College football rosters turn over every two to four years. That’s why the recruiting pipeline is so critical to sustaining success and why programs like Oklahoma football seemingly thrive year after year.
When Bob Stoops retired as head coach prior to the 2017 season, he turned over an OU team to Lincoln Riley that was loaded with returning starters and a cupboard full of talent, but he also left him an incoming recruiting class that was among the best in college football.
Everybody and their brother is quick to evaluate college recruiting classes when they first come together, but rarely does anyone look back and rate them on the basis of how the class actually performed, both individually and collectively.
This will be the fourth year that the college football staff at The Athletic have looked back after a normal four-year eligibility cycle and re-ranked the top-25 recruiting classes.
The subject of this year’s re-ranking is the recruiting classes of 2017.
The Oklahoma 2017 recruiting class (the final one under Stoops, which Riley contributed to as offensive coordinator for the prior two seasons) was ranked eighth-best in the country by the Athletic (by comparison, Rivals rated that class No. 7 and 247Sports ranked OU No. 8).
To refresh your memory, that class included such names as WR CeeDee Lamb, RB Trey Sermon, WR Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, LB Kenneth Murray, OL Creed Humphrey ,RB Kennedy Brooks, and DBs Tre Brown and Tre Norwood.
Based on the collective achievements of those players and others in the Sooners’ 28-member 2017 class, several of whom are still on the 2021 OU roster, The Athletic re-ranked Oklahoma No. 4 in the 2017 recruiting cycle, behind No. 1 Alabama, Ohio State and LSU. Rounding out the new top-10 were No. 5 Clemson, Washington, Stanford, Utah, Wisconsin and Georgia.
Here is the comparison of where the reworked top-ten 2017 recruiting classes rank compared with how they ranked on National Signing Day in 2017 (in parentheses).
- Alabama (1)
- Ohio State (2)
- LSU (7)
- Oklahoma (8)
- Clemson (16)
- Washington (22)
- Stanford (14)
- Utah (33)
- Wisconsin (39)
- Georgia (3)
Each 2017 recruit of a given school was assigned a numerical score from 0 to 5 based on what he achieved in his college career. For example, five points are awarded for All-American status, an award winner or a top-50 NFL Draft pick; four points to a multi-year starter or all-conference honors; three points for a one-year starter or key reserve; and so forth.
“Because class sizes vary,” writes Athletic staff writer Max Olson, “we focus on the class average (total points divided by the number of signees in that class). Team wins are also factored in and added as a bonus to the class average. For example, Oklahoma won 45 games between 2017 and 2020, so. .45 is added to the class average.
The annual goal of the re-ranking project, Olson says, ultimately is to recognize the programs and coaching staffs that have done the best job of identifying great players, developing them, retaining them and winning with them.