I wanted to assemble a post about every FBS team’s recruiting baseline. I made up a little metric and called it Recruiting Baseline. I wanted to write about lots of teams and how their 2020 recruiting compared to their historical standards.

But after 2020’s final National Signing Day, the only recruiter I really wanna talk about is USC.

First, here are the 130-team numbers.

To find each team’s norm, its historically satisfactory recruiting ranking, I averaged each’s final 247Sports Composite ranking from 2002 to 2020, then deleted a few kinds of years from those averages:

Partial years for brand-new coaches, the classes slapped together days or weeks after a new guy arrives. We shouldn’t read much into these. (However, if any of these first-year coaches manages to shamble in with classes that outranked that school’s historical norm, I left those in.)

FCS years for FBS newcomers, except for a few old FCS years that were up to FBS par for those schools, just to increase the range of data.

Non-power years for teams that since joined power conferences. This counts the old version of the AAC/Big East as a BCS power. For example, I cut Louisville’s ancient Conference USA rankings, but not anything more recent. Same as above, I left a few non-power classes that were up to power-conference standards.

So for most schools, if your 2020 class is approximate to or better than your Baseline ranking, everything is probably fine. If you have a brand-new coach, add that caveat as well. As you can see, many of the schools that missed their traditional marks did so while changing coaches.

Ok, here’s the whole list. I’ve also bolded/italicized teams with new 2020 head coaches.

And then let’s discuss USC.

