Can Michigan overcome the data? Takeaways from the Team Talent Composite
Recruiting exceptionally well doesn’t guarantee you will have a great team worthy of winning a national title. But recruiting poorly guarantees you won’t win it all.
That’s the part of the “stars matter” mantra that constantly gets overlooked, but it’s essential to understanding the importance of recruiting well in this game. College football is complicated. Coaching, development, culture and team chemistry are all very important factors when it comes time for a team to be great. Nobody has ever argued against that.
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But there is so much value in the raw data. The teams with the most good players win the most. That has been proven time and time again in the nearly 25 years of the modern recruiting era.
Our friends at 247Sports released their Team Talent Composite rankings Wednesday.
These are the 10 most talented teams in college football. What stands out to you?
— 247Sports (@247Sports) August 30, 2023
Here are some thoughts that jumped out to me after looking at the data:
• It should come as no surprise to anyone who follows college football recruiting that Alabama ranks No. 1 in total talent this year. Nick Saban has been a recruiting machine for more than a decade. Yet, somehow Alabama comes into this season as a pesky underdog. None of The Athletic’s national writers picked Alabama to make the College Football Playoff even though the Crimson Tide simply have better players than anyone else in the country. How is that possible? It’s because there are far too many questions about Alabama’s offense. Given what we know about the quarterback situation and the lack of proven big-time wide receivers, the only way you could pick Alabama to win the national title is by blind faith. You have to just assume Saban will figure it out with this many good players on his roster.
I’m not willing to do that. Alabama was loaded with talent a year ago and had Bryce Young — one of the best players in the sport — and still failed to make the College Football Playoff.
This may sound strange coming from me — someone who constantly screams “stars matter!” from the highest mountaintops — but it has been proven over and over that just having the most talent isn’t enough. The Tide still may win the national title because they have a genius for a coach and better players than everyone else — it’s just hard to pick them to do it right now.
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• Michigan is a trendy pick to win the national title — and three of our national writers tabbed the Wolverines to make the Playoff — despite ranking No. 14 in team talent. That’s a big hill to climb.
If your gut reaction is to say, “Clemson did it, so can Michigan,” consider this: Clemson ranked No. 9 in the Team Talent Composite in 2016 and No. 6 in 2018. The Tigers were also led by Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence at quarterback during those years.
There has always been a debate about development and how that can trump recruiting stars. Jim Harbaugh has been as good as any coach in the country at this in recent years. And Harbaugh, in a story by our Bruce Feldman, said he believes the Wolverines could have as many as 20 players selected in the upcoming NFL Draft. If that happens and J.J. McCarthy plays his way into being one of the best draft prospects at quarterback, there is a real chance Michigan wins it all. That is especially true in a year in which teams like Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State are breaking in new quarterbacks.
It’s going to be hard to pull off, though. Michigan has already proven it can beat Ohio State, but are the Wolverines built to beat the Buckeyes, win the Big Ten Championship Game and two Playoff games? If they are, they would be the first team outside of the top 10 in the Team Talent Composite to win it all.
• Ohio State ranks No. 3 overall, but its average player rating is 93.32 (second behind Alabama). Translation: The average player on Ohio State’s roster is a four-star prospect who would rank in the top 100 nationally in most years. In 2018, when Ohio State was ranked No. 1 in team talent, its average player rating was lower (92.89). That means two things. First, Ohio State has an absolutely loaded roster. Secondly, it means the top three teams in the rankings (Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State) have hoarded more talent between the three of them than ever before. The talent disparity is getting more and more lopsided at the top, which makes it even more difficult to draw comparisons to the way the games played out as recently as 10 years ago.
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I made sure to put this point directly under the Michigan analysis. That’s what I mean when I’ve said on podcasts that Ohio State is better equipped to win a national title than the Wolverines even though I’m picking Michigan to win the Big Ten this year. Make no mistake about it: Ohio State has a Michigan problem. That’s what makes this year’s version of the rivalry so interesting. It’s going to pit two of the nation’s best teams against each other, but it’s also going to be yet another opportunity for Michigan to prove that its roster is stronger than the data suggests.
• Texas A&M lost more than 20 players in the transfer portal after last season, and almost all of those players were former blue-chip prospects. Because of that, there has been this notion that the Aggies are coming into this season as a wounded version of themselves. That’s not true. For the second consecutive season, Texas A&M ranks in the top five in the talent rankings. How is that possible? Well, Texas A&M signed 18 top-100 players — you read that right — in the 2022 cycle, which is still the best recruiting class of all time.
That means the Aggies have a chance to shock some people this year. Yes, Texas A&M has underachieved time and time again. It’s OK to expect them to do that again. But with one of the deepest defensive lines in the country, an emerging quarterback in Conner Weigman and receivers like Evan Stewart, Ainias Smith and Moose Muhammad, this team could be dangerous. New coordinator Bobby Petrino certainly has the pieces to fix Texas A&M’s offense. This is a nice reminder that Texas A&M is built far more like Georgia than it is Mississippi State.
• Florida State is another trendy pick to make some noise this year — and it should be. It’s been a pleasure to watch what Mike Norvell has done with the Seminoles. Who isn’t excited to watch quarterback Jordan Travis fire off passes to Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson this year? Behind a much-improved offensive line, Florida State is going to score a ton.
But should Florida State be the team to beat in the ACC? Probably not.
I’ve been one of the most vocal voices in warning that Clemson’s reign at the top could be coming to an end in the near future because the recruiting results have been slipping. A year ago, Clemson signed the No. 14 class in the country. But the Tigers are still loaded. Yes, Clemson has concerns at receiver and, like at Alabama, we’re still waiting to see which offensive playmakers can step up and win the Tigers a game. But if Cade Klubnik takes that next step at quarterback, Clemson is going to be a tough team for anyone to beat in the ACC. The Florida State-Clemson game is being played in Clemson this year.
• I’ve already written a column illustrating the reasons I believe Texas is going to make the Playoff this year. We knew the Longhorns were going to be more talented than anyone in the Big 12, but seeing them check in at No. 6 is an indication of how dangerous Texas could be if things click. Like Texas A&M, Texas has constantly let its fans down. People just automatically expect the Longhorns to fail because that is what they do. But the data and the circumstances line up really well for Texas to finally make its run under Steve Sarkisian.
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• It’s important to keep in mind that these talent rankings are far more revelatory for what it means in the national title race than they are for teams listed between No. 20 and No. 40. The line is blurred so much more between those 20 spots than it is for the teams with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to total talent.
• Colorado has been a source of major intrigue in the offseason because of Deion Sanders and his massive roster flip. We’re still waiting to see what the final product looks like when Colorado takes the field against TCU this weekend, but there is no question the Buffaloes have upgraded their talent level tremendously since Sanders’ arrival. Colorado ranks No. 35 in total talent heading into this year, which is sixth-best in the Pac-12. Last year, Colorado ranked No. 63. That’s a dramatic facelift.
Though nobody is expecting Colorado to compete for a Pac-12 title, the improvement on paper is stark. That makes me think the Buffaloes have a better chance to surprise some people this year than I thought two days ago.
• Florida ranks No. 15. Miami is No. 12. Neither of these teams is expected to compete for a championship this season, but I can’t help but mention how much of an eye-sore it is to see both of them outside of the top 10.
(Photo of J.J. McCarthy: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
