Since the Brian Kelly era began at Notre Dame, much has been made of the new head coach’s track record of developing lesser-known talents – and rightfully so.
Kelly didn’t have rosters full of highly recruited talent at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan or Cincinnati, but he still managed to win a high percentage of games anyway. It’s almost impossible to dispute that he has been able to get the best possible results out of the hands he has been dealt.
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Kelly signed 23 high school recruits in the transition year as he gets set to lead the Irish in his first season next fall.
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Now, though, Kelly is in the big leagues. Making back-to-back BCS bowl appearances at Cincinnati, where anything better than a .500 season had been considered a nice surprise, earns you demigod status. At Notre Dame, it buys you an extra year or two of job security.
Just ask Charlie Weis, who was fired less than three years after making consecutive BCS trips in 2005 and 2006.
If Kelly wants to see the last year of Notre Dame’s current contract with NBC – 2015, which would be the new coach’s sixth year – he needs to do more than just develop unheralded players. He needs to recruit a lot of very heralded ones.
The teams that win national championships, almost without exception, do so with top-10 recruiting classes. Teams like Boise State and Cincinnati have compiled nice records and such, but the brass ring will forever elude such Cinderella squads.
Why? Because talent trumps everything. The coach with the most toys will usually win out in the long run. Ask the new Irish assistants, who took the 2- and 3-star Cincinnati players that Kelly developed down to the Sugar Bowl – and promptly got waxed by a Florida team with three top-3 recruiting classes.
If you need further proof, here’s a look at the average recruiting rankings for each of the last six national championship teams (rankings per Rivals.com through 2002; USC’s 2001 class was ranked ninth by Tom Lemming):
Recruiting Class Rank
| Team (Year) |
Fr. |
So. |
Jr. |
Sr. |
Avg. |
| Alabama (2009) |
1 |
1 |
10 |
11 |
5.75 |
| Florida (2008) |
3 |
1 |
2 |
15 |
5.25 |
| LSU (2007) |
4 |
7 |
22 |
2 |
9.75 |
| Florida (2006) |
2 |
15 |
7 |
2 |
6.50 |
| Texas (2005) |
20 |
10 |
15 |
1 |
11.50 |
| USC (2004) |
1 |
3 |
13 |
9 |
6.50 |
* - LSU’s fifth-year seniors came from the No. 1-ranked class of 2003.
Only Texas had an average ranking worse than 10 – but the Longhorn seniors, led by Vince Young, had come in as the nation’s No. 1 class. Likewise, the 2007 LSU crop – the only two-loss champ ever – was close to that 10 mark, but the Tigers’ fifth-year seniors (including starting quarterback Matt Flynn) were part of the top-ranked 2003 class.
Pete Carroll posted an incredible 97-19 record at USC, with seven consecutive top-four finishes from 2002 to 2008. Not coincidentally, here’s where the Trojans ranked in recruiting (Lemming through 2001; Rivals.com from 2002 on):
10th in 2000; 9th in 2001; 13th in 2002; 3rd in 2003; 1st in 2004, 2005 and 2006; 2nd in 2007; 8th in 2008; 4th in 2009
That’s an average ranking of 5.2 over a ten-year span, easily the best in the nation. It’s not a coincidence that USC had the best record in Division I-A over that same stretch. From 2003 through 2007, the Trojans boasted a freakish five-year average of 1.60 – a big reason why Carroll’s record from 2002 through 2008 was an equally freakish 82-9.
USC’s on-field record and recruiting record over the past decade are unmatched – and generally speaking, there’s a correlation there. The teams who win at the highest level on Saturdays are also the ones doing the most winning on National Signing Day.
Here are the top teams in average recruiting rankings (again, per Rivals.com) over the last seven recruiting cycles, 2004 through 2010:
1. USC, 2.6
2. Florida, 5.9
3. LSU, 7.7
4. Florida State, 7.9
5. Georgia, 8.3
6. Oklahoma, 8.6
7. Alabama, 8.7
8. Texas, 8.9
9. Ohio State, 11.6
Florida State and Georgia are proof that racking up top-10 recruiting classes does not guarantee championship seasons – but the other seven teams on the list account for the winner and loser in each of the last seven BCS title games.
Add No. 10 Miami to the mix, and you have a group that accounts for each of the last 11 national champions. None of this is a coincidence.
It’s fairly difficult to win a national championship without great coaching – but it is impossible to win one without great talent.
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