Golden Nuggets: Do recruits' rankings lead to on-field success?

Athlon Sports crunches some numbers on the Pac-12's recruits and corresponding win-loss records.

By Leland Wong Feb 27, 2014, 3:30pm PST

How important are recruit rankings? Does OSU's Mike Riley really do more with less?

Athlon Sports has compiled the rankings of each recruiting class over the past five years and the win-loss records over that time span for all Pac-12 school to validate their belief that recruiting rankings is a key factor in predicting on-field success. The past five years have been so successful for Cal, so let's see what they found!

	Team	'14	'13	'12	'11	'10	Avg.	W/L	Conf.
1	USC	11	12	9	3	3	7.6	35–17	23–13
2	Oregon	21	19	13	12	13	15.6	47–6	32–4
3	UCLA	19	7	19	45	10	20.0	29–24	19–17
4	Stanfurd	13	51	7	22	22	23.0	46–8	31–5
5	Washington	37	18	23	24	14	23.2	30–22	20–16
6	Cal	48	39	34	15	19	31.0	16–33	9–27
7	Arizona State	23	40	35	65	31	38.8	30–22	21–15
8	Arizona	31	44	31	48	47	42.2	27–24	14–22
9	Utah	63	47	37	40	42	45.8	28–22	16–19
10	Oregon State	61	45	44	43	46	47.8	24–26	17–19
11	Washington State	65	54	58	67	60	60.8	15–34	8–28
12	Colorado	76	68	39	64	65	62.4	13–36	6–29

With this data, they drew a number of conclusions about coaching changes/success and which program rules the conference. What did they learn about Cal?

Cal has always had a strong recruiting presence on the West Coast. However, the Bears' recruiting trend might be concerning as the national recruiting ranking for Cal has dropped four years in row from 15th in 2011 to 48th in '14. Despite all of that talent, nine total wins in the league from 2010-12 is why Sonny Dykes is now in charge in Berkeley. This is still the sixth-best roster in the league, however, and it means that Dykes shouldn't have to work miracles to get his Bears back on the winning track. But if Cal wants to compete with the likes of Oregon and Stanford, he will have to start by rebuilding his program's image on the recruiting trail as well as on the field.

Cal Family

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