[CTcard]

Ooof. One year is not a trend, but woe baby, what an outlier.

Rivals rankings over the years:

2018  76
2017  19
2016  19
2015  18
2014  14
2013  63
2012    5
2011  22
2010  26
2009  20
2008  50
2007  52
2006  54
2005  41
2004  57
2003  25
2002  53

That doesn't seem to be quite updated. As of when I am typing, they have Stanford at #62. Probably will change some more still.

That is one way of looking at things. There are others, and when combined they tend to smooth out the Stanford recruiting profile over the years - lowering the peaks (2012) and raising the valleys (2013 and 2018).

Another way to look at things is avg recruit rating each year. And while we're at it, might as well use 247 composite to get further different view.

There are, of course, some drawbacks to this view (there are advantages to larger class size - even more so when you are leaving scholarships unused, average isn't exactly what matters the most, and withouth doing more work than I am willing to do I cannot sort by avg ranking so I don't have national rank to this) - but there are drawbacks to any single number.

So,
2018  88.02
2017  92.56
2016  87.31
2015  87.04
2014  89.37
2013  87.80
2012  90.52
2011  87.83
2010  87.38
2009  87.45
2008  83.73
2007  82.17
2006  80.86
2005  84.89
2004  81.73
2003  82.63
2002  83.80

[There does seem to have been a gradual grade inflation here, so one should probably add 1-2 points in comparing 2002 to 2018 with some kind of smooth scale inbetween. And in individual years there seem to be some issue as to whom to count - this year for example they are counting Tae Le whom I think will be a walkon. But since I don't want to check each year, it seems best to go with their count. ]

What I take from this:
- The famous 2009 class really did mark a qualitative change in Stanford recruiting success.
- The recent outliers in per player acclaim are 2017 and to a lesser extent 2012, to the high side.
- This class isn't good, but what I worry about isn't so much the quality of the guys we got. It's primarily the several (six?) open scholarships, the numbers on the OL, and to a lesser extent the numbers at LB.

We badly lagged our rivals.  U$C landed 18 top 300 players, while UW nabbed 14 and Oregon and UCLA each landed 10.  We got five.

Which service are you using for these numbers? Rivals I guess?
By 247 composite those numbers are:
$C    12
UW    10
UCLA  9
UO    10
Stan    5

That's probably less than normal for $C, a significant step up vs recent years for UW.
For Stanford, recent years have been
2017 = 9
2016 = 6
2015 = 4
2014 = 8
2013 = 3
2012 = 10
2011 = 6
2010 = 4
2009 = 9  (which also featured an inordinate # of guys unranked, >1000)

Again, the biggest issue seems to be the unfilled scholarships, which seems to be playing out primarily along the OL.

[CTcard]

Ooof. One year is not a trend, but woe baby, what an outlier.

Rivals rankings over the years:

2018  76
2017  19
2016  19
2015  18
2014  14
2013  63
2012    5
2011  22
2010  26
2009  20
2008  50
2007  52
2006  54
2005  41
2004  57
2003  25
2002  53

That doesn't seem to be quite updated. As of when I am typing, they have Stanford at #62. Probably will change some more still.

That is one way of looking at things. There are others, and when combined they tend to smooth out the Stanford recruiting profile over the years - lowering the peaks (2012) and raising the valleys (2013 and 2018).

Another way to look at things is avg recruit rating each year. And while we're at it, might as well use 247 composite to get further different view.

There are, of course, some drawbacks to this view (there are advantages to larger class size - even more so when you are leaving scholarships unused, average isn't exactly what matters the most, and withouth doing more work than I am willing to do I cannot sort by avg ranking so I don't have national rank to this) - but there are drawbacks to any single number.

So,
2018  88.02
2017  92.56
2016  87.31
2015  87.04
2014  89.37
2013  87.80
2012  90.52
2011  87.83
2010  87.38
2009  87.45
2008  83.73
2007  82.17
2006  80.86
2005  84.89
2004  81.73
2003  82.63
2002  83.80

[There does seem to have been a gradual grade inflation here, so one should probably add 1-2 points in comparing 2002 to 2018 with some kind of smooth scale inbetween. And in individual years there seem to be some issue as to whom to count - this year for example they are counting Tae Le whom I think will be a walkon. But since I don't want to check each year, it seems best to go with their count. ]

What I take from this:
- The famous 2009 class really did mark a qualitative change in Stanford recruiting success.
- The recent outliers in per player acclaim are 2017 and to a lesser extent 2012, to the high side.
- This class isn't good, but what I worry about isn't so much the quality of the guys we got. It's primarily the several (six?) open scholarships, the numbers on the OL, and to a lesser extent the numbers at LB.

We badly lagged our rivals.  U$C landed 18 top 300 players, while UW nabbed 14 and Oregon and UCLA each landed 10.  We got five.

Which service are you using for these numbers? Rivals I guess?
By 247 composite those numbers are:
$C    12
UW    10
UCLA  9
UO    10
Stan    5

That's probably less than normal for $C, a significant step up vs recent years for UW.
For Stanford, recent years have been
2017 = 9
2016 = 6
2015 = 4
2014 = 8
2013 = 3
2012 = 10
2011 = 6
2010 = 4
2009 = 9  (which also featured an inordinate # of guys unranked, >1000)

Again, the biggest issue seems to be the unfilled scholarships, which seems to be playing out primarily along the OL.