Coming Or Going: West/North-ish

(Named after the (apparently) famous Price Is Right game. Ask Orson.)

Hello! More exploration of the sketchy ethics of college football recruiting. Orson Swindle and I gathered the last six years of classes for every BCS team and found average-sized recruiting classes for each team. For comparison's sake, a team with 100% retention that never redshirts or recruits JUCOs or transfers should average 21.25 scholarships a year. A team with a 100% retention rate that redshirts everyone but still avoids JUCOs and transfers should average 17. If you figure about half of all freshmen redshirt (figure pulled directly from rear), then 100% retention means a class of slightly over 19 kids.

Disclaimers go here: Numbers are from Rivals. Scout has different numbers that are on average a little bit smaller. 100% retention is impossible and there are many completely kosher reasons for kids to leave a college football program before their eligibility expires. JUCOs and transfers were not accounted for in these numbers and obviously have a distorting effect (though transfers don't even show up in the rivals DB, so the net effect of a transfer to your school is to make your school look less like an Indonesian ferryman shoving people off the boat into alligator-infested waters.)

I've got the Big Ten, Pac-10, and Big 12. Check EDSBS around noonish for the ACC, Big East, and (drumroll...) SEC.

Big 12	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	Average
Iowa State	27	26	29	27	30	25	27.3
Kansas State	30	17	26	26	30	32	26.8
Texas Tech	24	25	26	21	34	26	26.0
Oklahoma State	28	31	19	21	29	23	25.2
Colorado	31	25	20	25	22	27	25.0
Missouri	23	23	25	23	25	27	24.3
Baylor	25	22	20	22	29	27	24.2
Kansas	22	27	21	28	25	22	24.2
Texas A&M	23	24	28	25	23	18	23.5
Oklahoma	24	24	18	27	28	20	23.5
Nebraska	21	19	20	32	22	27	23.5
Texas	28	18	20	15	25	24	21.7
Total Average							24.6

Our Indonesian Ferryman for the Big 12: Iowa State. An unsurprising second and third are Kansas State, Texas Tech, and their insatiable lust for JUCO blood.

And the Big 12 Mr. Chips Award For Academic Integrity goes to big, bad Texas -- though their number would be but middling in the Big Ten.

Pac 10	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	Average
Oregon State	20	22	36	30	33	35	29.3
Oregon	24	23	30	24	22	29	25.3
Arizona	29	26	29	26	25	16	25.2
Washington St.	28	18	27	21	24	26	24.0
Arizona St.	29	22	22	21	24	23	23.5
Cal	21	28	19	24	20	25	22.8
Washington	21	27	23	13	22	27	22.2
USC	22	28	19	19	26	18	22.0
UCLA	26	19	26	21	22	10	20.7
Stanford	16	26	12	17	18	19	18.0
Total Average							23.3

Yea, verily the Pac-10 is a conference of extremes.

Our Indonesian Ferryman for the Pac 10 is Oregon State with a staggering 29 scholarships handed out per class and a whopping 134 recruits over the past four years. Oregon State is the national Indonesian Ferryman and the sketchiest program in all the land.

Meanwhile, Stanford is puttering along at 18 scholarships per year. They win the Mr. Chips Award For Academic Integrity for the Pac-10 and the nation.

Big Ten	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	Average
Michigan State	21	21	31	27	28	21	24.8
Purdue	27	26	28	21	27	18	24.5
Minnesota	27	27	24	20	22	22	23.7
Illinois	23	27	24	20	27	21	23.7
Indiana	21	25	26	25	21	19	22.8
Wisconsin	25	22	23	22	23	17	22.0
Iowa	22	22	21	23	21	22	21.8
Michigan	21	17	22	23	19	20	20.3
Penn State	22	11	25	19	24	21	20.3
Ohio State	24	16	24	18	20	15	19.5
Northwestern	22	22	15	20	17	19	19.2
Total Average							22.1

Our Indonesian Ferryman for the Big Ten: Michigan State. To be fair to the Spartans, their total would be good for but fourth in the Pac-10 and a piddling sixth in the Big 12.

Raise your hand if you thought Northwestern would win the Mr. Chips Award for the Big Ten. That's all of you, good. Now raise your hand if you thought Ohio State would come in second. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Ohio State is increasingly irritating: first they go and win against us all the time, reducing my ability to make fun of them to critically low levels, then they go and stop getting in trouble altogether -- a third string kicker selling weed just doesn't cut it, even if his last name is a popular synonym for semen. What's a blogger to do?

And there's one relevant team floating out there not in any conference...

That Other Team	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	Average
Notre Dame	18	21	16	15	28	18	19.3

To its credit, Notre Dame retains like a mother. Either that or Willingham was so bad at recruiting they left large numbers of scholarships open.

EDSBS will have has the ACC, Big East, and SEC up... how do they stack up? Stay tuned! Spay or neuter your dogs and such!