Many fans believe that recruiting is the key to success in college football.

Is that the case? Is college football strictly dictated by recruiting? Are teams’ accomplishments directly related to their recruiting classes?

Umm… kinda, sorta, and maybe.

After 10-20 hours of research and building an excel file that would make Nate Silver proud, those are the answers I came up with— total indecision.

But what my research did determine was data showing the most overachieving and underachieving teams of the past 7 years.

The terms “overachieving” and “underachieving” are in regards to the relationship between the amount of talent on a given team and their actual performance with that talent.

So what defines a team’s “talent”?

I used the most objective formula that I could come up with to determine talent. And while I know this method has several exceptions and is extremely broad, it is the most effective method that I could come up with, without doing individual team analyses. So, keep in mind, this is all done to give a broad picture of a general idea— not a detailed team-by-team analysis.

First, I collected all of the recruiting data available from two of the most respected sources in the college football recruiting industry: Scout, Inc. and Rivals. Both Scout and Rivals’ data goes back to 2002, so I collected all of the team rankings in recruiting from 2002 to 2012 from each site and inserted them into an excel file. Then, I averaged the rankings together to come up with an objective “composite score” to represent each team for each year.

For example, in 2003 Scout ranked Florida State’s recruiting class 12th in the nation, while Rivals ranked them 21st in the nation. Thus, their composite score was a ranking of 16.5.

Next, I devised a formula to account for all of the recruiting classes on an individual team. After examining several depth charts, I determined the following weights for each class:

Freshman- 12.5%
Sophomore (or Redshirt Freshman)- 22.5%
Junior (or Redshirt Sophomore)- 25%
Senior (or Redshirt Junior)- 27.5%
5th Year Senior- 12.5%

So,the formula to determine, what I will call, the “talent quotient” on a particular team is:

( .125 x Composite Score of Freshman Class ) + ( .225 x Composite Score of Sophomore Class ) + ( .25 x Composite Score of Junior Class ) + ( .275 x Composite Score of Senior Class ) + ( .125 x Composite Score of 5th Year Senior Class ) = Talent Quotient

For instance, to determine the talent quotient of the 2006 Florida State team, we simply need to plug in the composite scores of each recruiting class into the formula. Here’s Florida State’s 2002 – 2006 recruiting class ranks:

So, inputting the 5 composite scores into the formula would give us the following:

( .125 x 7.5 ) + ( .225 x 2.5 ) + ( .25 x 3.5 ) + ( .275 x 16.5 ) + ( .125 x 5 ) = 7.5375

Thus, the 2006 Florida State team had a talent quotient of 7.5375, which was the 5th lowest score in the nation. Hence, according to the formula, the 2006 Florida State Seminoles had the 5th most talented team in all of college football.

Once I had determined the talent quotient for every team in the FBS for the 2006 season, I ranked each team by their talent quotient, with the lowest score ranked number 1, the second lowest ranked number 2, and so on. Then, I repeated the process for 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 seasons.

The logic behind this process is simple: the teams with more talent should beat the teams with less. So, the higher ranked “talent quotient,” the more talent a team can field in a game. In other words, the number 1 ranked team in talent, all other things being equal (they’re not), should beat the number 2 ranked team in talent.

After ranking every FBS college football team from 2006 until 2012, I compared these ranks to how the teams finished in the final college football polls. In an effort to make this process more objective, I averaged the final AP polls with the final USA Today polls to determine a general end of the year ranking for each team. The purpose of this method is to compare how a team performed relative to the talent on the team.

So after inventing a “talent quotient,” ranking teams by that invented number, comparing those ranks to the ranks of plausibly inaccurate year end poll rankings, I came up with the most overachieving and underachieving college football programs over the last 7 years…

*Drumroll*

The Most Overachieving Programs

Four teams stood far above the rest in regards to their ability to play at a level far above what the talent on their team would indicate they were capable of. Fans and analysts offer up a multitude of reasons for these teams’ success, such as: coaching, strength of schedule, and a plethora of other factors, both negative and positive, in an attempt to explain these teams’ habits of winning seemingly far beyond their talent level. Yet, no matter what your biased opinion may be, you have to admit, what these 4 teams have done with the talent on their rosters is nothing short of impressive.

4. BYU

3. Cincinnati

2. TCU

1. Boise State

And onto the more entertaining part of this column…

The Most Underachieving Programs

A.K.A. the laughing stock of college football. These teams recruit some of the most talented players in the country year in and year out, but over the past 7 years, they’ve had an extraordinarily hard time making that talent translate to success on the field. An important factor to take into consideration is that I have adjusted the formula that I used to determine these rankings to add more weight to higher ranked teams. The logic behind this adjustment is simple. Without the adjustment, a team that finishes the season ranked 67th and has a talent quotient ranking of 49th is a bigger letdown (or “underachiever”) than a team that has the number 1 ranked talent quotient and loses 3 games to finish the season ranked 17th. And, in my opinion, the team that has the most talent in the country, but manages to lose 3 games and wind up out of the top 15, is a bigger underachiever than a team with mediocre talent performing a little less than mediocre. Thus, this adjustment gives much more weight to teams with higher ranked talent quotients. So, without further ado, here’s your top 7 most underachieving college football programs over the last 7 years…

7. Notre Dame

6. Tennessee

5. Georgia

4. Michigan

3. Florida State

2. USC

1. Miami (FL)

*Rounded numbers

One last interesting fact to consider is that no team in the past 7 years has won a National Championship without a talent quotient ranking below 10th. So, while it is very possible for teams to crack the Top 25 without Top 25 talent, it is much more difficult to make it to, and win, the National Championship without elite talent.

So, in conclusion… as if you didn’t already whine about your college football team enough, I hope that I’ve provided you with further information to sulk about— the 7 years of your life that you’ve been continuously letdown as a fan.

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By: Tyler Raborn