With all the discussion that goes on about recruiting and whether rankings are accurate or not on here, I decided to apply the "
blue-
chip ratio" used by college football analysts to lacrosse. For those not familiar, the theory is that at least 50 percent of your roster needs to be
blue-
chip, or 4 or 5 star recruits, to win the national championship. TCU could put a big dent in this theory on Monday, but it's held up well for over a decade.
Here's more info if you're curious:
https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/B ... 90039196_3
For these ratings, I used Inside Lacrosse's recruiting database, which gave out star ratings for players back to 2017. That allowed me to put a ranking together for the last three seasons, which I'll post below. The percentages are the amount of
blue-
chip recruits each team has had over the past four recruiting classes. Transfers are not included and aren't in the
blue-
chip ratio either due to the recruiting rules being different for transfers compared to incoming players. IL looks like they've given out more star ratings in recent, which could inflate the number of teams that make this list, but I think this is still a good metric that shows you need to recruit a certain base level of talent to compete in the sport at the highest level. The national champion for the 2021 and 2022 seasons are in all caps, while Final Four teams have an asterisk next to them.
2021
VIRGINIA 83 percent
Duke* 77 percent
Notre Dame 73 percent
Yale 70 percent
Harvard 65 percent
Princeton 64 percent
Maryland* 62 percent
Georgetown 57 percent
Cornell 55 percent
Johns Hopkins 54 percent
North Carolina* 53 percent
Ohio State 50 percent
Michigan 50 percent
2022
Virginia 92 percent
Duke 80 percent
Notre Dame 78 percent
Princeton* 76 percent
Yale 71 percent
North Carolina 67 percent
MARYLAND 66 percent
Harvard 63 percent
Georgetown 62 percent
Penn 60 percent
Penn State 57 percent
Cornell* 55 percent
Johns Hopkins 50 percent
Syracuse 50 percent
New: Penn, Penn State, Syracuse
Dropped Out: Ohio State, Michigan
2023
Virginia 92 percent
Princeton 82 percent
Duke 81 percent
Notre Dame 76 percent
Yale 71 percent
Harvard 68 percent
Maryland 67 percent
Georgetown 67 percent
North Carolina 63 percent
Cornell 61 percent
Penn 61 percent
Penn State 59 percent
Michigan 56 percent
Syracuse 55 percent
Ohio State 53 percent
Brown 52 percent
New: Michigan, Ohio State, Brown
Dropped Out: Johns Hopkins
Some takeaways:
-The number of teams has gone from 13 in 2021 to 14 in 2022 to 16 in 2023, which means more teams are recruiting at a high level
-This theory held up well for the 2021 and 2022 season. 7 of the 8 Final Four teams made the list. The only one that didn't was Rutgers, who had a 17-percent
blue-
chip ratio last year that slightly increased to 20 percent entering this season
-Georgetown is the only team not in the ACC, Big 10 or Ivy League that made the list the last three years
-Princeton is the team on the best upward trajectory, going from 64 to 76 to 82 percent
blue-
chip. Georgetown has been a steady riser too from 57 to 62 to 67 percent.
-Just because you have highly-rated recruits doesn't mean you'll win a lot. If you at the 247 Sports article, Auburn, Miami and Texas A&M all were in the
blue-
chip ratio and didn't make a bowl game. Still have to have good coaching and figure out how to best use the talent at hand.
This was interesting to dive into when I was bored over the holidays, so let me know what you guys think.