Mack Brown's Texas squads were consistently near the top of the recruiting rankings, but an inability to live up to those rankings led to his dismissal; Photo: USA Today Sports
Recruiting has become a huge part of college football and a huge factor in how successful football teams are in this day and age. I thought it would be interesting to look back at the last four years by comparing the composite team recruiting rankings at 247 Sports with the final AP polls for the same years.
Can you guess the teams that underachieved versus expectations based on their recruiting rankings and those that overachieved?
Here are the results:
The Top 10 Underachievers
| School | AP Avg Rank | Recruiting Avg Rank | Diff |
| #1 Tennessee | 50* | 14 | -36 |
| #2 Miami (FL) | 50* | 16 | -34 |
| #3 Texas | 37 | 4 | -33 |
| #4 (tie) Washington/Cal | 47/50 | 19/22 | -28 |
| #5 Florida | 26 | 2 | -24 |
| #6 USC | 21 | 5 | -16 |
| #7 Michigan | 27 | 12 | -15 |
| #8 UCLA | 31 | 18 | -13 |
| #9 (tie) Georgia/Nebraska | 20/33 | 8/21 | -12 |
| #10 West Virginia | 45 | 35 | -10 |
* for the teams that failed to finish in the final AP Top 25 in any season from 2010-2013, a rank of 50 (which is generous for some of these teams) was given to these teams for calculations purposes. Teams that finished with an avg recruiting ranking outside of the Top 25 (Ole Miss, UNC, Penn State, Texas Tech, Rutgers and Virginia) were kept off the list although a good arguement could be made for their inclusion.
The Top 10 Overachievers**
| School | AP Avg Rank | Recruiting Avg Rank | Difference |
| #1 Boise State | 12 | 61 | +49 |
| #2 UCF | 25 | 62 | +37 |
| #3 (tie) Kansas State/Wisconsin | 23/13 | 59/49 | +36 |
| #4 TCU | 15 | 38 | +23 |
| #5 Michigan State | 9 | 31 | +22 |
| #6 Stanford | 3 | 23 | +20 |
| #7 (tie) Missouri/Oklahoma State | 18/11 | 36/29 | +18 |
| #8 (tie) Louisville/South Carolina | 24/5 | 39/20 | +15 |
| #9 Oregon | 1 | 13 | +12 |
| #10 Baylor | 22 | 33 | +11 |
**a school had to finish in the Top 25 a minimum of twice over the last four years to be considered
