Some perspective on three-star players

Those who are worried about this class, and more broadly--the future success of Tennessee football, are also those who have an irrational belief that recruiting class rankings directly impact on the field success.  One may recall a few weeks back where I pointed to (and questioned) an analysis by SMQ relating recruiting class rankings to a team's winning percentage.  Lo and behold, Tennessee was labeled as an "Underachiever" between the years 2002-2007.  Over that time period they had an average recruiting class ranking of 10.2 (9th best in the NCAA) and a 0.603 winning percentage vs. BCS opposition (19th best in the NCAA).  In a snapshot of this time period, we hauled in the #4 recruiting class in 2005.  Man, were we loaded.  A new class of young studs entering a stable chocked full of talented veterans.  We were poised for a run to the MNC.  Then it happened...TSOWWDNS.  `Nuff said.

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Oh, Notre Dame didn't do too bad over the 2007 season either.  You know, considering their last two recruiting classes were each ranked #8!
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It's been said time and time again that recruiting rankings (e.g., 'stars') are simply one's opinion (informed or otherwise) of how that athlete will fare at the collegiate level.  We've seen 5-Stars totally tank for a multitude of reasons, but also have seen 1-Stars and even walk-ons accomplish great things.

I have much respect for Brian and all that he has done, and continues to do, for the CFB blogosphere.  However, I think this particular set of comments is a bit hypocritical in nature, regardless of my opinion on Tennessee's present state of elite-ness.  While I'm not going to get into the debate of the definition of an "elite" team, I will throw out a few bombs as an explicit-countermeasure, with respect to the current state of elite-ness of the Michigan program -- elite teams do not loose to a Division 1-AA team;  let alone, at home nor do elite teams yield a single victory over their most-hated rival since 2001.  There.  I feel better.

Maybe this year that that law of averages catches up to us and a trend is reversed?  I don't know about you, but I'd much rather tote around the SMQ-assigned label of "Overachiever" by having a 30-something recruiting class with a Top-10 (Top-5?) finish to the season.

As the title of this post suggests, there is a concise statement that should be resonating throughout Big Orange Country this morning.  It was penned by a true Volunteer fan who just so happens to be the care-taker of this blog:

"We'll be fine."

Go Vols!

As far as rankings go - the existence of groups like Scout and Rivals does depend at least partly on their ability to assess the talent and figure out where the potential lies.  If you go through their lists, you can generally see where the 4- and 5-star guys appear to be physical beasts, and where the 1- and 2-star guys, while quite talented, might not have that added spark.  Since they can't determine if that spark will come, the rankings seem to be a relatively reasonable grouping of the national talent.  It's a really, really inexact science: determining who has more potential between a linebacker in California versus a linebacker in Vermont (and so on) isn't easy, and they won't get them all right.  Still, there is some value to the concept, and they do a reasonable job, all things considering.

As we all know, once you have the talent on your team, then it's a matter of development and training.  That is a debate that will be answered in due time (i.e. the next few years), so I'll leave it alone.  Besides, we have a lot of new staff on board, and we'll need to see how they develop talent before we can make good guesses to the future anyhow.

However, there are a lot more factors to a class than numbers and stars.  For example, UT already has a lot of positions filled: the 07 and 05 classes are rather large and loaded.  Just like after the 05 class, when the 06 class was a little thinner, we see the same trend after the 07 class.  I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing happen at Alabama next year (though probably not as drastic).  We may be developing a cycle where we get more players on odd years and they get more on even years.  So long as it doesn't get so imbalanced that filling scholarships becomes problematic, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So, while we UT fans would like to say that the stars don't matter, that's not entirely true.  They do matter, but they're not absolute certainties.  For example, there's little doubt that Pryor has more potential than most other QBs on the market, though we don't know if he'll develop into it yet.  Also, having a small class matters only in the context of what UT already has.  We have a lot of players, and we didn't need much more.  We could have used a few more D-liners and perhaps a couple more O-liners for depth, but we'll still have a good team on the field.  Our only real concern will be our injury situation.  It wouldn't take many line injuries to become catastrophic.

One last note: if the team performs well under the new coaches, we'll be primed for a great class next year.  The 05 class will depart, and there'll be plenty of room for scholarships.  Additionally, teams who sign a ton of talent this year (think number of players first, then stars) like Bama, Miami, and FSU, will be in a much more difficult position to sell playing time.

So, let's just wait and see.

(There's more to say, but I tend to write too much in a single post as it is, so I'll cut it here.)