So 247 ranks recruiting classes...but a huge part of that (frankly too much) is the number of recruits in a class.

And so the natural inclination is to just look at average recruit rating instead. But that's also not quite great. For example that would say a class of 3 90 rated recruits is better than a class of 3 91 rated recruits and 1 86 rated recruit.

Instead, in that case, the better idea would be to compare the top 3 recruits. So I've built a chart that allows you to quickly and easily do just that, for any number of recruits.

Which you can easily do at this link, clicking on the bottom line to determine how deep into the class you want to compare.

Of course, this doesn’t really meaningfully show the difference in classes since that graph is on a 0-100 scale… when recruiting for P4-type schools realistically takes place entirely in the 85-100 range. So here’s a zoomed in version which more effectively shows those differences.

While I'm really excited about Waller and about discovering which of the other guys are diamonds in the rough, it's been strange to me to see so much hype lately about our class. I'm not saying to freak out - there's still a lot of time left, both to get new commitments (Dunn, Pay and a few others would greatly help the class) and for currently committed guys to potentially have their ratings adjusted up.  This absolutely can be a strong recruiting class. But it's also absolutely not there right now and I feel like we as fans are still operating in a G5 mindset of what a class should be.

I haven't done a full breakdown on the class yet (like I said, it's early), but last year's class feels a lot stronger to me. (See here for the same chart for last year).

There's work to do and we definitely need to reel in a few more high-end recruits.  We've been largely living on diamonds in the rough, which great that we can find them. But if we can also supplement those with guys who are more likely to be stars, that's what we need to do to compete.

Finally, for those interested in a bit of scadenfreude, Utah has probably had the most noticeable dropoff between recruiting last year and this year.  That's probably a combination of a down season last year, a new conference, increased in-state competition from BYU on a more level playing field, and rumors of Whittingham retiring. But in any case, they're not looking great either