Best Recruiting Class?

Scour the web and you'll find lots of lists of the 2015 college football recruiting class. In many ways they agree, in others they don't. Let's look at three.

Bleacher Report	Rivals.com	247Sports
Alabama	Alabama	Alabama
Texas A&M	Florida State	Florida State
Auburn	Georgia	Georgia
Penn State	Clemson	Ohio State
Clemson	South Carolina	Tennessee
Tennessee	Tennessee	Texas A&M
South Carolina	Ohio State	Clemson
LSU	Texas A&M	South Carolina
USC	Notre Dame	USC
Notre Dame	USC	Penn State

 
Look at where they agree: Bama leads, lots of the same names, but Bleacher Report is clearly an outlier. Florida State, for example, isn't in it's Top 10, yet the other two list the Seminoles as #2. Auburn is also high for Bleacher Report, less so for the others. (Dawg fans, Bleacher Report puts UGA at #12).

Why the differences? Math, in part, how many points you award for however many "stars" a player gets. The difference between a 4-star and 5-star can shift the score here and there, plus you may disagree on just how many "stars" a player deserves.

The lesson? These lists do matter. There's probably a bit of a bandwagon effect for athletes shopping the schools. You want to see your potential university high on the list, maybe to be on an up-and-coming school, or high on the list, though it's possible you might look further down the line because you'll have a greater chance of time on the field and not riding the bench behind some 5-star.