2012 Big Ten Recruiting Class Rankings: The Inaugural

the comment was meant to be a correction to Tim's statement that OSU has the "greatest number of commits" and not as a suggestion that PSU should be ranked higher.

actually looks like a long snapper. 

does being reckless or negligent enough to have practice filmed by a student in severe enough weather that actually kills the student count as doing something so stupid? 

BK still having a job despite his obvious stupidity  with the death of a student at ND amazes me. 

Have you seen Clemson's recruiting classes?  They're getting pretty good.  Last year on rivals they were #8.  They have talent there.

Have you seen Clemson's results?  They've win ~7-9 games a year.

Florida State's last 4 recruiting classes have been top 10.  Last 5 years they've have 3 7-6 seasons, a 9-4 and a 10-4.  With the kind of talent they have, they should have been in contention for the national title every year.

Notre Dame has the potential to be a great team as soon as next year.

Your first point depends on your definition of relevant.

Aside from ND's tradition and history + academics and community that draws recruits, ND's recruiting track record over the last 10 years is a little more nuanced:

Davie was able to recruit because the success Holtz had was in the not too distant past.  He also had some excellent recruiters on his staff like Urban Meyer, Greg Mattison, Charlie Strong (for a couple years),  and Steve Addazio.  Davie wasn't a bad recruiter himself.

Willingham had one great class (2003) off the heals of an 8-0 start (plus the hype that came along with it, see SI cover).  His recruiting quickly fell off, the 2004 class was far and away the worst in ND's history and the 2005 class he was putting together wasn't much better before he got canned.  Willingham was an awful recruiter and didn't work very hard at it and the results bear that out.

Weis went to BCS bowls his first two years which he was able to sell,  plus he was personally a very good recruiter and had a lot of hype off his success with the Patriots.  His recruiting wasn't flawless though, in multiple classes he left major holes like the DL in 2006-07, DB in 2009-10, and not taking a QB in 2009.  These misses really hurt him (and Kelly last year).  A few guys on his staff could recruit but he also had a lot of dead weight that really hurt (see Tenuta, John).

Kelly had the hype of his previous success at Cincy, he's a very good recruiter and has a great recruiting staff, he also has a better recruiting plan than Weis ever did and understands how to manage a program, and lastly beating USC and Miami to end the year really helped.

I do.

How did MSU get so lucky as to have their "protected rivaly" game be against the perennial bottom feeder Hoosiers? That's a guaranteed conference win every year for Sparty.

Add into that the fact that MSU hasn't played OSU the last two seasons, will be the only Big 10 team that gets to play OSU without the Tat 5 and I can only conclude that St. Mark of EL has made a Faustian deal with the Devil to ensure MSU appears to be a good program.

The trophy case seems so empty when the spittoon is lost.

Of course, as an Indiana alum, I know that the football trophy case is in fact largely empty. There is an old oaken bucket in it this year, though. 

The Buckeyes only have 12 graduating seniors on scholarship. Per the depth chart by class, Michigan has 15 (with  scholarship currently unused, whereas OSU is at 85. I also presume, unlike Brian, that Kovacs's scholarship is year-to-year and he's OK with that, which would mean possibly 2 unused scholarships). 

Also, since OSU is going to skim the top talent and Michigan is going to get the second tier either way in this hypothetical, OSU's scholarship numbers matter to a greater degree than Michigan's (i.e. it's better for Michigan to get Ohio recruits #13-20 than #17-24, ragrdless of how many scholarships Michigan has).

Lane Kiffin has expertly lied to recruits, and told them all that the NCAA will overturn every penalty they've levied on the Trojans. Since the penalties don't apply until the appeals are completed, it helped him land a huge class last year.

Once the NCAA upholds the penalties (which, they'd be absolutely insane not to), USC is going to sink into a very, very deep hole.

This is not really what happened at all. Justin always wanted to go to Ohio State to be with his friends, and Lloyd used Bo to guilt him into coming to Michigan, essentially. Once Bo died and Lloyd left, he didn't feel any obligation to stay (and it didn't hurt that Lloyd told him OSU might be a better fit).

When RR wouldn't let him miss winter conditioning to go home to Columbus and drive a snowplow for his dad's company, that was the final straw. "Family values" was never an actual reason he left, for the most part, just an excuse/parting shot on the way out.