Now that the college football season has come to a close it’s time to look at the biggest under and over achievers of the season. This is going to be fairly simple. We’re going to take a look at the combined recruiting rankings for teams over the last 4 years and use that data to find out who is squeezing the most out of their recruits and who is squandering their talent. I know we could go with 5 years of classes to account for redshirts but there are also players that leave early so we’ll just bank on the fact that it should even out. I am going to use Rivals recruiting rankings. If that is a problem for you then rewrite the article using ESPN, Scout, or another service and email it to me.
Let’s first get the top 25 combined 4 year recruiting rankings.
| Rank | Team | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | Average |
| 1 | Alabama | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Texas | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3.25 |
| 3 | USC | 4 | 1 | 4 | 8 | 4.25 |
| 4 | Florida State | 7 | 10 | 2 | 6 | 6.25 |
| 5 | Florida | 11 | 2 | 12 | 3 | 7 |
| 6 | LSU | 2 | 6 | 6 | 18 | 8 |
| 7 | Georgia | 6 | 15 | 5 | 12 | 9.5 |
| 8 | Auburn | 19 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 10 |
| 9 | Ohio State | 3 | 25 | 11 | 4 | 10.75 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | 13 | 7 | 14 | 11 | 11.25 |
| 11 | Tennessee | 10 | 9 | 13 | 17 | 12.25 |
| 12 | Michigan | 8 | 20 | 21 | 7 | 14 |
| 13 | Notre Dame | 21 | 14 | 10 | 20 | 16.25 |
| 14 | Oregon | 32 | 13 | 9 | 16 | 17.5 |
| 15 | South Carolina | 12 | 24 | 18 | 19 | 18.25 |
| 15 | Stanford | 20 | 26 | 22 | 5 | 18.25 |
| 17 | Miami (FL) | 15 | 16 | 36 | 9 | 19 |
| 18 | Clemson | 37 | 19 | 8 | 14 | 19.5 |
| 19 | UCLA | 14 | 8 | 45 | 13 | 20 |
| 20 | Texas A&M | 22 | 17 | 27 | 15 | 20.25 |
| 21 | Nebraska | 28 | 22 | 15 | 25 | 22.5 |
| 22 | California | 42 | 11 | 17 | 23 | 23.25 |
| 23 | Mississippi | 18 | 18 | 19 | 40 | 23.75 |
| 24 | North Carolina | 9 | 29 | 16 | 44 | 24.5 |
| 25 | Virginia Tech | 23 | 23 | 33 | 22 | 25.25 |
Alabama had the #1 four year recruiting class and finished #1 this year. Boring. Let’s look at the top 25 sorted by Overachieveness.
We’ll use the final AP Top 25 poll since it includes Tattoo U.
| Rank | Team | Recruiting Rank | AP Rank | Achieveness |
| 1 | Texas A&M | 20 | 5 | 15 |
| 2 | Oregon | 14 | 2 | 12 |
| 3 | Notre Dame | 13 | 4 | 9 |
| 3 | Stanford | 16 | 7 | 9 |
| 5 | South Carolina | 15 | 8 | 7 |
| 5 | Clemson | 18 | 11 | 7 |
| 7 | Ohio State | 9 | 3 | 6 |
| 8 | Georgia | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| 9 | Alabama | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 10 | Florida | 5 | 9 | -4 |
| 10 | Nebraska | 21 | 25 | -4 |
| 12 | Oklahoma | 10 | 15 | -5 |
| 13 | Florida State | 4 | 10 | -6 |
| 14 | LSU | 6 | 14 | -8 |
| 15 | Michigan | 12 | 24 | -12 |
| 15 | UCLA | 19 | 31 | -12 |
| 17 | Texas | 2 | 19 | -17 |
| 18 | USC | 3 | NR | Trash |
| 18 | Auburn | 8 | NR | Trash |
| 18 | Tennessee | 11 | NR | Trash |
| 18 | Miami (FL) | 17 | NR | Trash |
| 18 | California | 22 | NR | Trash |
| 18 | Mississippi | 23 | NR | Trash |
| 18 | North Carolina | 24 | NR | Trash |
| 18 | Virginia Tech | 25 | NR | Trash |
The Aggies take the top spot of Overachieving. Between this and having the Heisman winner they may want to settle down. Nobody likes a showoff.
Now it’s time to sift through the dumpster and see who was the biggest underachiever this year. Here is the trash sorted by recruiting rank and final record.
| Rank | Team | Recruiting Rank | Record |
| 1 | Auburn | 8 | 3-9 |
| 2 | California | 22 | 3-9 |
| 3 | Tennessee | 11 | 5-7 |
| 4 | USC | 3 | 7-6 |
| 5 | Mississippi | 23 | 7-6 |
| 6 | Virginia Tech | 25 | 7-6 |
| 7 | Miami (FL) | 17 | 7-5 |
| 8 | North Carolina | 24 | 8-4 |
Now you can easily make a case to slide USC up past Tennessee into the 3 slot, maybe even all the way up to the 2 slot since having the combined 3rd ranked recruiting class resulted in a 7-6 season including a bowl loss to a 7-7 Georgia Tech team.
Either way though Auburn was the biggest underachiever of the year. The War Eagle must have been drunk for the season. They went 0-8 in the SEC and failed to beat a BCS conference team. Their wins included an OT game vs Louisiana Monroe, New Mexico State, and Alabama A&M. A truly awful year. Historically bad. All this with the combined #8 four year recruiting class. Bollocks.
