2016 Recruiting Reviews: Power 5 & ND

After previewing each of the power five conferences, a look across the land at program's success over the past four classes, talent levels, and how they match up to the Irish. All rankings from 247 Sports' Composite rankings, 4 year composites calculated weighting the most recent classes most heavily - 40% (2016), 30% (2015), 20% (2014), 10% (2013).

Quick Hits

• In the weighted 4-year composite, Notre Dame ranks 13^th nationally after signing good but not great classes the past two seasons (weighted at 40% and 30% for '16 and '15 classes). On signing day there's all kinds of hand-wringing and headlines over a "Top 10" class or if a team drops from #9 to #14. But these margins are razor thin over four years much less one - a good camp showing here that raises a three-star recruit to a four, signing a few more three-star recruits per year, or just having slightly higher rated 4-star signees.
• A few more ELITE signings would boost the Irish cleanly up into the upper echelon with Auburn, Georgia, and USC. The Irish actually have the 4^th highest blue chip percentage (behind only Bama, LSU, and USC), and have signed the 4^th most blue chip players in number (59) as well. But Brian Kelly has pulled in only two composite five-star players over the past four seasons, tied for 14^th best.
• Signing less players relative to other programs has also hurt Notre Dame's rankings a bit - the Irish have signed 94 players over the past four classes. The 12 programs ranked ahead of ND in the four-year composite have signed an average of 98 players over the same time period, with seven signing over 103.
• Doing more with less alert: Utah, Duke, Iowa (in 2015 at least), and Oklahoma State. The Utes and Blue Devils signed strong classes by their standard; the Hawkeyes and Cowboys couldn't capitalize on a combined 22 wins.
• Doing less with more: UGA (27-11 the past three seasons despite top 10 classes every year), UCLA, Penn State, and Texas. One thing to note for teams like the Longhorns and Miami - these rankings take into account classes signed, but not attrition from transfers, suspensions, or career-ending injuries.
• And on shutout watch: Wake Forest and Boston College were the only two programs that have not signed a single blue-chip recruit in the past four years.

Conference Comparisons:

Overall there's a lot of parity between the power five conferences, with one glaring exception: the SEC. The "average" class for each of the major conferences:

It's remarkable what an advantage many of these SEC schools have, but to play devil's advocate, why haven't more of these schools been able to put it all together and be more successful? This questions is most relevant to the SEC East, where despite strong performances on the recruiting trail, there hasn't been a real title contender since Georgia in 2012.

Any other impressions looking at the results for each power five team and Notre Dame? Drop a line in the comments below.