The RecruitingNation staff was given the assignment of ranking every Power 5 conference job by ease or difficulty on the recruiting trail. It seemed an easy exercise at first because some schools have advantages others don't, especially when it comes to facilities and geography. That's how Georgia, Ohio State and Texas emerged as the top teams in the rankings. But as the staff continued to dig deeper, it became clear that as many as seven teams could make a legitimate case for the top spot in the ranking and that the middle of the pack featured a number programs difficult to place.
We take you behind the scenes of the discussion among RecruitingNation writers and scouts Jeremy Crabtree, Gerry Hamilton, Craig Haubert, Tom Luginbill, Erik McKinney Derek Tyson and Tom VanHaaren to give you a look at why Georgia finished on top and why nobody was surprised Boston College finished last.
Jeremy Crabtree (@JeremyCrabtree): Don't forget: For this exercise, we're assuming each job is vacant, and we're judging the ease of recruiting on the basis of the job being a blank canvas for a new staff. We can't use factors such as "Alabama is a great job because Nick Saban is a great recruiter" or "Oregon is attractive to quarterbacks and receivers because of their offensive scheme." We've been tasked with ranking each of the 65 teams by favorable recruiting geography, recruiting budget, facilities that will attract recruits, next-level considerations and other intangibles such as winning tradition, game-day experience and academics.
To me, there's a group of schools that immediately jump out high on the list in all those categories, but I'm interested in which school got your vote for No. 1.
Derek Tyson (@DerekTysonESPN): Georgia was on top on my list for a number of reasons. For one, the talent base in Georgia is unbelievable. We've seen that. They have a different type of in-state competition with Georgia Tech because Georgia Tech recruits a totally different type of player than Georgia does. Competition in the state really comes from outsiders. The facilities are good and getting better. Georgia just announced a $30 million dollar indoor practice facility and some other things. All the tools for Georgia to win big and win quickly are there. The money is there. Obviously, Alabama is there too, but if Nick Saban weren't there, would the Tide have had the type of recruiting success we have seen?
Craig Haubert (@CraigHaubert): My No. 1 was Alabama. A lot of it has to do with a financial situation, along with the history. I know the Tide might not be as over-the-top with facilities as some, but they have a budget that can't be matched. They also score high on sending players to the NFL and winning championships. Also, if you go back and look at the state of Alabama through the years -- and I know we talk about Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Texas, but as far as players panning out -- the state of Alabama has been as good as any in the country.
Tom VanHaaren (@TomVH): Ohio State was No. 1 in the Big Ten, and it ranked high nationally for all the same reasons it was on top in the conference. You look at the state of Ohio and the type of prospect Ohio State can get. Kids in Ohio don't just love Ohio State -- they also hate Michigan. They're born that way. You've got such a great breeding ground right there that you can pluck. They also have the best facilities in the Big Ten, have a long history with the NFL and the academics help push them up there too. You look at the past two coaches now, Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer. They've both showed it doesn't really matter who the coach is there. You can recruit and win at Ohio State, no matter who the coach is.
Jeremy Crabtree: Many of those reasons Tom mentioned with Ohio State were why Texas got my vote. To me, it's the best job in college football because it's right in the middle of the best hotbed for talent in the country. Like Darrell Royal used to say, "It's not about the X's and O's. It's about the Jimmys and Joes," and there's a whole lot of those within a stone's throw of Austin. Then when you add in the quality academics, the facilities, winning tradition, fan support and all the other intangibles, Texas came out on top for me.
Erik McKinney (@EMcKinneyESPN): For me, USC is one of those jobs where you can come in as a new coach off a two-win, three-win season and win in recruiting quickly. You're always going to get the best kid in L.A. just because you're at USC. You can go get that kid and really almost all of the top kids in the city without much competition. The talent is just there at your fingertips at USC, and the track record shows they're going to get their shot in the NFL too because of the number of pros that end up coming from California.
Gerry Hamilton (@HamiltonESPN): Since we're just talking about recruiting jobs, I think a job can have a perfect score. Why can't it? We're not talking about running the program, installing systems, dealing with ADs and presidents. We're just talking from a straight recruiting standpoint. I think you can make the argument for six or seven schools getting scores way up there. There are some schools, such as Georgia, Ohio State, Texas, Alabama, USC, Florida and LSU, that have everything at their disposal that every other school in the country doesn't have.
