It doesn't factor in how appropriate the recruiting is....we have a surplus of skill players on offense and a lack of OL, and that's deadly.
4.  Keep in mind that our schedule has been in the top ten for four years.
5.  I don't think our four-year record is much worse than that of Junior, who is near us in the rankings.
6.  But overall, would be interesting to compare this to the four-year record.  I guarantee you Vols would suffer in that comparision, but maybe not as much as we might think.  And SOS should be factored in also.

But to my main point....yes this is definitely more talent than Dooley left, and is not a bad amount of talent, even given all the caveats I list above in 1-3.

You can click on the Vol link and see how all our current roster was rated when recruited. Interestingly Richmond was only a 4-star on Scout.  I think Scout got it right.

[murfvol]

That's quite interesting.

[Tnphil]

Does this take in to account the players that left or transferred? Butch's 2014 class was his highest ranked and IIRC this season we only had 11 of the 27 in that class still on the roster.....There use to be a site I looked at a few years back that adjusted rankings after 3 years....it took into account players no longer on the roster due to injuries...transfers and never played. Wish I had saved that site.

[BanditVol]

Does this take in to account the players that left or transferred? Butch's 2014 class was his highest ranked and IIRC this season we only had 11 of the 27 in that class still on the roster.....There use to be a site I looked at a few years back that adjusted rankings after 3 years....it took into account players no longer on the roster due to injuries...transfers and never played. Wish I had saved that site.

Yes, it's just players on the current roster.  You can confirm that for yourself by clicking on the Tennessee link.  It's pretty interesting to see how each player was rated coming out of HS.

[BanditVol]

Just noticed Missouri is 42nd on that list.  More proof that recruiting rankings are over rated, but also proof that coaching and development matters.

Of course, I am on record as saying that Mizzou will seriously suxes without Lock and I stand by that. He is a once in a generation home state product.  I seriously doubt they go bowling next year.

[Tnphil]

Word is that Odom is high on the Louisville job list and Satterfield from App State is too.

[LouisVOL]

Average star rating of OL on that list----2.45.  Our starters are basically a 3 star group, and we obviously have no depth.  I haven't compared others on the list, but in the SEC, I am going to guess their W-L graph will reflect OL ratings.

[BanditVol]

Word is that Odom is high on the Louisville job list and Satterfield from App State is too.

Yeah, I think Odom would be wise to stay at Missouri.  Louisvile is a mess right now.  Even Brohm would not return to his alma mater.

[FLVOL]

Just noticed Missouri is 42nd on that list.  More proof that recruiting rankings are over rated, but also proof that coaching and development matters.

Of course, I am on record as saying that Mizzou will seriously suxes without Lock and I stand by that. He is a once in a generation home state product.  I seriously doubt they go bowling next year.

Didn't you just get all up in arms when I said that Butch's recruiting were grossly inflated? Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying......

[volsboy]

I was surprised by how many schools were 3 star laden. We are one of them. Look at the difference in the number of 5 and 4 stars Bama, UGa and Ohio State have compared to teams like ours. Not hard to see why we can't come close to competing with them right now. They have more 5 and 4 total stars than we have 3 stars.

[BanditVol]

Didn't you just get all up in arms when I said that Butch's recruiting were grossly inflated? Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying......

No, I don't recall any discussion on that.  I reacted to you saying Butch never developed any players.  Barnett, Sutton, Dobbs and others did really well actually, so you can't say, as you did, that every single player under Butch never developed.

As to the rankings being overinflated, maybe so maybe not.  Recruiting rankings are so inexact I could claim every team on that list is overinflated, and probably make a pretty good case of it. 

What I think is true is that of our current talent it didn't develop very well, but as I and others point out above, it doesn't help to have a surplus of WRs and RBs if you don't have an OL.  I would call that having a high recruiting ranking that doesn't do you any good.  I suppose that could be a form of "inflation" if that's the term you want to use.