said the thread needed to die, but since it got bumped back up and I was curious, I did basic comparisons between overall recruiting rankings over the last 5 years, which would cover the RS seniors graduating this year and the last 3 years of production on the field which would mean these recruits were RS Soph at the time.

Just FYI:

I took the top 10 recruiting classes for each year between 2008-2012 and scored them based on the ranking in the top 10. #1 = 10 points, #2 = 9 points, ...#10 = 1. If a team wasn't in the top 10 in recruiting rankings, they got 0 points. I used Scout, Rivals, and ESPN, since I couldn't find info back that far on 247. Here's how the numbers panned out.

Recruiting Rankings (2008-2012)
Team---ES---Ri---Sc---Total(5yr avg.)
1) Bama---44---46---39---129(43)
2) Texas---32---31---30---93(31)
3) Flor---30---25---16---71(23.7)
4) tOSU---16---24---30---70(23.3)
5) USC---22---30---17---69(23)
6) FSU---27---21---15---63(21)
7) UGA---22---15---19---56(18.7)
7) LSU---14---19---23---56(18.7)
9) Aub---15---12---17---44(14.7)
10) Mia---17---8---10---35(11.7)

So from average recruiting rank across the past 5 years, LSU is tied for #7. Let's see how successful these teams have been at translating high recruiting rankings from these classes to success on the field.....(looking at 2010, 2011, 2012 since that's when these recruits would've been getting a fair bit of playing time).

1) Bama...34-5 (87.2%)
2) TX........22-16 (57.9%)
3) Fl..........26-13 (66.7%)
4) tOSU...30-8 (78.9%)
5) USC....25-13 (65.8%)
6) FSU....31-10 (75.6%)
7) UGA....28-13 (68.3%)
8) LSU......34-6 (85%)
9) AUB....25-14 (64.1%)
10) MIA...20-17 (54%)

So LSU under Les Miles is one loss behind the best team with the highest recruiting ranking. This points to either recuiting rankings are garbage to look at, our coaching staff is actually getting "more with less", or a combination of both. Spare me the argument of our defense has won all 34 games, they haven't and it's stupid to say so. We've had plays made on offense, special teams, and defense that have lead to those wins over that time. It's not as good as we would like it to be, but at the end of the day, we all want LSU to win. If LSU had great stats and was continuously 6-6, we would want a new head coach and rightfully so because winning the game is what you try to do, and the numbers say LSU is getting it done better than everyone in the country except Bama and if Bama loses the NCG against ND, they will be tied.