If you don’t read Bill Connolly’s Varsity Numbers on the Football Outsiders site, shame on you. (It’s linked, in case you’re looking.) He’s one of the best out there on the statistical analysis front, he writes well and he’s got great taste in music, to boot.
His most recent post is on a subject near and dear to my heart, a macro analysis of recruiting and team success. Or, at least a start in that direction.
Recruiting success and on-field success are a chicken-or-egg concept. One leads to the other, which leads back to the other, but which came first in the process? Can you succeed at the highest level without great recruiting? Can you recruit consistently well over a period of years without succeeding at a high level on the field? The causation is too complicated to determine, but there is a correlation discussion that I think can take place, and I’m trying to get it started.
Go read it. I’m not going to quote it at length, because you really need to go through the whole thing yourself, particularly his second chart and the conclusions he draws from the data. Good stuff.
Get The Picture 