In last week’s Friday Q&A, I made the following comment: “Tech isn’t an elite recruiting school, and never will be.” I took some flak in the comments section of the article, which isn’t surprising, considering the passion of Hokie fans, and the fact that I didn’t back up my comment with any facts or numbers.

However, I did base that comment on numbers that I accumulated through research several months ago. I did the research intending to use it for an article or articles during the long, slow summer months that we are forced to endure. Considering the comments after Friday’s statement, I think it’s time for that article.

This article will cover recruiting from the 2008 class all the way through the 2017 class. That’s 10 classes, and multiple coaching staffs for every school. On the whole, it presents a large and accurate sample size of where each program stands in the recruiting hierarchy. I used the Rivals database for one simple reason: it existed all the way back in 2008, and 247 did not. But no matter what system you use, the numbers are going to tell the same story: a select few schools have a monopoly on the top football prospects.

The Dynamics of College Sports vs. Pro Sports

College sports are not like American professional sports. The NFL and NBA have salary caps. MLB does not have a salary cap, but they do have a luxury tax, and teams have complete control over their players for the first six years of their careers. If you draft and scout correctly, you can go from being a terrible team to World Series champs like the Astros did last season, or the Cubs did the year before that, or the Braves did nearly 30 years ago.

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