Jeremy Crabtree: So which schools were the biggest surprises on the list for you guys?
Erik McKinney: I felt Oklahoma at 10 was a surprise. From talking to kids from California who take trips out there, it's one of those places where you get off the plane and you know pretty quickly if it's not going to work. Just hearing from enough kids that they get there, and it is like, "No way. I don't think that's going to be for me." South Carolina not being in the top 30 was a little bit of a surprise to me. With the recruiting base over there, that was a little bit of a surprise. I could also see Arizona State moving up once it puts new facilities in. I can see that being a school that, if we do this in a couple years, moves up the list.
Tom VanHaaren: Rutgers is really hard for me to gauge because it has so many problems right now. But if we're supposed to just look at the recruiting stuff and take away all the other stuff, that job has a lot of potential. I talked to a lot of high school coaches in New Jersey during their job search, and it was almost like everybody was hoping they would make a really good hire or just do something to inspire those kids to stay home. There are so many kids who could stay home.
Derek Tyson: The order wasn't too bad, in my opinion. I look at Kentucky, and is Kentucky really 16 spots lower than Louisville? I don't necessarily see that, especially since it has done a lot of renovations and upgrades to the stadium.
Craig Haubert: I thought Cal (No. 27) was a bit high, especially in comparison to North Carolina (No. 32). I think North Carolina is one of the most underrated recruiting jobs in the country. If you look past the troubles they've had recently with NCAA stuff, every year you ask yourself, "Wow, how is North Carolina still recruiting so well?" It's because of the setting Carolina is in.
Tom Luginbill (@TomLuginbill): Utah jumps out to me. It's another place where they can get anybody into school, it's an unbelievable location, there's a high Polynesian population within the state, they quickly adapted to a Power 5 conference, and they have great facilities. To me, with recruiting prowess, I would have put Utah between Virginia Tech (No. 35) and Missouri (No. 46). The other one that jumps out to me is Michigan (No. 9). In today's recruiting world, I don't know how that's a top-10 team. The stadium is phenomenal, but the game-day atmosphere, unless it's a night game, is very much a golf crowd. The Midwest player pool isn't as strong on a whole. I thought Michigan, in the current state of where college football is right now, without Jim Harbaugh factored in, would maybe be closer to 12 or 15.
Jeremy Crabtree: Were there any surprises among the teams that finished among the bottom of the list?
Gerry Hamilton: Boston College should be last on the list. There aren't any players at all up there, and it's an extremely hard sell for kids from other parts of the country. What got me with Duke was how hard it is academically, and even with improvements with facilities, it still doesn't rank on the same level with its competition. The job David Cutcliffe has done, considering how hard of a recruiting job it has been traditionally, is kind of amazing to me.
Erik McKinney: Anybody in the bottom 25 and doing well, it's absolutely a huge compliment to the coaching staff. Utah and Oregon State, for example, are not beating big-time schools to get those kids, and three years later, they're All Pac-12. But all the programs at the bottom need on-field momentum to put together good recruiting classes.
Jeremy Crabtree: Of the criteria with which we ranked each school, which was the toughest to evaluate?
Tom VanHaaren: At what point are you kind of splitting hairs with facilities? A lot of these programs have a lot of the same stuff. Some of them have really cool stuff that attracts kids, and some of them are behind, but at some point, you're splitting hairs, and everybody has something facility-wise to make these kids successful on the next level.
Gerry Hamilton: It's not who has great facilities or really good facilities because the ones that have all the cool things are programs that have won a lot lately. It's the programs that don't have facilities compared to their recruiting competition. The easiest program to look at now is Miami. The Hurricanes are still going to get great players, but they still have two players to a dorm room. That stuff matters to kids nowadays. They have one of the worst stadium [situations] imaginable in college football. I look at it less from who has great facilities and more as who doesn't. That's what matters to recruits.
Derek Tyson: You really had to look deeper when looking at the school's recruiting budget. If you're Florida, you might not spend nearly as much as a Missouri or somebody who has to go travel to get these recruits. At Florida, they come to you a lot of times, so you don't have to spend nearly as much money. I tried to take that into consideration. You look at Auburn's $1.2 million recruiting budget compared to Florida's $600,000, and at first, you're like, "Wow, that's significantly more." But at the same time, Florida has the in-state talent all around, so it doesn't have to spend as much. That was something really difficult to judge on a case-by-case basis.