In 2020, which teams most exceeded (or failed to meet) their typical class ranking standards? School Recruiting Baseline* 2020 ranking Difference (big is good, - is bad) School Recruiting Baseline* 2020 ranking Difference (big is good, - is bad) Liberty 131.60 98 33.60 Cincinnati 69.19 40 29.19 FIU 99.29 71 28.29 Appalachian State 107.83 83 24.83 Charlotte 114.67 90 24.67 Georgia Tech 50.25 26 24.25 North Texas 95.75 74 21.75 Kentucky 44.13 23 21.13 FAU 98.94 78 20.94 Western Kentucky 100.15 81 19.15 UNLV 94.00 75 19.00 UL Lafayette 97.47 79 18.47 Purdue 50.87 33 17.87 Toledo 83.29 68 15.29 Clemson 18.24 3 15.24 Minnesota 51.00 36 15.00 Tulane 81.00 66 15.00 Northwestern 61.00 47 14.00 Wisconsin 38.83 25 13.83 Louisiana Tech 85.71 72 13.71 Utah 40.60 29 11.60 Old Dominion 104.17 93 11.17 Texas A&M 16.69 6 10.69 Rice 101.59 92 9.59 Oregon 21.53 12 9.53 East Carolina 76.31 67 9.31 Colorado 44.13 35 9.13 Iowa 42.78 34 8.78 Iowa State 54.44 46 8.44 Air Force 112.76 105 7.76 North Carolina 26.56 19 7.56 Bowling Green 92.33 85 7.33 Stanford 28.19 21 7.19 Arizona State 30.33 24 6.33 Coastal Carolina 120.33 114 6.33 Auburn 13.29 7 6.29 Washington 22.27 16 6.27 Miami (Ohio) 95.25 89 6.25 Troy 90.12 84 6.12 Wake Forest 66.67 61 5.67 Alabama 7.63 2 5.63 Georgia 6.47 1 5.47 Ohio State 10.39 5 5.39 Penn State 20.31 15 5.31 UMass 101.20 96 5.20 Nebraska 25.00 20 5.00 Vanderbilt 57.47 53 4.47 TCU 32.00 28 4.00 Army 111.29 108 3.29 LSU 7.24 4 3.24 Tennessee 12.63 10 2.63 Boise State 67.29 65 2.29 West Virginia 39.13 37 2.13 South Carolina 20.00 18 2.00 Kent State 105.73 104 1.73 Middle Tennessee 87.65 86 1.65 Georgia State 107.83 107 0.83 Northern Illinois 91.80 91 0.80 Memphis 73.47 73 0.47 South Alabama 106.25 106 0.25 Indiana 58.07 58 0.07 Mississippi State 26.94 27 -0.06 Maryland 30.93 31 -0.07 Oklahoma 10.17 11 -0.83 Duke 59.00 60 -1.00 Kansas State 49.88 51 -1.13 NC State 39.81 41 -1.19 UTSA 100.71 102 -1.29 Western Michigan 85.69 87 -1.31 Louisville 40.45 42 -1.55 Miami 10.79 13 -2.21 Florida 5.54 8 -2.46 Texas 6.50 9 -2.50 Eastern Michigan 109.76 113 -3.24 Arkansas 26.38 30 -3.63 Michigan 9.87 14 -4.13 Georgia Southern 92.83 97 -4.17 Syracuse 54.71 59 -4.29 Washington State 51.69 56 -4.31 UCF 64.60 69 -4.40 Pittsburgh 39.57 44 -4.43 Arkansas State 94.47 99 -4.53 Texas State 98.00 103 -5.00 Notre Dame 11.87 17 -5.13 Kansas 51.57 57 -5.43 Oregon State 45.60 52 -6.40 Texas Tech 42.53 49 -6.47 UCLA 25.29 32 -6.71 California 30.06 38 -7.94 Baylor 43.94 54 -10.06 SMU 71.79 82 -10.21 Boston College 51.24 62 -10.76 Virginia 37.00 48 -11.00 Southern Miss 68.80 80 -11.20 Navy 112.83 125 -12.17 Wyoming 99.75 112 -12.25 Houston 64.25 77 -12.75 Michigan State 29.88 43 -13.13 Oklahoma State 31.35 45 -13.65 ULM 105.06 119 -13.94 Missouri 35.65 50 -14.35 Florida State 7.44 22 -14.56 Ole Miss 22.50 39 -16.50 Rutgers 46.12 63 -16.88 Temple 77.46 95 -17.54 BYU 57.76 76 -18.24 Utah State 97.75 116 -18.25 Akron 104.94 124 -19.06 UTEP 111.53 131 -19.47 Marshall 73.75 94 -20.25 Buffalo 107.18 129 -21.82 New Mexico 95.47 118 -22.53 Central Michigan 99.29 122 -22.71 Arizona 40.88 64 -23.13 Colorado State 77.80 101 -23.20 Ohio 104.17 128 -23.83 UAB 85.21 110 -24.79 Ball State 95.53 121 -25.47 San Jose State 88.13 115 -26.87 Tulsa 80.06 111 -30.94 Nevada 91.25 123 -31.75 New Mexico State 111.38 144 -32.63 UConn 83.06 117 -33.94 Hawaii 89.63 126 -36.38 Fresno State 82.63 120 -37.38 San Diego State 69.20 109 -39.80 USF 59.12 100 -40.88 Virginia Tech 27.06 70 -42.94 Illinois 42.36 88 -45.64 USC 5.06 55 -49.94

Yeah, we need to start with 2020’s worst surprises, where an unbelievable thing happened (maybe two, but mainly one).

Look at the nine teams whose 2020 rankings finished the furthest from where they usually land in normal years.

In that group, we have four non-powers replacing head coaches (Fresno State, Hawaii, San Diego State, USF), one of the hardest jobs in sports (New Mexico State), a bad program slipping from the AAC into independence uncertainty (UConn), and a low-tier power without many scholarships to offer (Illinois).

That leaves Virginia Tech, 42.9 spots worse than its all-time norm, and USC, an amazing 49.9 spots worse than its typical finish.

In normal seasons, none of the top 22 all-time recruiters had ever finished with a single class ranked outside the top 50. USC, you’ve made exciting history.

