When writing articles over the last year, I’ve found myself typing “he had no other scholarship offers” quite a bit when talking about some of Virginia Tech’s players. I decided to do some research and determine exactly how many players on the roster had no other Power 5 offers. As usual, I took it further than I intended.

I ended up researching all the scholarship offers for the currents rosters at Virginia Tech, North Carolina and Clemson. Virginia Tech’s numbers looked pretty bad when I saw them, but before I could criticize, I had to see how they compared to their competition. I chose UNC because the Hokies recruit against them a lot, and because I believe the Tar Heels are the most talented team in the Coastal Division. I chose Clemson because they are the class of the Atlantic Division and the likely ACC Champions. In the end, the ACC Championship is the goal, which means we should strive to be more like Clemson in talent level, right?

I used the Rivals database, and for you science guys, let me warn you in advance that this study is not precise. We have no way of knowing whether or not the Rivals database provides a complete and accurate listing of scholarship offers, and in some cases we don’t know whether or not an offer was a committable offer or not, or frankly, if the recruit was making things up when he reported his offers. Also, the Rivals database might disagree with the 247 database in some cases. Still, this exercise will give you a general view of the talent level of all three teams.

Why do I think it’s important to look at the number of scholarship offers? Because I think it’s a better way of judging talent than simply going by star rankings. You have to dig deeper than that. For example, JC Coleman was a 4-star recruit and the #101 player in the country, yet he was listed with only six scholarship offers, and none of them from “elite” programs. Meanwhile, Isaiah Ford was a 3-star recruit by Rivals, but he had 20+ offers including Clemson, Florida, Ohio State, Florida State, etc.

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