P-12 Recruiting & 2018 Projected Conference Standings

As you move through these thoughts and projections, … remember, … they are solely based on recruiting, factors like returning starters, coaching, home & away games, and other elements that impact a team’s season are put aside. For our purposes here, we are drawing our conclusions from the team’s ARR (Average Recruiting Rank)! The ARR was determined by averaging each teams recruiting rank on three different sites (ESPN, 247 Sports, & Rivals) and over a four year (2015 -2018) time frame!

Please note, I will often interchange the terms, roster, ARR, and recruiting and while one could infer distinctions among these terms, the intent here is to imply they carry the same meaning! Let’s take a look at the P-12, through recruiting only, both internally and how they compare to other Power 5 (P5) conferences. The P5 is made up of the following  conferences; ACC (14 Teams), B-10 (14 teams), B-12 (10 teams), SEC (14 teams), and the P-12 (12 teams)! We also include Notre Dame and BYU as P5 teams in this post. Meaning we have 66 teams, not 64 , in our count. That said, an ARR # is the average place finish out of the 66 P5 teams assessed in this post. So when reviewing the list below, one sees that Oregon is the best recruiting program in the North Division of the P-12 and the 20th best in the country!

North Division

P-12 final Standings 2017      /     Recruiting projected Standings for 2018

 P-12 Record in 2017                                P-12 ARR 2015 – 2018

1. Stanford 7-2                                     1) Oregon ARR 20.0
2. Washington 7-2                                 2) Washington ARR 24.0
3. Washington State 6-3                        3) Stanford ARR 25.4
4. Oregon 4-5                                       4) California ARR 46.4
5. California 2-7                                    5) Washington St. ARR 49.3
6. Oregon State 0-9                               6) Oregon State ARR 57.4

• Stanford essentially overachieved in 2017, as their recruiting numbers suggest a 3rd place finish in 2018, with a 3-2 mark vs Divisional foes, not 1st place in the North Division the Cardinal achieved in 2017. The P-12 plays 9 conference games same as the B-12 & B-10, yet these conferences have a unique feel. The P-12 has 6 teams in their north/south divisions respectively, so they play 5 divisional games and 4 cross-over games; the B-10 has 7 teams in east/west divisions respectively and play only 3 Cross over games, and the B-12, with 10 total teams (no divisions), play a round robin schedule, meaning each team plays the other nine teams in the league. Stanford lost their Bowl Game to TCU, 39-37, a team that they have a better ARR then, the Cardinal ARR is 25.5 while TCU is 29.9!
• Washington is the 2nd best recruiting program in the P-12’s North Division, with an ARR @ 24.0. Last year, the Huskies had an identical record to Stanford (7-2) but lost their head to head battle with Cardinal, 30-22, so were left out of the P-12 Championship Game! Washington lost the Fiesta Bowl to Penn State, 35-28, a team that has a better ARR that the Huskies; PSU 13.4 / Washington 24.0!
• Washington State, by their ARR @ 49.3, equals 1-4 in divisional play and then depending on cross over games, the Cougars could be in for a long season! Yet they finished at 6-3 in 2017; surprising, since the Cougars only recruit better then 2 P-12 teams, Oregon State, in their division and Colorado, out of the South Division. The good news is they do draw Colorado in 2018 and OSU is an annual occurrence. That said, those two encounters will be the only P-12 games where WSU will have the better roster (vs Colorado & Oregon State). The remaining 7 conference opponents will have better rosters! WSU took on Michigan State (MSU ARR 27.0 to WSU 49.3) in the Holiday Bowl, a 42-17 loss to the Spartans!
• Oregon has the best roster in the P-12 North Division and based on their ARR talent & cross over games, should win the division. Only 2 programs in the South Division (P-12) recruit better than the Ducks, USC with an ARR of 5.5 and UCLA at 15.8. Oregon only draws UCLA out of the south in 2018. That means when considering the respective rosters of their opponents, that the Ducks will be favored in 8 of their 9 contest in conference play! That, coupled with their non-conference schedule being somewhat of a joke ( Bowling Green, Portland State, & San Jose State} the Ducks should go 11-1 in the regular season and play for the P-12 Championship (vs USC) and have a punchers shot at the CFP! In 2017, Oregon lost the Las Vegas Bowl to Boise State, 38-28, a Group of 5 (G5) team that I will assign an ARR # in the next couple of weeks. That said, their is no doubt that Oregon will have a better (lower) ARR number than Boise!
• California has the 4th best roster in the Noth Division of the P-12! Cal was pretty much according to Hoyle in 2017, they should have beaten Washington State, they did, 37-3 and Oregon State, they did, 37-23. They should have lost to Oregon, 45-24, Washington, 38-7, & Stanford, 17 14 … and they did! Their cross over games were against USC, 30-20, UCLA 30-27, Arizona, 45-44, their ARR number predicted these games would all be losses and that is exactly what happened! The only game that was outside the predictor was the Colorado game, the Golden Bears should have won that one, they did not, a 44-28 loss!
• Oregon State is a mess, they are last in the P-12 in recruiting and recruit better than only 6 P5 programs nationally, Wake Forest (ACC), Purdue (B-10), Kansas State (B-12), BYU (IND), Boston College (ACC), & Kansas (B-12). From an ARR perspective, they were perfect in 2017, losing to all 9 P-12 teams and to 2 FBS opponents, Minnesota, 48-14 &  Colorado State, 58-27. The only game they did win was against a FCS team, Portland State (Big Sky Conference), 35-32, a game their roster predicted they would win! So … a perfect mess!

