Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Program and Class Strength

About the author, Boyd Nation

It's time for my annual review of multi-year ISR's, and I thought for this year I'd try to see if I could distinguish between recruiting class strength and program strength. The question, "How do you measure program strength?" is pretty easy, from my point of view. I've got five years' worth of data, and five years strikes me as a pretty good indicator of program strength. It's short enough that you're either talking about a single head coach or a program that knows it has a few problems, but it's long enough that essentially no players have been around all that time, and none of them have played all five years.

"How do you measure a class?", though is a little tougher. In other sports, it's easier -- it's four years, the occasional lost-to-the-draft basketball player aside. In baseball, though, the professional draft distorts that picture. Lots of players become eligible for the draft after their junior year and leave. Some stay all four years. Some who are unhappy about their draft status out of high school but don't really want to wait three years head to junior college but then transfer to a senior college for a year or two when things don't work out the way they planned -- most D1 programs have at least a couple of juco transfers around in any given year. Anyway, since I have to make a call, I'm going to go with three years, since I think that's the most common length of time to have together what can be thought of as a cohesive set of teammates.

Without further ado, then, here are the top 25 for the last three seasons:

Rank  ISR    W   L   SoS  Team

  1  126.9  148  51    2  Stanford
  2  123.5  125  62    1  Southern California
  3  123.2  162  48   36  South Carolina
  4  122.7  160  52   31  Florida State
  5  121.8  140  61   10  Louisiana State
  6  121.5  118  61    3  Cal State Fullerton
  7  121.3  138  57   19  Rice
  8  120.6  136  62   14  Texas
  9  120.5  118  56   12  Arizona State
 10  120.5  146  57   39  Clemson
 11  120.4  144  54   45  Nebraska
 12  119.8  138  52   50  Georgia Tech
 13  118.9  125  65   18  Houston
 14  118.6  110  64   11  Baylor
 15  118.5  120  62   23  Alabama
 16  118.4  132  51   62  Wake Forest
 17  118.1  102  68    4  Long Beach State
 18  117.5  123  69   25  Florida
 19  117.5  120  60   42  Miami, Florida
 20  117.2  111  62   30  San Jose State
 21  116.5  112  67   29  Auburn
 22  116.5  117  62   47  North Carolina
 23  116.2  111  66   34  Texas Tech
 24  115.9  113  73   24  Fresno State
 25  115.6  105  74   13  Georgia

No real shocks here at the top -- losing the coin-toss national championship game two out of three years is a pretty good indicator you're doing something right. It's obviously possible for a national championship-type year to cover up one season of mediocrity, as Texas and Miami show. A couple of surprises -- Alabama had a fairly bad year in 2001, and I wouldn't have expected them to bounce this high. And did anyone out there actually realize that Fresno State has been one of the 25 best teams in the country over the last three years?

Now, the longer term:

  1  126.6  238  80  238  80    2  Stanford
  2  123.4  204 103  205 104    1  Southern California
  3  123.1  266  84  269  84   28  Florida State
  4  122.6  213  92  214  92    6  Cal State Fullerton
  5  121.6  238  88  240  89   27  Rice
  6  121.3  219 100  226 104   11  Louisiana State
  7  120.2  216  96  217  96   18  Alabama
  8  120.1  216  85  216  85   38  Miami, Florida
  9  119.8  196  98  198  99   14  Arizona State
 10  119.6  240  89  240  89   53  South Carolina
 11  119.6  190  97  195 100   13  Baylor
 12  118.8  231 100  231 100   44  Clemson
 13  118.3  195 119  197 120    7  Texas
 14  118.2  204  91  205  91   47  Nebraska
 15  118.2  179 116  179 116    5  Long Beach State
 16  117.9  215  93  222  94   56  Georgia Tech
 17  117.6  204 104  204 104   37  Auburn
 18  117.5  200 111  200 113   24  Houston
 19  117.3  199 112  201 112   25  Florida
 20  117.2  221  90  221  90   70  Wake Forest
 21  117.2  179 102  181 102   26  Texas Tech
 22  116.5  230  82  231  82   89  Wichita State
 23  116.1  190 112  197 112   35  Mississippi State
 24  116.0  222  92  226  94   78  Tulane
 25  115.8  195 103  202 105   55  North Carolina

It will be interesting to see if some of the teams on this list who have been consistently good if not always great -- Auburn, Mississippi State, Tulane -- who suffered in 2002 will rebound next year, or if it's the beginning of a slide.

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Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Program and Class Strength

About the author, Boyd Nation