Yes, but WHO makes up this flood of recruits.
We have enough data to know recruiting services have continuously gotten better at ranking high school players, and that recruiting is largely a game of probability.
Top 50 players are more likely to yield exceptional starters, and at worst solid contributors. Top 100 players are highly likely to yield very good starters, possible exceptional staters, and, at worst, contributors. You can do this on down the line, with a drop off around the 250 mark. You get beyond 250 and it’s more or less like playing the lottery.
The reason Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, and Clemson are good year after year is because of the total number of top 250 players they bring in each cycle. They are, simply put, just statistically more likely to bring in starter level players in each class because they are getting the guys with the highest ceilings and the lowest floors.
In the classes that drove South Carolina’s success under Spurrier, 2007 - 2012, you’re looking at around 30 top 250 players over that 6 year cycle— with a handful of top 50 guys who hit as exceptional.
Muschamp did about half that in his 5 years, with the jury largely out on his three top 50 guys.
To date, Beamer has landed exactly one top 250 recruit. There is absolutely nothing to be excited about on that front at the moment.
