For years, Kentucky football has consistently ended fifth in the SEC East. The lone team below is typically Vanderbilt. A team made up of intelligent and bright students, but not exactly what we would call an athletically talented squad, on any given year.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Recruiting rankings are completed annually with different scoring systems (Check out ESPN, Rivals or SCOUT for insight). Typically the Top 10 teams are pretty consistent amongst the major rating sites. The scoring system may vary, but the names tend to be the same.
Schools like USC, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma and LSU are a few that consistently live in the top 10 of just about any rating system.
Talent is exactly that, talent. Unlike basketball where one or two top notch players can make or break a team and four or five top 20 Players can change the results of a team in one year, that doesn’t happen in College Football.
Sure a big name back or QB may have an immediate positive impact, but without a solid well built and talented core group around him, the team will only gain minor benefit. A great QB is only as good as the line that protects him and the receivers that catch the ball. A great QB can make those around him look better, but without consistent solid recruiting, winning consistently is tough.
Go back to the names presented just three columns above and look how many National Titles and Top 5 rankings they’ve earned over the last three or four years. Then take our beloved Cats who haven’t cracked the top 35 in recruiting in the last 6 years and you begin to get the picture of how important talent truly is to a team.
I remember Coach Brooks making statements like I’m not worried about the stars beside their names…. Don’t get me wrong here, I love Coach Brooks and he brought Kentucky Football out of a very dark time into the limelight accomplishing what no other UK Coach has ever accomplished, four straight bowl appearances and three straight bowl wins.
The point is that the ranking stars do matter and the rankings do count. I’ll take 5 stars over 4 stars any day of the week and a 4 star over a 3 star on the other days of the week and I will take a top 5 recruiting class every year over a superstar Coach.
A six year study of the SEC East Teams recruiting rankings, overall records and most importantly SEC East records, proves that the recruiting rankings and the stars beside a recruits name count, and count BIG TIME.
Before we get into the numbers, let me say that there are a hundred ways to look at a teams achievements, for this article we’re only going to look at two things, the overall Recruiting score of each team and their overall records against SEC East opponents.
Here are the overall combined scores from 2005-2010 according to Rivals:
[LIST=1]
[*]Florida – 14,967 total – 2,495 avg per year.
[*]Georgia – 12,226 total – 2,038 avg per year.
[*]Tennessee – 11,477 total – 1,913 avg per year.
[*]South Carolina – 9,352 total – 1,559 avg per year
[*]Kentucky – 3,507 total – 585 avg per year.
[*]Vanderbilt – 1,432 total – 239 avg per year.
[/LIST]
Just from the initial scoring, you already see a trend. The two time National Champ during this period Florida, dominates the recruiting rankings, and over the years the wins-loss record in the SEC East.
Georgia and Tennessee are so close in their rankings that they’re almost a toss up and the records and final position in the East show exactly that. South Carolina comes in fourth and almost consistently ends in the same position in the East.
We see the Kentucky and Vanderbilt slots and know that fifth is a common spot for the Big Blue while Vanderbilt is almost always destined to the bottom of the pickle barrel.
SEC East Records for the five year period of 2005-2009:
[LIST=1]
[*]Florida – 23-2
[*]Tennessee – 15-10
[*]Georgia – 14-11
[*]South Carolina – 12-13
[*]Kentucky – 6-19
[*]Vanderbilt – 5-20
[/LIST]
Once again, with the exception of Tennessee and Georgia, which the recruiting rankings show are basically even, the teams fall in line with the scores of their recruiting classes. Florida dominates in recruiting scoring and dominates in the SEC East. Vanderbilt is dead last in recruiting scoring and their record indicates the same.
Sure there are other factors that come into play with a win-loss record. Coaching, unity as a team, opponents, ect. Reality is it starts and ends with a solid recruiting base over a period of years.
Good news for Cat fans is the 2009 and 2010 Classes are 2 of the top 3 classes accumulated over the last six years, with only the 2006 class being higher then the 2010 Class. The 2011 class is currently off to a solid start, ranking No. 25 at ESPN as of this writing.
According to the national rankings of the last four classes, the SEC East should finish the 2010 season in the following order:
[LIST=1]
[*]Florida
[*]Georgia
[*]Tennessee
[*]South Carolina
[*]Kentucky
[*]Vanderbilt
[/LIST]
The exact same pattern we’ve seen over the last five years. Exceptions to that could be South Carolina and Tennessee who have very comparable rankings of 57 and 64.
Bottom line, for the Cats and Joker Phillips to ever seriously consistently compete the for the SEC East Championship, the recruiting rankings have to continue to trend upward. 5 star and 4 star recruits do count and Florida proves it year in and year out.
You can only take a mediocre team so far. Sure you can pull off upsets and defeat a No. 1 LSU or a No. 8 Louisville but in the long run, consistent recruiting is the name of the game. Brooks started the upward trend and it’s up to Joker to keep that trend moving in the right direction.
To accomplish the mission will take several more dedicated years of a Coaching staff and more importantly, a University. Coach Brooks preached it, but upgrades in facilities have to occur for Kentucky to be able to compete with the elite for top notch talent.
Go Cats!!!
