Dave Matter quantifies the talent shortage at Big 10 schools by using recruiting rankings.
Dave also makes a good point that recruiting rankings mostly show who is being recruited the most heavily, not who the best players are going to be. But it's important to remember that during the recruitment process, a player's ability to play is a random variable with a mean and a variance. Recruiting interest is going to correlate positively with the player's ability to play, even if it doesn't explain all deviations from the mean fully.
Sorry to say, but the history of Big 10 incompetence in bowl games predates the BCS. I recall too many Rose Bowl games during the 1970s when USC would best either tOSU or U-M.
When it comes to ranking conferences by NFL picks, I'd put the B10/11 against anyone. But that just shows that excellent individual players don't always make excellent teams. For example, tOSU, under John Cooper (1990s) consistently churned out NFL first-round picks. But Coop could never beat Michigan (his record was 2-11-1 or something dismal), let alone achieve the very top of D-IA football.
I'm amused at the thought that there is "a completely objective concept in the first place — doling out national rankings to thousands of high school players from coast to coast."
Objective? Can't see it. Even if you use numbers such as TD/INT ratios for QBs, there is much about a player's performance that can't be objectively evaluated.
Posted by: John | July 10, 2009 at 02:15 PM