I have seen a lot of collective hand-wringing from the on-line MSU fan base about MSU's current football recruiting class. But, any time something like this happens, it always provokes a series of questions in my mind. How does this class really compare to other Big Ten schools? Is this normal or not? What is the historical trend? Well, I just so happen to have been assembling a database of Big Ten recruiting classes back to 2007, and I think that I can provide some pretty clear answers to those questions. First, I will say a few things about my methods. The data-set that I have the easiest access to is the Rivals database, so I use that exclusively. In this system, a "5-star" ranking system is used, but they also use a finer-grained "rating" system that scores a player from 5.2 to 6.1. The number of players in each tier changes a bit from year to year, but in general there are about 35 five-star (6.1) players a year nationally, about 400 four-stars (