By Jim Johnson
SouthernPigskin.com

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The OAYP advanced metric determines college football’s biggest overachievers and underachievers in 2019, based on the the recruiting rankings.

Recruiting matters. That goes without saying.

In fact, talent acquisition might be the most important thing any coach does. Obviously, the subsequent development of that talent is is imperative, but without the initial talent theres nothing to develop.

Straight up Xs and Os coaching matters, but only if the personnel is there to execute it. The players are the foundation of every program.

However, the recruiting rankings are not the end-all be-all. This is not an indictment of the scouting industry, either. In fact, it does a really good job at the top. The problem is, no one can evaluate all one-million plus athletes that compete in high school football every year, across the United States.

As little more than a thought experiment, I took the 24/7 Team Talent Composite ratings and basically converted those scores into expected OAYP scores — a) by marginalizing the data (comparing them to the mean) and b) by normalizing the marginal scores onto a scale comparable to OAYP.

Ill leave you to draw your own conclusions, but here are a few things I noticed:

– Like I said, the recruiting rankings do a really good job at the top. Six of OAYPs top eight teams were also in the top ten of the talent composite, including all four College Football Playoff selections, and twelve of OAYPs top fifteen were in 24/7s top 20.

– One problem I have with the team talent composite (thats really more of a 8me problem than a 8them problem), is that it only looks at the overall prospect ratings, and doesnt take into account the distribution of said talent. Theres not really any practical application to having a million awesome defensive backs but no offensive linemen — just ask Florida State — but, again, thats not really the point of their rankings, just a personal qualm.

– The talent ratings seem to have a slightly more linear distribution, whereas OAYPs team ratings align more closely with a bell curve, which I would argue is a more accurate depiction of team strength. According to expected OAYP (derived from the talent composite), 20 teams are at or above a 2.0, 45 fall from 0.0 to 1.99, 47 are between -0.01 and -2.0, and 18 are lower than -2.0. Actual OAYP, meanwhile, places only 14 at or above 2.0, 49 from 0.0 to 1.99, 57 from -0.01 to -2.0, and 10 below a 2.0.

– There may actually be some SEC bias at play in the recruiting rankings. The league has ten teams in the top 25 of the talent composite, with Arkansas almost making it 11 at #26, but simultaneously had eight of the top 25 underachievers. Now, thats not to say those teams are necessarily bad, just like overachieving teams arent necessarily good. For example, Georgia was one of the bigger underachievers, while Kent State was one of the larger overachievers, even though those teams are still on opposite ends of the actual OAYP spectrum.

– The service academies acquitted themselves extremely well. Air Force was the single biggest overachiever in the country, while Navy and Army were both in both in the top seven. And while Army had a modestly disappointing season, especially after what they accomplished a year ago, Air Force and Navy werent just better than expected, they were really good. The former ranked dead last at 130th in the FBS in the recruiting rankings, while the latter wasnt much higher, just 119th, but those two currently sit at 22nd and 20th, respectively, in OAYP.

– Unsurprisingly, its easier for G5 programs to overachieve relative to their talent than it is for most P5s, simply because those schools dont garner as much coverage, or, quite frankly, respect, unfortunately. The only two power conference teams in the Top 25 in positive disparity between actual and expected OAYP were Wisconsin and Utah.

– My overarching takeaway from this entire endeavor is best summated as: if you expect your P5 team to compete for the National Championship in the very near future, you should care deeply about the recruiting rankings; if not, dont worry about it.

Here are the full rankings, including actual OAYP, the 24/7 team talent composite ratings, and the converted expected OAYP scores, sorted by positive disparity: