Most services rank classes by total commitment ratings — adding up each player’s individual rating, no matter how many players are in the class.

That’s not automatically a bad way to do it, but it does produce ratings that lean on quantity of players in the class as much quality of players in the class.

Instead of looking at quality and quantity, let’s look at purely quality.

Our own Bill Connelly weights his adapted recruiting rankings, but uses them to look at class rankings over multiple years. That makes sense, because class sizes roughly even out over four-years as teams have to make the same 85-scholarship math work. Purely going by average player rating is an alternate way to look at just one class.

Here’s a small example:

Team A: signed 12 blue-chip recruits and 14 three-stars (26 total), for a 90.60 average on the 247Sports Composite.

Team B: signed 14 blue-chip recruits and eight three-stars (22 total) for an 89.62 average.

Team A is Oregon, which finished No. 7 in 2019’s recruiting rankings. Team B is Washington, which finished No. 17. That sounds like a decent gap. But if you ranked the programs by average commit, they’d be separated by three national spots and not 10.

Or look to the Big Ten, where you might note Ohio State didn’t even sign a top-two class in the division, according to standard rankings. But OSU took a small class of 17 players. Michigan and Penn State, who finished 1 and 2, took 26 and 23. The Buckeyes’ average player rating is higher, suggesting a long-term talent gap is not being closed.

So, here’s a different way to look at a given year’s rankings.

Individual average player ratings have ranges on the Composite. And the Composite sources the different recruiting services to get a more balanced assessment of individual players. The Composite cutoffs per-player are ....

~98.35 and above: five-star

~89.01-98.34: four-star

~80.00-89.00: three-star

70s: two-star

You can use those ranges to sort where these average classes fall in your head.

And here’s how 2019’s recruiting classes stack up:

(A note: these are slightly subject to change, especially nearer to the bottom as teams add players after February Signing Day. And these are extremely fine margins).

