Now that Signing Day is over, we can finally move on from the juvenile antics of insufferable, attention-seeking people who make college football recruiting so unbearable.
That’s not even mentioning the recruits.
After the usual post-Signing Day drama played out (with one notable exception), 247sports.com updated its composite team rankings early this morning. Georgia comes in at No. 10 overall (fifth in the SEC), Georgia Tech is at No. 43 (eighth in the ACC), Georgia Southern is No. 89 (fourth in the Sun Belt) and Georgia State is No. 126 (last in the Sun Belt and fourth from the bottom of all FBS teams).
Do these ranking matter? The short answer, according to a study by Football Study Hall, is yes. The longer answer includes these conclusions:
Beyond the vagaries, the hype and the busts, the annual recruiting rankings still represent the most reliable system at our disposal for making initial assumptions about teams and players alike. Taken as a whole, the numbers actually do work – as long as you're willing to use all of the numbers. . . .
Overwhelmingly, setting aside every other conceivable factor that determines success and failure – injuries, academics, even coaching – individual players and teams tend to perform within the very narrow range their initial recruiting rankings suggest. Some percentage of both groups will not. But when it comes to forming expectations, it should go without saying that you never want to count on being one of the anomalies.
Football Study Hall notes that from 2003 to 2013, eleven teams from among its "five-star" recruiting group made 21 appearances in the BCS championship game compared to one (Oregon) from the 64 teams in its lower-tier recruiting groups. The only teams in the "five-star" recruiting group to not make the BCS title game during that span were Michigan and Georgia. (Oregon, in the "four-star" recruiting group, exceeded expectations again last season, while Ohio State is in the "five-star" recruiting group.)
Which brings us to another issue: Since recruiting rankings matter, which programs under/over perform their rankings? As the Football Study Hall analysis shows, Georgia (and Michigan) falls short of expectations because it recruits at an elite level but doesn’t win big like its peers.
Break it down by expected wins as measured by the Massey ratings compared to recruiting rankings, and Georgia also has fared worse than predicted, according to an analysis of the past five seasons by Deadspin's Regression web site. In the SEC, only Tennessee, Ole Miss, Florida and Auburn have failed to live up to their recruiting rankings less often than Georgia during that time. Extend the timeframe out to 2005, as fivethirtyeight.com did in its analysis, and Georgia slightly outperformed its recruiting rankings.
(No surprise: Georgia Tech has vastly outperformed its recruiting rankings since 2005 and somewhat outperformed them over the past five seasons.)
Recruiting rankings do matter. Now the Bulldogs have to live up to theirs.
