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With football signing day having come and gone, I wanted to take a look at Kentucky’s last six recruiting classes to see how the members of those classes performed over the last two seasons — Kentucky’s most successful seasons in decades.

I chose to go all the way back to the 2002 class (Guy Morriss’ last class) because members of that class who redshirted were eligible during Kentucky’s 2006 season. (Plus, the furthest Rivals’* recruiting ranking archives go back is 2002, so that worked out well.)

First, a macro analysis (and I use that word loosely). I want to see where Kentucky’s last six classes rank, where Kentucky’s 2006 and 2007 opponents’ classes rank, and how Kentucky did against those opponents. [Hat tip to SMQ for the inspiration for this. If you want to see something like what’s below, but for all the Bowl Championship Series schools, by all means, click here.] Crappy Word tables and ‘analysis’ after the jump!

Here are Rivals’ rankings for Kentucky’s last six classes:

2002 Rank	2003 Rank	2004 Rank	2005 Rank	2006 Rank	2007 Rank	02-06 Avg.	03-07 Avg.
94	63	45	67	36	54	61	53

Over the last two years, Kentucky played twenty-four games against DI-A schools. The following table lists the opponent,** the average rank of the opponents’ five classes, and the result:

Opponent	2002 Rank	2003 Rank	2004 Rank	2005 Rank	2006 Rank	2007 Rank	02-06 Avg.	2006 Result	03-07 Avg.	2007 Result
Louisville	59	35	64	45	34	41	47	Loss, 59-28	44	Win, 40-34
Ole Miss	33	38	30	30	16	N/A	29	Win, 31-14	N/A	N/A
Florida	20	2	7	15	2	1	9	Loss, 26-7	5	Loss, 45-37
Central Michigan	95	104	108	94	104	N/A	101	Win, 45-36	N/A	N/A
South Carolina	11	8	35	23	24	6	20	Loss, 24-17	19	Loss, 38-23
LSU	15	1	2	22	7	4	9	Loss, 49-0	7	Win, 43-37
Mississippi State	17	9	62	33	44	39	33	Win, 34-31	37	Loss, 31-14
Georgia	3	6	6	10	4	9	6	Win, 24-20	7	Loss, 24-13
Vanderbilt	76	78	66	87	60	67	73	Win, 38-26	72	Win, 27-20
Louisiana-Monroe	86	91	101	103	108	N/A	98	Win, 42-40	N/A	N/A
Tennessee	2	18	11	4	23	3	12	Loss, 17-12	12	Loss, 52-50
Clemson	22	67	53	17	15	N/A	35	Win, 28-20	N/A	N/A
Kent State	N/A	73	113	87	112	101	N/A	N/A	26	Win, 56-20
Arkansas	N/A	29	22	24	26	27	N/A	N/A	26	Win, 42-29
Florida State	N/A	21	3	2	3	21	N/A	N/A	10	Win, 35-28

What does it all mean?

In 2006, Kentucky played nine games against teams with higher-ranked recruiting classes. Kentucky went 4-5 in those games. In 2006 Kentucky played three teams with lower-ranked recruiting classes and won all three of those games.

In 2007, Kentucky again played nine games against teams with higher-ranked recruiting classes and again went 4-5. Kentucky also played three games against teams with lower-ranked classes*** and won those games.

So, in the last two seasons, Kentucky is 8-10 in games against teams with higher-ranked classes and 6-0 against teams with lower-ranked classes.

To further break it down, Kentucky played seven teams with top-10 classes, and went 3-4 in those games. The wins came against Georgia in 2006, and LSU and an admittedly depleted FSU in 2007. Kentucky played eleven games against teams with top-25 classes, and went 3-8 in those games (the wins being the aforementioned three). Kentucky played eighteen games against teams with top-50 recruiting classes and went 8-11. In addition to the Georgia, LSU and FSU wins, Kentucky beat Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Georgia and Clemson in 2007 and Louisville in 2008.

Again, what does it all mean? Well, I’m not sure, but it suggests at least two things: (1) Kentucky’s coaches do a good job of evaluating and developing talent (because they’re regularly beating teams that have supposedly much better talent) and (2) Kentucky’s classes have probably been a bit underrated (same).

*For simplicity’s sake, I’m just using Rivals rather than synthesizing the various rankings out there.

**Note that Florida Atlantic isn’t included because Rivals only has a ranking for the Owls’ classes from 2007 forward.

***I’m going out on a short limb and assuming that had Florida Atlantic’s classes been ranked, they’d be lower than Kentucky’s.

Onward and upward!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Allenby for Heisman!, College Football, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.