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With National Signing Day on Wednesday, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the rankings of all of the Big 12 schools and where they are in relation to each other. Here are the three sources (and these figures are obviously moving targets, but were finalized as of Monday morning at 5:00 a.m., hopefully they haven't changed all that much):
I didn't use ESPN because I couldn't find where their class rankings weren't behind a paywall, otherwise they would have been included as well. And as you'll note, there are two numbers there, the first number is how each recruiting service ranked that team and the second number, in parenthesis, is the average player rating. In some instances, the rating his higher than another team ahead of them, but each recruiting service has a point system, which is great for them, but maybe not that meaningful for comparison purposes.
| 24/7 Sports | Rivals | Scout | Average | |
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1 (88.48) | 1 (3.24) | 2 (3.43) | 1.33 |
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2 (86.75) | 2 (3.18) | 4 (3.13) | 2.67 |
 |
4 (85.32) | 3 (2.93) | 1 (3.26) | 2.67 |
 |
3 (85.08) | 4 (2.92) | 3 (3.15) | 3.33 |
 |
5 (84.14) | 5 (2.81) | 5 (2.96) | 5.00 |
 |
6 (85.07) | 6 (2.90) | 7 (2.95) | 6.33 |
 |
7 (83.93) | 7 (2.83) | 9 (2.84) | 7.67 |
 |
8 (83.55) | 10 (2.57) | 6 (2.95) | 8.00 |
 |
9 (82.61) | 9 (2.54) | 8 (2.71) | 8.67 |
 |
10 (82.83) | 8 (2.64) | 10 (2.50) | 9.33 |
The thing that always jumps out at me when I look at these tables is how thin the margin is between the top of the heap and those in the middle, especially in terms of average player rating. It makes me think that Bill Snyder and K-State, who are known for taking less than awesome recruits, and making winning, is pretty comparable to what Texas Tech or West Virginia or some of these other schools. The takeaway for me is that Kansas St.'s recruits really aren't all that different than Texas Tech's.
I'm also surprised how well Dana Holgorsen and West Virginia have done. They tend to recruit in different places, so I don't get to keep up with them that much, but Holgorsen has done a pretty fantastic job after having a tough year on the field.
The most interesting ranking is TCU, which is anywhere between 6th and 10th, depending on the service. That's a pretty wide range for even the experts to disagree, especially since everything is marginalized a bit with the point totals. Scout has TCU's average stars right with Texas Tech and West Virginia, while Rivals has them pretty much at the bottom.
You'll hear different fanbases criticize each recruiting service depending if they have an affiliate or where they are ranked, which is why taking a look at things from a global perspective is helpful and let's you know that these classes aren't that far off in terms of talent.
I also encourage you to take a look at the overall rankings while you are taking the time to review the Big 12. Quite frankly, the Big 12 is performing poorly according to the experts and I don't say that with any malice. As said before, there is something to the fact that Alabama is usually playing for national championships and they usually have the best class. I don't think that's a coincidence. You can find the national 24/7 Sports, Rivals and Scout rankings and the top 15 or so are filled with teams not in the Big 12. Mainly dominated by SEC teams along with Ohio St., Notre Dame, Florida St. and Miami making appearances.
