GC VIP Stadium Road Audibles — 1/20/20 Edition

With the second signing day coming up soon, I want to go over something that’s going to be a point of contention when it comes to comparing classes.

Something I thought I noticed in recent years was an increase in the frequency of absurdly highly rated classes. I recently heard one other sportswriter mention that he’d seen the same thing on a podcast, so it’s not just me. He used the term “megaclasses” to describe these, and without a better term, I’ll go with that.

There is no definition of a megaclass, so I had to come up with one to double check that this trend exists. I went to the 247 Composite as usual, and I decided on classes with an average player rank above 93.00. It’s a nice round number, and there really aren’t too many classes that make it that high.

I went through the past decade of classes, and here’s what I found. Team names in bold indicate class averages greater than 94.00.

  • 2010: Florida, Texas, USC
  • 2011: None
  • 2012: Alabama
  • 2013: Alabama
  • 2014: Alabama
  • 2015: Alabama
  • 2016: None
  • 2017: Ohio State, Alabama
  • 2018: Georgia, Ohio State, USC, Clemson
  • 2019: Alabama
  • As you can see, the frequency of megaclasses is in fact rising.

    The first year shows three of the marquee programs of the 2000s with megaclasses, though they are all warning signs of a sort. Nothing is guaranteed about success after a megaclass. Florida was a year away from losing Urban Meyer, the Mack Brown era at Texas was about to enter its terminal decline, and this class was the transitional one from Pete Carroll to Lane Kiffin.

    The third and fourth-year records for these programs are 11-2 and 4-8 for Florida, 9-4 and 8-5 for Texas, and 7-6 and 10-4 for USC. Those fourth years saw Kiffin left on a tarmac after five games, Brown pushed out at the end of the season, and Muschamp shown the door a year later.

    Afterwards, we see recruiting being dominated by Nick Saban’s Alabama. The results on the field in those years confirm what we saw in the class rankings in February.

    But then in the second half of the decade we see Meyer’s Ohio State, Saban’s lieutenant Kirby Smart, and ascendant Clemson get in on the megaclass game. Not surprisingly, these teams have been strong playoff contenders in these times. Recruiting success leads to on-field success leads to recruiting success. It’s the virtuous cycle every program seeks.

    It’s also worth noting that Bama only had one megaclass besides its true freshmen and what few fifth-year seniors were left on the field this year. Injuries on defense hurt the Tide, but having only one megaclass in the meat of the roster probably contributed towards a down year by that program’s standards in 2019. As for 2017 USC, that was when the program was riding the Sam Darnold wave upwards and some optimism still existed for Clay Helton. Things have… turned since then.

    In 2020, three teams are currently sitting on a megaclass given the rankings as of yesterday afternoon: Georgia (94.21), Clemson (93.65), and Alabama (93.48). Only the newly crowned national champs LSU are even above 92 among remaining teams (92.77).

    Which is to say, Florida is not going to sign to megaclass this year. It won’t come close, even if you discount the fact UF signed a punter (which are almost never rated above low 3-star, and Jeremy Crawshaw is presently a high 2-star). If the Gators sign their three verbals, there are two or three spots left depending on whether Dan Mullen wants to hold a spot for a future transfer this spring or summer. That won’t be enough to elevate the class much above the 90.65 average it has now.

    It’s too bad that the Gators won’t have a megaclass, but here’s your mitigating factor. With just two special-case exceptions, all of these programs established themselves as national title contenders before they started signing megaclasses.

    One special case is USC (referring to 2017 here), because it’s the premier West Coast program with no historically elite competition closer than Texas. No other situation compares to what the Trojans have in the talent hotbed of California.

    The other is Smart’s Georgia, which laid a lot of the groundwork for its 2018 megaclass before attending the 2017 season’s national title game. That’s a special case because Smart could ride the megaclass-signing Saban’s coattails by taking credit for some of the Tide’s success and employing the same talent evaluation and acquisition techniques. “I’m Saban, only younger” is a sales pitch that works.

    Here’s another mitigating factor: LSU didn’t come close to a megaclass in the four cycles leading up to this year. Their best was 91.35, which is still higher than anything Florida has done since 2012 but isn’t exceptionally high. And, that’s actually what the Tigers had for the oldest class of the span, 2016. Plenty of ’16 signees were still around, but some of the best of them were already in the NFL last fall. Afterwards, LSU’s averages fell to 91.05 in 2017 and 90.11 in 2018 before rebounding to 90.75 in 2019. The 2020 class is not quite reaching megaclass status but is still a significant bump, and it can probably be traced directly to the Tigers’ amazing play on the field last season.

    I can already feel the post-NSD debates coming on, and I am already tired of them. Here’s what you need to know.

    Signing megaclasses is how you get dynastic talent. Want to dominate for a decade? Do what Bama did and get above an average player ranking of 93 for a while. You’re gonna need to already have a national championship pedigree, though, and it’s going to need to be recent. For today’s 17-year-olds, 2008 was forever ago. They might not even remember UF’s 2006 title team. Meyer was already the Ohio State coach for more time than he spent in Gainesville by the time Florida hired Mullen. Trading off that old success is not going to work all that well anymore, and the returns will diminish in the future.

    Also offering diminishing returns is running up the recruiting score, at least in terms of what it means for the immediate, upcoming season. Only 11 players can be on the field at once, and some positions like quarterback, offensive line, and middle linebacker don’t lend themselves much to rotations. Players 60-85 aren’t going to see the field much in a game unless it’s a blowout.

    The marginal high 4-star probably doesn’t help Georgia much given what it already has on hand and has lined up. It can mean a lot to the Gators since they’re still building. It’ll be important to snag another good one like Avantae Williams. But if UGA lands another elite player, it may not actually mean anything for three years or more.

    LSU was able to win a national title with a recruiting level similar to what Mullen has done so far plus a key transfer in a place of need. Mullen has been plugging places of need with key transfers too. The proof is there that Florida can become a national title contender with what it’s already doing; it won’t be until after that point that Mullen can even think about signing megaclasses. It’ll be tough to hear the NSD commentators praising Georgia’s class so much, but it’s best if you understand what it’ll take for Florida to get there someday.

David Wunderlich
David Wunderlich is a born-and-raised Gator and a proud Florida alum. He has been writing about Florida and SEC football since 2006. He currently lives in Naples Italy, at least until the Navy stations his wife elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter @Year2