There are still six months left of recruiting. Who cares what the rankings are on September 6th?

I do.

Then you're a bigger moron then I imagined.

I'll bet you $1000 that Nebraska has a higher rated class than Northwestern when the class closes in February.

Arent these rating extremely flawed regardless?

Like a player getting an extra star because of the school that is recruiting him?

They tend to correlate extremely well to on-field success under a number of measures. They are reliable in the aggregate, though there are plenty of aberrant data points.

IB,

Just for you, here is the 2011 rankings. You will like this better, especially #42.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/teamrank/2011/all/all

Notre Dame the exception that proves the rule?

Not so much team-wise. Players who are five stars are far more likely to be all-conference, all-american type players. The star rankings also correlate well to NFL draft placement. And they are consistent down the line; five stars do better, as a whole, than four stars, who do better than three, etc.

Some five star players bust. Yes, so-and-so was a walk-on. There are countless exceptions, as there will always be in a data set that large. But they are exceptions.

Hasnt ND had good if not top ten classes consistently over the last decade?

Where are the results?