Recruiting Rankings & Three Stars vs Playoff Teams

Below are the teams most people can deem as national championship contenders or somewhat close to that in the past 4 years (2017 to 2014). The first number shows the team's average recruiting ranking over those four years and the second number shows the average number of 3-star players they have recruited over those four years. All of these values are taken from Rivals only for simplicity.

Team - Avg. 4 Year Recruiting Ranking - Avg. # of 3 Star Players
Alabama 1 - 6
OSU 4 - 8
FSU 4 - 8
LSU 6 - 8
Georgia 6 - 10
USC 7 - 7
Auburn 9 - 8
Clemson 11 - 8
Oklahoma 13 - 11
Penn St. 18 - 14
Michigan 22 - 9
Wisconsin 35 - 14

LSU's 2018 class? 13th ranked and 11 3-star players.

Numbers Conclude that... (Most of this is common sense, I am a numbers guys and just wanted to confirm them....):

We should have been a national contender every year with our talent. We are right there with UGA, Bama, OSU, FSU, Clemson, OU...Les under performed (O is doing so as well...).

Need a top 7-10 class every year to be a national championship contender regardless of who is our coach. We cannot be settling with anything less.

We can recruit top 20 recruiting classes only with great coaching to be in the mix for a championship (Penn St, Michigan, Wisconsin). However, top 20 recruiting classes have not produced a national championship in recent years, only Top 10 has...

Some 3-star players can turn into great college players no doubt (Hester, Chark,Greedy etc)...But we cannot be recruiting double digit 3-star players annually. The teams that have been to the playoffs have been recruiting no more than 10 3-stars annually.

Talent-alone we are obviously still in contention this coming year given today's and our past recruiting classes, but we cannot continue to recruit top 15/20 going forward with or without a great coach. Championship teams recruit top 10 at worst.