But USC isn’t just one of the top 22 all-time recruiters. USC entered 2020 with the #1 all-time recruiting norm across the entire star ratings era! This isn’t the equivalent of Penn State or Oregon or South Carolina suddenly having one of the Power 5’s worst classes. This is like looking up three years from now and seeing Alabama’s class rank below Vanderbilt’s (as 2020 USC’s does). This one class is so abnormal, it bumps USC down from #1 to #6 all-time in this lil Recruiting Baseline stat.

“Recruiting is going dramatically better than anybody wants to admit,” said new AD Mike Bohn right before Sighing Day, and yet HERMINATOR EDWARDS is whooping USC in California recruiting.

USC had finished outside the top 12 just twice ever, even including previous years with new head coaches, but finished an alarming #20 in 2019 before 2020’s eye-popper. So Clay Helton now has the two lowest-rated classes in USC history, one of them by miles.

The closest thing to good news is that USC’s 2020 class is small, only 13 commits as of Signing Day night. Room for transfers and a big 2021 class! Sure! Going by average player rating, it could rank in the 20s or so, if it were twice as large. Any of the new Trojans could become college stars (this is certainly not meant to disparage any of them, just to gawk at the big number). But the class isn’t twice as big, and a class in the 20s is not exactly what the Trojans aim for anyway.

The Hokies’ class is almost as anomalous. Only one other top-35 all-time recruiter has ever had a class rank #70 or worse in a year without a head coaching change (2007 UCLA, which could be a stretch of an inclusion, since single-year data gets weird the further back you go).

The story appears to be the same for both USC and VT: underwhelming head coaches remained, despite everyone assuming for months they’d be fired. Both teams finished fairly strong on the field after early personnel difficulties, but it was too late to inspire much confidence for 2020 before the Early Signing Period arrived. The Trojans also arguably had ... bigger problems to deal with than overhauling a mediocre football program.

So USC finished 51 spots behind the coach it should’ve just kept. That coach also just won the national title.

On to brighter news! Look at the top!

Liberty’s 2020 class is #1 in this metric, but with a grain of salt. They’re tricky to count, because the only five previous classes of theirs I could find reason to include ranked #125 or worse, and three were from before they before they entered FBS. Not a lot of data, unlike USC, which has a ton of data that demonstrates it should never recruit outside the top 15, let alone the top 50.

Still, 2020’s #98 is obviously Liberty’s best class ever. We go live to Hugh Freeze for comment:

Cincinnati has this year’s most relatively impressive class, in my opinion. At #40, Cincy adds three four-stars and has one of the highest-rated classes ever for any current Group of 5 school, the best since Houston’s Ed Oliver group in 2016. Also, this is more four-stars than USC signed.

FIU, FAU, Appalachian State, and Charlotte showed why they’re popular NCAA 14 schools, building on bowl bids by assembling more three-star locals than usual. North Texas did the same, minus the bowl. The fun thing about Dynasty Mode is taking over an FBS youngster and clawing your way from the bottom, cracking the 50s in the recruiting rankings after a few dogged years, and smiling at the Trojans as you pass them.

Georgia Tech’s first full class under Geoff Collins delivered on his promise of better local recruiting, signing 12 of Georgia’s top 100 players as part of GT’s best group since 2007. This means Math Factory did a much better job of recruiting its local talent hotbed than did the university literally named after Southern California.

Among longtime powers who didn’t change a whole lot this time around (similar to, for example, USC), let us most praise Kentucky’s class, which includes seven four-stars, UK’s most ever. Sure, #23 is only good for ninth in the SEC, but Mark Stoops has already done more with less. We’re being positive! Here’s when we remember Stoops appeared on hot-seat lists for like two or three years, but has since won consecutive bowl games.

Hey, sometimes it’s good if struggling coaches stay! There’s some hope for Virginia Tech! And USC, maybe!

Ok, we’re pushing it, because Stoops has recruited really well his entire time at Kentucky, unlike USC, which just lost a Signing Day battle to the Kentucky Wildcats for four-star Michael Drennen II, a football player, not a basketball player.