A simple chart tracking a rolling Top 25 avg team recruiting rankings vs. avg final team rankings

ACC

FSU                              2002  2003  2004  2005  2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011      Avg

Recruiting                     #4     #21     #3        #2       #3     #21      #9      #7      #10     #2        8

AP Poll/Congrove       #21   #11     #15     #23     #46   #53     #21    #53     #16    TBD      31

Clemson

Recruiting                  #22    50+    50+      #17    #16    #16    #12     #37     #19      #8         25  

AP Poll/Congrove     #57    #25    #42      #24    #33    #21    #49     #32     #65    TBD        38

UMD 

Recruiting                 #35    #32    #17      #16    #29    #35    #38     #26     #36      #43        31  

AP Poll/Congrove    #13   #23    #63       #66    #32   #64     #46    #110   #23      TBD        41

VT                                                                                                                                            29

                                                                                                                                                 13

While this is not a clear gauge of bowl success, up and down seasons, one thing is clear to me as most will acknowledge:

FSU has mostly under performed these past 10 years, while VT has over performed if we simply go by recruiting and ranking averages. It surprised me how close we were to VT in recruiting ranking average. This shows that the rating of a class is not necessarily important to crack the top 25 consistently.  However, whenever VT gets in that big BCS bowl games, it appears its opponent, usually with higher rated players at many positions, seems to use superior speed and strength to overwhelm imho an over-matched VT team.

Food for thought before everyone complains about our recruiting class - it does matter how a team utilizes its recruits.

http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/2010_archive_computer_rankings.html