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With National Signing Day just two days away, it's time to take a brief look at what's going on outside our little foxhole here. And what better way to do that than with tables?
Alabama is, once again, topping the charts on the strength of a whopping five 5-star commits (6 if you're looking at Scout) and anywhere from 13-15 4-stars. To put that in perspective, K-State's only got 20 commits total, and only one is a 4-star. As a result, Alabama currently sits atop the leaderboard in all four major rankings.
What we've done here is to take the ordinal ranking for all four services and mushed them all together, then averaged them out to give a full composite. (This isn't a perfect method by any means, as 247's rankings inherently include the others as well -- but, on the other hand, that also helps to smooth out some outliers.)
| COMPOSITE TEAM RECRUITING RANKINGS | ||||||
| RANK | TEAM | RIVALS | 247 | SCOUT | ESPN | COMPOSITE |
| 1 | Alabama | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.00 |
| 2 | Texas A&M | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2.75 |
| 3 | Ohio State | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 3.50 |
| 4 | Tennessee | 4 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 4.25 |
| 5 | Florida State | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4.50 |
| 6 | Louisiana State |
6 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 5.25 |
| 7t | Auburn | 10 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 8.75 |
| 7t | Florida | 7 | 10 | 11 | 7 | 8.75 |
| 7t | Notre Dame | 9 | 9 | 6 | 11 | 8.75 |
| 10 | Miami (FL) |
11 | 11 | 8 | 8 | 9.50 |
| 11 | Georgia | 8 | 8 | 13 | 10 | 9.75 |
| 12 | Texas | 14 | 12 | 14 | 14 | 13.50 |
| 13 | Mississippi | 15 | 13 | 15 | 15 | 14.50 |
| 14 | Stanford | 16 | 14 | 18 | 19 | 16.75 |
| 15 | Arizona State | 17 | 22 | 12 | 17 | 17.00 |
| 16 | Kentucky | 13 | 20 | 16 | 20 | 17.25 |
| 17 | Clemson | 12 | 15 | 30 | 13 | 17.50 |
| 18 | Oklahoma | 21 | 18 | 22 | 16 | 19.25 |
| 19 | Michigan | 28 | 16 | 24 | 12 | 20.00 |
| 20 | Cal-Los Angeles |
18 | 17 | 20 | 28 | 20.75 |
| 21t | Oklahoma State | 23 | 25 | 10 | 26 | 21.00 |
| 21t | Penn State | 20 | 21 | 21 | 22 | 21.00 |
| 23 | Baylor | 33 | 24 | 17 | 18 | 23.00 |
| 24 | Oregon | 27 | 19 | 26 | 25 | 24.25 |
| 25 | Arizona | 24 | 29 | 25 | 21 | 24.75 |
| -- | Kansas State | 45 | 49 | 55 | ?? | 50.00 |
That may look a little grim for the Wildcats, but it's a decided improvement over recent years. Here's where the 'Cats have been lately:
| K-STATE COMPOSITE RECRUITING RANKINGS, 2008-2013 | ||||||
| YEAR | TEAM | RIVALS | 247 | SCOUT | ESPN | COMPOSITE |
| 2014 | Kansas State | 45 | 49 | 55 | ?? | 50.00 |
| 2013 | Kansas State | 61 | 66 | 68 | 54 | 62.25 |
| 2012 | Kansas State | 74 | 59 | 106 | ?? | 80.00 |
| 2011 | Kansas State | 51 | 69 | 61 | ?? | 60.00 |
| 2010 | Kansas State | 67 | 63 | 99 | ?? | 78.00 |
| 2009 | Kansas State | 95 | 93 | 112 | ?? | 100.00 |
| 2008 | Kansas State | 63 | 27 | 45 | ?? | 45.00 |
Two things jump out at you looking at that table. One, this is the best recruiting class of Snyder II and it's not even close. Two, this program has no business being in or around the top 25 every year because it obviously has no players. A team largely comprised of the 100th-ranked recruiting class in the country was ranked #1 in the BCS for a week in 2012, and if you think I'm going to pass up the opportunty to scoff at the recruiting rankings now you obviously don't know me very well.
Scoff.
Anyway, moving on to the Big 12:
| BIG 12 COMPOSITE TEAM RECRUITING RANKINGS | |||||
| RANK | TEAM | RIVALS | 247 | SCOUT | COMPOSITE |
| 1 | Texas | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1.33 |
| 2t | Oklahoma | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2.67 |
| 2t | Oklahoma State | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2.67 |
| 4 | Baylor | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3.33 |
| 5 | Texas Tech | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5.00 |
| 6 | West Virginia | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6.33 |
| 7 | Texas Christian |
7 | 10 | 6 | 7.67 |
| 8 | Kansas State | 8 | 7 | 9 | 8.00 |
| 9 | Iowa State | 9 | 9 | 8 | 8.67 |
| 10 | Kansas | 10 | 8 | 10 | 9.33 |
Some wild variation there, but the outliers mostly balance out. This may look grim for K-State, but let's be honest: the Wildcats are always at or near the bottom of the Big 12 recruiting rankings, yet they continually out-perform the expectations those rankings lead to by an even greater margin than they do the annual pre-season coaches' poll.
It's worth noting, though, that this class could have been even better. K-State's rankings, both nationally and within the conference, took a hit with the Aaron Sharp decommitment, and had Terrell Clinkscales not flipped from Nebraska things would look even worse.
Still, this is the best job the Wildcat staff has done signing talent since Ron Prince left the building. He couldn't win with highly-ranked classes; Bill Snyder keeps winning with players the recruiting services think are essentially junk and flotsam. Make a list of the best players on this team over the last few years and it's decidedly lacking in stars (Arthur Brown and Chris Harper notwithstanding). What's Snyder going to do over the next couple of years with actual players?
We'll find out.
