Football: Rivals 100 breakdown

Poster ScottAC dropped some knowledge (yo) about the recently released Rivals 100 on The Victors that's worth preserving, so here it is (insults directed at opponent schools may or may not be the opinion of mgoblog. I ain't tellin'):

Fully 47 of the top 100 mention Oklahoma as one of their favorites, albeit they have no verbals as yet. Nearest next school is Fla with 37. Even granting it's early, kids change their mind more often than their underwear, and not all of those can go to Norman, if the Sooners get a paltry 15-20% of those kids to sign in Feb, that's 7-9 top 100 kids in the class. That's a kick butt class.

For comparison, Mich is mentioned by 31 of the top 100 kids, which is 5th best nationally behind Okl, Fla (37), USC & MiaFl (34). OTOH, unlike those ahead of us, we've already got verbals from 2 of the top 100 kids mentioning us. Only the 'Canes actually have a top 100 verbal, and he's at #95. Mich is far and away the early leader in the B10 ahead of tOSU (18 with 1 verbal).

Other notes:
* PSU ain't coming back any time soon - only 9 top 100 kids mention the Nits, same number as those mentioning Iowa.
* The B10 isn't doing well at all. Only 83 total mentions of a B10 school among kids favs, and the bulk of those are us & tOSU. By comparison, SEC schools are mentioned 175 times, B12 116 times and ACC 116 times.
* With a little luck, the 'Canes could lap the field in terms of high end quality. 12 of the top 25 kids are mentioning interest in Mia Fl, including 7 of the top 10.
* 21 kids are mentioning FSU right now, which ain't bad (11th nationally), but badly trails the other 2 Fla schools and certainly isn't up to FSU's usual standards. Is Dad-gummit Bowden losing his touch?
* For all the fuss about Weis's current verbals, only 20 top 100 kids are mentioning ND. Better than Willingham to be sure, and not too shabby overall at 12th nationally, but given their natural advantages this year (read: instant playing time for anyone with a pulse) plus the trendy "I'm an NFL genius" cachet Weiss can emit now without having any downside of actually having lost a few CFB games, I'd have expected more from St. Jabba.

The Penn State thing is especially notable to me, since the are a ton of kids from the traditional PSU stomping grounds--Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland--on the list. The miraculous-ness of them picking up national #1 Derrick Williams and national top ten Justin King appears even more miraculous in hindsight, especially in the midst of a dismal 4-7 season that looked a lot like the rest of their dismal seasons in the recent past.

ND fans should start coming down to earth a little bit after flipping out about their early verbals. Some overzealous Irish were claiming that five or six of their commits would be on the list... this is not so much true. They're still off to a very respectable start but a few of their commitments appear to be very run-of-the-mill. Notre Dame's class is already better than either of their last two but talk of the top five is unrealistic.