For those that follow my posts, it should be clear by now that I have a fascination with numbers and that this fascination takes many forms. One topic that I have been thinking about a lot lately is that of college football recruiting. This time of year various fan-bases either celebrate or mourn the fact that a 17-yr old kid just picked up a baseball hat with a specific color scheme off from a table. Because we have no actual football to focus our emotions on, the successes or failures on the summer recruiting trail can be very intense. But, does it actually matter? How much better is a 5-star compared to a 3-star? Do some schools do a better job than others with lower ranked recruits? Should we be freaking out if our rival just picked up a 5-star? I have often thought about ways to try to quantify these things. I think that I finally figured out how. First, I needed to find a consistent measure of both the quality of high school recruits and the eventual success of those rec...