(LONG POST) I did a bunch of research on this last year. Basically summary is money is almost everything, and OSU can’t win a national title with current landscape. These numbers are dated since I did this about 13 months ago, I think Clemson is at $120m in revenue for last numbers reported. They’re the outlier.
Recruiting ranking over last 6 cycles via 247, and how successful they were over that time period
Tier 1 - Recruiting Rankings of 1-10.99
Alabama
Georgia
Ohio State
LSU
USC
FSU
Auburn
Clemson
Oklahoma
1. This group has an average recruiting ranking of 1-10.99
2. This group has won all 5 College Football playoff championships
3. This group has occupied 16 of the 20 available spots in the CFP
4. This group has won 16 of the 22 conference titles, and lost 3 - other 6 Mich St, Stanford, Oregon, Penn St, Washx2
5. This group has made 19 conference championship games, 2.11 CCG appearances/team.
6. This group has an average Revenue of $153.25 million, and average Revenue ranking of #9 with no team generating less than $113 million.
7. This group averaged 10.5 wins/season
Tier 2 - Recruiting Rankings of 11 - 25.99
Texas A&M
Florida
Tennessee
Notre Dame
Miami
Stanford
Ole Miss
Texas
UCLA
Michigan
Oregon
Penn State
South Carolina
Washington
Mississippi State
1. This group has an average recruiting ranking of 11-25.99
2. This group has won 0 College Football playoff championships
3. This group has occupied 3 of the 20 available spots in the CFP
4. This group has won 5 of the 22 conference titles, and lost 4.
5. This group has made 9 conference championship games, 0.6 CCG appearances/team.
6. This group has average Revenue of $148.5 million, with no team generating less than $100 million.
7. This group averaged 7.95 wins/season.
Tier 3 - Recruiting Rankings of 26+ w/Coaches that have been there 4+ year and consistent bowl teams (similar to OSU)
Virginia Tech
Michigan State
Oklahoma State
Wisconsin
TCU
Washington State
Iowa
Northwestern
1. This group has an average recruiting ranking of 26+ (tenured Coach, unique playing style)
2. This group has won 0 College Football playoff championships
3. This group has occupied 1 of the 20 available spots in the CFP
4. This group has won 1 of the 22 conference titles, and lost 6.
5. This group has made 8 conference championship games, 1 CCG appearances/team.
6. This group has average Revenue of $107.16 million, with no team generating less than $64 million.
7. This group averaged 8.78 wins/season.
TAKEAWAYS
1. There are 0 teams in the top 25 in recruiting rankings that are outside of the top 31 in revenue rankings. Direct correlation with revenue being a condition to be able to recruit well. Good revenue doesn’t always mean good recruiting (Iowa, Wisconsin for example), but that is the exception, not the rule.
2. To recruit at top 25 level you need to hit $116 million threshold.
3. To recruit at top 10 level you have to win AND hit $140 million threshold. Clemson is the exception, recruiting at avg ranking of 10 at $113 million. Be like Clemson.
4. To win a national title you need to recruit at top 10 level and be top 15 in revenue. Exception is Clemson, be like Clemson. The floor is around $140 million.
5. Tier 2 average revenue is essentially the same as Tier 1, even if you take Texas and TAMU out they still avg $140 million. Which means execution establishes the difference between tier 1 and tier 2, not resources.
To make a conference title game, there are no real correlations between any recruiting rankings or revenue thresholds outside of the Tier 1. You’re twice as likely to make a conference title game recruiting at a top 10 level, and you’re actually more likely to make a conference title game if you have program stability and player retention with low revenue, than recruiting at 11-26 level and poor execution. Meaning better execution (teams in tier 3) are able to make up the difference to a certain threshold, but when you mix money and execution the gap is too large.
Player retention - look back to 2014/2015 classes
-I went back and looked at classes from 2014 and 2015 to figure out how many players stayed around for 3/4 years, and how many transferred or were dismissed from the program.
TAKEAWAYS
1. Teams that are doing more with their classes are only losing 20-25% of their class to transfer. Penn State, Wisconsin and Oklahoma State all had significantly lower ranked classes than Texas A&M, Florida and Tennessee but ended up with higher win total over 6 season period I tracked (9.5 vs. 7.6) because they retained a higher percentage of their players of the course of their career.
2. Meaning player development/retention is more important than recruiting at a good (not great) level.
3. Player retention has become even more important given the 25 player class limits set by NCAA.
4. Being a transfer friendly program will become as important as recruiting. Need to be on cutting edge of transfers, because even top recruits are more willing to consider programs in the Tier 3 after spending a few seasons at a blue blood. Recruits become more practical in their decision making process once the transfer - finding places that make sense for them instead of falling for what is fanciest at the moment. Were talking about 17-18 year old kids making decisions vs. 20-21 year olds making decisions. Big Difference.
5. Alabama is winning on all levels. They’re recruiting at the highest level and retaining/developing their players.
This was small sample size, transfers are a problem at all programs. But as you can see they’re program killers at some. While other programs are able to replenish quickly, and other programs are able to retain players and become transfer destinations and thriving.