2019 college football recruiting rankings, if you go by player average Rank by per-player average rating Team Per-player average rating Total ratings points Rank by per-player average rating Team Per-player average rating Total ratings points 1 Alabama 94.38 317.50 2 Georgia 93.32 308.98 3 Ohio State 91.87 261.18 4 Texas 91.84 287.02 5 Oklahoma 91.20 279.28 6 Auburn 91.16 271.94 7 Florida 91.06 276.85 8 Penn State 91.01 270.67 9 Texas A&M 90.80 285.46 10 Michigan 90.78 277.15 11 LSU 90.75 284.06 12 Oregon 90.60 277.98 13 Notre Dame 90.60 258.56 14 Tennessee 90.49 271.93 15 Washington 89.92 253.15 16 Clemson 89.76 275.55 17 Florida State 89.47 253.82 18 South Carolina 89.09 248.99 19 Mississippi State 88.64 235.81 20 Arkansas 88.54 237.17 21 Nebraska 88.48 244.05 22 USC 88.21 249.56 23 Miami 88.25 219.20 24 Stanford 88.16 242.58 25 Wisconsin 87.86 219.51 26 Ole Miss 87.66 238.11 27 Michigan State 87.49 215.21 28 Virginia Tech 87.39 224.01 29 Illinois 86.79 175.54 30 Arizona State 86.72 213.21 31 N.C. State 86.70 217.29 32 Purdue 86.63 224.72 33 Kentucky 86.55 203.49 34 TCU 86.27 210.62 35 Missouri 86.23 202.13 36 Utah 86.18 194.21 37 UCLA 86.10 194.93 38 Indiana 86.05 201.94 39 North Carolina 86.02 212.92 40 Oklahoma State 86.01 202.09 41 Northwestern 85.99 188.14 42 Iowa 85.94 199.36 43 Baylor 85.90 203.39 44 Minnesota 85.80 196.04 45 West Virginia 85.78 190.36 46 Virginia 85.71 200.89 47 California 85.64 196.47 48 Georgia Tech 85.57 186.91 49 Iowa State 85.57 190.59 50 Boise State 85.52 188.26 51 Duke 85.38 191.38 52 Boston College 85.14 177.26 53 Pittsburgh 85.12 181.53 54 Maryland 85.05 176.89 55 Louisville 84.99 160.88 56 Colorado 84.99 194.25 57 Arizona 84.92 181.33 58 Syracuse 84.83 182.67 59 Wake Forest 84.60 182.26 60 Rutgers 84.44 176.86 61 Texas Tech 84.41 170.14 62 Vanderbilt 84.40 179.20 63 Washington State 84.35 174.14 64 UCF 84.21 179.64 65 Oregon State 84.01 169.03 66 Kansas State 83.99 176.01 67 Cincinnati 83.84 158.80 68 Kansas 83.79 172.70 69 Houston 83.71 151.07 70 Memphis 83.57 171.87 71 USF 83.27 158.05 72 SMU 83.11 165.72 73 Toledo 83.10 163.81 74 North Texas 82.83 158.81 75 Florida Atlantic 82.54 179.46 76 FIU 82.51 152.58 77 East Carolina 82.42 158.59 78 Louisiana Tech 82.39 151.47 79 Colorado State 82.29 150.79 80 BYU 82.25 156.76 81 Fresno State 82.04 140.83 82 Louisiana 82.00 163.79 83 Troy 81.79 156.90 84 Temple 81.75 138.87 85 Tulane 81.72 143.85 86 Marshall 81.69 164.86 87 Nevada 81.69 145.27 88 Appalachian State 81.61 139.78 89 Middle Tennessee State 81.53 153.20 90 UAB 81.49 152.91 91 Southern Miss 81.42 155.06 92 San Diego State 81.32 143.81 93 Ohio 81.29 141.59 94 Utah State 81.27 148.21 95 Western Michigan 81.21 148.77 96 UTSA 81.08 143.97 97 Connecticut 81.00 119.62 98 Liberty 80.92 80.69 99 Western Kentucky 80.81 146.38 100 Miami (OH) 80.76 148.81 101 Northern Illinois 80.72 133.97 102 UNLV 80.69 135.11 103 Army 80.65 142.88 104 Kent State 80.57 142.81 105 Hawaii 80.48 132.53 106 Tulsa 80.38 134.21 107 Wyoming 80.33 141.11 108 San Jose State 80.31 124.72 109 Georgia State 80.30 135.36 110 Arkansas State 80.28 145.00 111 Charlotte 80.25 118.48 112 Umass 80.17 125.49 113 Ball State 80.01 125.09 114 Central Michigan 79.95 133.20 115 Buffalo 79.94 136.63 116 Texas State 79.93 105.35 117 New Mexico 79.68 129.71 118 Old Dominion 79.44 135.18 119 Georgia Southern 79.39 124.58 120 Rice 79.31 133.23 121 New Mexico State 79.24 126.13 122 Louisiana-Monroe 79.21 111.53 123 Akron 79.11 131.34 124 South Alabama 79.10 132.56 125 Bowling Green 78.97 115.82 126 Eastern Michigan 78.80 124.36 127 Navy 78.60 122.23 128 Air Force 78.35 137.92 129 Coastal Carolina 78.33 117.62 130 UTEP 78.18 132.00

Some takeaways:

Ohio State moves up when you rank only by player average, from 14th to third. Oklahoma moves up from sixth to fifth.

Most teams don’t fluctuate too much. The overwhelming majority of teams only fluctuate about 10 spots in either direction. Some notable movers, though: UConn jumps 29 spots, Liberty 25, Fresno State 19, and Louisville and Temple 18.

Surprise: on a per-player basis, Georgia and Alabama are head-and-shoulders above the rest of the sport this season. That makes sense, given the Tide basically signed an entire recruiting classes’ worth of blue-chips (26) and the Dawgs were not too far behind (20).

The sky is nowhere close to falling at Clemson, but for a program that usually prioritizes quality over quantity with its classes, the Tigers are a tad (slightly, barely, not much at all in a global sense) off their usual class strength.

USC’s raw class score (20th) isn’t good. Its average isn’t either (88.21, ranked 23rd). Bluntly, USC signed mostly high three- and low four-star talent. One of those classes isn’t the end of the world, and it could be a blip. Could be.

As far as quantity’s concerned, there’s a good case for not caring about it at all when you’re only evaluating one year.

Quantity in one recruiting class doesn’t really matter, because over the long term, everyone’s got almost exactly the same number of players — 85 on scholarship.

The schools that move the most when you just evaluate average player rating often signed small classes. UConn signed 15 players, and Liberty signed 12. UTEP signed 32 players and finished 114th in the “real” rankings, but by average, the Miners are dead last.

It’s not just at the bottom. Clemson’s 2017 recruiting class finished 16th in the rankings. It was, by player average, fifth. That’d be right behind Stanford, which finished fourth on average, and 14th in the real rankings. Both those classes had 14 commits in them. How have Clemson and Stanford done in the two seasons since then?