South Division

P-12 final Standings 2017      /     Recruiting projected Standings for 2018

 P-12 Record in 2017                             P-12 ARR 2015 – 2018

1. USC 8-1                                        1) USC ARR 5.5
2. Arizona State 6-3                           2) UCLA ARR 15.8
3. Arizona 5-4                                   3) Utah ARR 39.1
4. UCLA 4-5                                      4) Arizona State ARR 39.2
5. Utah 3-6                                       5) Arizona ARR 46.2
6. Colorado 0-9                                 6) Colorado ARR 56.0

• Southern Cal did not play a team in 2017 regular season that their current ARR was not better than and with the lone exception of Notre Dame (yet still better than the Irish), the Trojan ARR was significantly superior to all of their other opponents. They lost one P-12 game in 2017, to Washington State, 30-27, that simply put, their roster should not have allowed. Injuries to their OL were a factor, but their superior ARR # should have carried the day. They won the South Division as their recruiting suggested they would and then beat the North Division champ, Stanford, 31-28, to claim the P-12 Championship. Their lost  to ND, 49-14, was to much to overcome, the CFP Committee seemed unable to get past that lop-sided performance and as a result, SC did not make the CFP in 2017. Instead, they were invited to the Cotton Bowl, where, they again, performed according Hoyle, losing to Ohio State (ARR 3.9), 24-7.  OSU was in a similar situation to SC, failing to overcome a blowout lost to Iowa, 55-24, which like USC’s one-sided loss to the Irish, resulted in the committee passing on the Bucks! Neither the P-12 or B-10 champ made the CFP!
• UCLA, as measured by their roster, should have gone 8-1 in 2017, not 4-5, which in no small part, explains why their coach, Jim Mora, was fired!  One could say, I wouldn’t, but one could say that Mora recruited himself out of his job! The Bruins played 2 teams with a better ARR than themselves, Texas A&M (ARR 14.3 to UCLA 15.8), The Bruins won that game, 45-44 (2017’s best comeback?) and USC, a 28-23 loss! UCLA then lost to Kansas State, in the Cactus Bowl, 35-17, a team from the B-12, that has an ARR score of 63.8 compared to UCLA 15.8. Enter Chip Kelly!
• Utah underachieved in 2017, but not by much, as they had roster that is/was inferior to USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, & Stanford, they were only able to overcome ARR #’s once, vs UCLA, a 48-17 win!  So by the numbers, they should have gone 4-5 in 17 not 3-6. The Utes win over UCLA was countered and then some, by losing to WSU, 33-25 & ASU, 30-10, games that their ARR says they should have won! Utah won the Heart of Dallas Bowl over West Virginia, 30-14, the P-12’s only win in the Bowl season. This was a ‘pick em’ game as Utah ARR 39.1 while WV’s is 40.4!
• Arizona State? Life can be a funny old dog, just ask, Todd Graham, who was 46-32 @ ASU in 6 seasons, 5 bowls (2-3 in bowl games) and exceeded expectations according to ARR in 2017, by going 6-3, finishing 2nd in the South Division, and his Sun Devils beat Washington, 13-7 and Oregon, 37-35!  Graham was fired! Hard to figure … Enter Herm Edwards! This is going to be, I believe, one of, if not the #1 most scrutinized coaching changes of the 2018 season!
• Arizona should have finished have finished 3-6, if one were to determine games just by roster, not the 5-4 record they earned in 2017! Rich Rodriguez was fired at the season’s end for on and off the field concerns. Arizona beat UCLA, 47-30 and Cal, 45-44, one program that recruits significantly better than the Wildcats and California, whose ARR is almost identical, Arizona @ 46.2 while Cal’s is 46.4! Enter, Kevin Sumlin, the former coach at Texas A&M!
• Colorado’s Mike MacIntyre’s seat is getting hot, the Buffs were 2-7 last year  and they are the ranked 9 of 10 in P-12 recruiting, with an ARR of 56.0. They did slightly overachieve by going 2-7 as their roster suggested they should be 1-8, having ARR # better than only Oregon State in the P-12. The Buffs did not win a south division game, they beat Oregon State , 36-33 and upset California, 44-28. Both of these teams are from the north division.