Post-NSD Grades for Auburn's '12 class

I feel that Auburn did a fantastic job of meeting needs. When you look at our avg star ranking we had a pretty good year reeling in talented guys that could help fill our depth chart with more talent, since we return about 37 guys on our 2-deep.

The OL was probably our biggest need coming in, and we've filled that and then some with as of now about the 5th ranked OL class, or so. Adding Jordan Diamond, hopefully, later tonight would certainly put us right there behind Stanford as the #2 OL class, or close to it.

Next was adding some playmakers at WR, and keeping JaQuay Williams and Ricardo Louis is more than enough for me. I have felt that Louis is vastly underrated as a playmaker, he's just raw. Really like how we met this need. Adding Diggs would be some REALLY good icing on the cake, but not counting on it.

Next was TE. After Lutz is gone we only have Brandon Fulse at TE, so getting some immediate help there was crucial just in case one of those guys goes down. Ricky Parks is a physical specimen and should be able to contribute right away. Darrion Hutcherson is a 6'7, 250 lb athlete that could stay at TE or move to the DL/OL, but either way he needs to develop a little more of a meanstreak. However the biggest pickup we got for our TEs was getting fullback Jay Prosch as a Transfer from Illinois. This will allow the TE to play TE exclusively. Lutz has been underutilized because he was probably our best blocker last year but is such a great receiving TE too. Prosch will help big time.

Lastly, our last need would be considered getting a few quality LBs. I feel that getting a MLB was more important than OLB, and Cassanova McKinzy is, physically, ready to help out right away if need be. He is another kid that needs to learn to play with more effort consistently and get a little meaner on the field but he certainly has the size and talent to help. Mitchell is a project, plain and simple, but has tons of athleticism at 6'2, 200 lbs and runs in the 4.4s. I think he could move to safety if VanGorder chooses to go back to having bigger LBs.

Grades:

QB- B (Pike has huge boom or bust potential, but with Loeffler's QB coaching ability I think Pike should be thrilled)
RB- B+
TE- A+ (I think Parks and the TE from USC are the 2 best in the class)
WR- A
OL- A+

DL- C (wasn't a need, but missing on Goldman, Ward, Jenkins and Williams hurt....still like Nero and President's upside though)
LB- B
CB- B+
S- n/a

Overall I'd say Auburn had a B+ class. The meat of the class is on par with what we've had the past two classes, we just didn't have the two or three 5* guys that we've gotten recently to really anchor the top.

Statistical Analysis of Auburn's '12 Class by Max Mitchell

My long time buddy Max Mitchell ( @YaBoyMaxWeezy on twitter) emailed me this statistical analysis (because that's what this crazy dude does on our Recruiting class and threw in some work of his own on there and thought it'd be awesome to share with the AU fans out there:

The rating of individual players is subjective, so they obviously differ from site to site. Then, those player ratings are stuffed into a point calculation system that is unique to each site. Starting with different player ratings and then feeding those numbers into different calculation systems obviously produces different results on the different sites...sometimes drastically different.

Personally, I trust the guys at 247 to give the best recruit analysis. I'm not sure how their point system works, but since I trust the evaluations, I trust the outcome of the team rankings...even if it doesn't work out the best for Auburn this year.

However, there is something to how each site does it, so I thought I'd average them all out.

Since everyone uses different ranking/point systems, I took the number 1 team from each site and gave them a 1.00 point total. The #2 team was then a percentage of the #1 team. In other words, if the #1 team had 1000 points and the #5 team had 876 points, then the #1 team gets 1.00 and the #5 team gets .876. At 247, Alabama was #1 with a point total of 781. FSU was #2 with a point total of 773. 773 points is .989% of 781. So Alabama gets a 1.00 and FSU gets a .989.

I did that for all four sites, giving the top 25 teams on each site a % of the point total of the #1 team. The exception was ESPN, who doesn't show points. So I just subtracted .025 from each team counting down from #1. In other words, #1 was 1.00, #2 was .975, #3 was .950, #4 was .925, #5 was .900, and so on.

And here is the way they stacked up....

1. .985 - Alabama

2. .969 - Texas

3. .913 - Ohio State

4. .905 - Florida

5. .872 - Michigan

6. .854 - Florida State

7. .824 - Stanford

8. .815 - Miami

9. .796 - Georgia

10 .789 - Oklahoma

11 .772 - USC

12 .739 - Clemson

12 .739 - LSU

14 .715 - Auburn

15 .710 - UCLA

16 .703 - South Carolina

16 .703 - Texas A&M

18 .696 - Oregon

19 .636 - Tennessee

20 .615 - Washington

NOTES:

It was interesting to see certain teams all over the place in the rankings on each site. Here are some that had a wide range:

LSU -

#7 high on Scout

#17 low on Rivals

Georgia -

#5 high on ESPN

#13 low on Scout

Clemson -

#9 high on ESPN

#22 low on 247 Sports

South Carolina -

#12 high in Scout

#19 low on Rivals

USC -

#7 high in Rivals

#20 low on Scout

FSU -

#2 high on 247 Sports and ESPN

#10 low on Scout

Notre Dame -

#10 high on ESPN

#22 low on Rivals

Auburn's high and low was #12 on Rivals and #17 on 247 Sports and ESPN. And before anyone says "of course ESPN has us low", remember that they had us #3 and #4 the last two years...the highest two year average of any of the sites.

The truth is, recruiting rankings matter. They are an indication of the overall talent and depth you acquire each year. But the subjective nature of evaluating the players that make up the classes that make up the rankings means that the rankings should, as the very least, be viewed in groups. Is #7 really that much better than #12 on any given site? Especially since those two teams might be ranked #10 and #14 on another site?

In my opinion, I would group the top 20 teams by percentages related to the top team. Maybe the .900 teams, the .800 teams, the .700 teams, etc, as teams ranked that closely over the range of four different sites are essentially a subjective toss-up.

So for this year:

Group 1 consists of Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, and .Florida Group 2 consists of Michigan, Florida St, Stanford, and Miami.

Group 3 consists of Georgia, Oklahoma, USC, Clemson, LSU, Auburn, UCLA, South Carolina, and Texas A&M.

Group 4 consists of Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.

In this case, I would only say there are eight classes that are CLEARLY ahead of Auburn's class. And that Auburn's class is on par, or in the same general ball park, as that of Georgia, Clemson, A&M, LSU, etc. After all, two sites had Auburn at #12 and #13, while two sites also had Georgia at #11 and #13. So even though Georgia averages out on the four sites at #9 and AU averages at #14, who's to say which ranking for each team are actually right. If you look at the two examples I just gave for each team, you'd think they were dead even.