CFB Progressions

[tsweezy]

As test recruiting is starting to ramp up, I figured I'd take a look at progressions from last season. Since we don't know the starting point for every player, I looked at those who were freshmen last season. There were 3117 total freshman last year to take a look at progression trends.

First off: Let's look at just those freshmen who were redshirted (so we don't have to account for playing time effects)

There were 597 of those players split into different categories.

 

There was a single 1-star player redshirted: Ohio's D overall Kicker with A potential. He remains a D overall.

 

182 2 star C overalls were redshirted: All of them stayed C overall, implying that a 2 star C player is not particularly close to the B cutoff (Even the non-redshirts had not a single 2 star player make it to a B by their second year.)

 

28 2 star D overalls were RS'd. 25 of them improved to a C overall. (89%) compared to the 192/207 non-RS players who made that jump (92.75%)

 

On the flip side, there were 30 5 star freshmen last year. 5 of them were A overall and of course are still As

25 of them were B overalls. 23 of those have become an A overall, while 2 remained Bs (both non-RS's). This implies that 5 stars are extremely close to the A line.

 

Interesting that while 5/30 5-stars last year were A overalls, none this year were. A change in the range in which players were generated? Or just luck?

 

The bulk of players of course are 3 and 4 stars. Of those:

1371 3-star players, 36 of whom were B overalls and remained Bs

1335 3-star C overalls. of the non-RSs, 524/1060 became Bs (49.43%) while 131/275 RSs improved (47.636)

 

442 4-star players went through a progression cycle.

There were 402 4-star B overalls. 5 of those are now A overall players. None of them redshirted, and their potentials were: A-, A-, A+, A+, B-

All other B overalls remained B overalls

 

There were 40 4 star C overalls last cycle. Of those, 39 became B overalls. The exception was a B potential punter from Illinois.

 

Take-aways: In their 2nd season:

2-star recruits will almost all be in the C overall range (with a handful of Ds)

3 stars will have a broad overlap between mid-high C, and low-mid B

4 stars will fill in the entirety of the B range (with a few outliers as A's, and a few remaining Cs)

5 star recruits will generally be A overalls, except a handful who will be just underneath that cutoff.

 

Redshirting a player will have them not progress as much as playing (of course, this is mentioned in a dev diary somewhere)

[Rocketcan]

I love seeing this analysis on something I helped make. It's so cool to see the trends come out organically.