Portal rankings leave Hogs fans unsure of what to think of Silverfield's start

Let's try to make sense of national ratings that appear to contradict one another

Arkansas quarterback KJ Jackson (7) runs from the pocket while defended by Texas defensive back Jelani McDonald (4) during the second half at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

With transfer portal season essentially over since it's starting to get too late for most schools to get players enrolled outside of a handful of private schools, now is as good of a time as any to see how Arkansas did overall.

Much has been made of new Arkansas head coach Ryan Silverfield's recruiting class. For the better part, Razorbacks fans seem happy, yet reserved when it comes to how the Hogs ultimately did.

There were a few supposed hits in the high school recruiting ranks, although those are last second local kids and the overall numbers are few. There's also the portal class, but fans don't seem to know how to really process everything.

There are a lot of bodies. Several of those bodies once generated a lot of stars while in high school, but most seem to have peaked back home while living with their parents. What Arkansas fans are left with is a lot of hope and confusing numbers.

For instance, according to 247 Sports, Arkansas finished No. 13 in the SEC when it comes to their portal haul with 40 commits as of Friday morning. That puts the Hogs just behind Florida and just ahead of Georgia, although, it should be noted the Bulldogs only needed nine players to reach essentially the same evaluation number as the Razorbacks did with their 40 recruits.

Overall, LSU, Ole Miss and Texas finished first, second and third respectfully. The Tigers dominated the SEC with just shy of 81 points. Ole Miss finished with 63.80, Texas racked up 60.23 and Arkansas totaled 35.99.

If the scope is widened to a national view, Arkansas comes in at No. 28. For perspective, Arkansas finished No. 9 in the SEC in the transfer portal under Sam Pittman last year and No. 16 overall at 44.78 with LSU being tops in both once again.

Meanwhile, On3 has Arkansas ranked No. 9 overall just ahead of Notre Dame and just behind Texas with an index score of 32. Indiana sits in a tie with Texas Tech at the top with an index of 50 each with Texas A&M at No. 3 with a score of 45.

When it comes to the SEC, Arkansas sits at No. 4, just a single point behind Texas with a large gap between the Hogs and No. 5 Florida with 27 points. Under Pittman, the Razorbacks were No. 14 in the SEC just ahead of Alabama with an index score of -11.

While the numbers are nice for talking points and social media posts, fans are often left confused. How could Arkansas be so high in one, but not in the other?

Well, the answer is they aren't measuring the same thing. Yes, each provides accurate data in terms of evaluating the Hogs' efforts in the transfer portal, but they don't value the same thing.

Perhaps the simplest way to explain the 247 ratings is it's focused on individual players and comparisons to other teams. It's a bit more nuanced than this, but their ratings essentially look at, on average, how good are the players in that class based on composite rankings, and how does that average compare to other schools.

It's essentially going to the jewelry store and being told how many karats are involved in a piece of jewelry and how does that compare to what your wife's friend got the other day.

The composite scores used are a combination of player ratings published by 247, ESPN and On3 with each weighted equally. This accounts for different perspectives and also allows for a variable number of players to be rated 5-stars.

When looking at just the 247 recruiting rankings, the service only hands out 32 designations of 5-star status. This is meant to reflect that if there were an NFL draft of this class held today, these would be the people rated as first round picks.

Meanwhile, in the composite scores, a recruit has to generate a final rating of 0.9834 or higher to be considered a 5-star. Because the opinions of three separate services are involved, there are often more than 32 players who meet the criteria, and sometimes it's possible for there to be fewer.

As for On3, its portal class evaluation system is looking to provide a much deeper look into what a team is getting other than just how good players are individually. To put it most simply, On3 is looking to see whether a team got better overall by way of recruiting.

In other words, do the projections for how the best right guard in the portal class indicate he is going to play better than the guy who played right guard for the Razorbacks last season? What about at running back?

It just keeps running comparisons to see if projections by position look better than actual performance at each position last year while also considering who's coming back on the roster and how these new recruits fit in alongside them.

So, going back to the jewelry comparison, instead of just saying this is 24 karats and that's it, these ratings look at whether this is an upgrade to the jewelry your wife already had and how it fits in her overall collection.

It's not interested in what your wife's friend is up to. It's only focused on your wife and how well you are at upgrading her jewelry game.

If she had a .5 karat diamond and you got her a 1.0 karat princess cut diamond ring, she is more likely to wear it and get use out of it. You have upgraded her collection.

Meanwhile, her friend Karen's husband got her a 1.0 karat princess cut diamond ring also, but she already had a 2.0 karat diamond ring she really likes. On top of that, she already has a 1.0 karat princess cut diamond ring exactly like that one.

Your wife is happy and Karen is not. Her jewelry collection didn't improve at all.

So, in this case, 247 would say each husband did equally as well by bringing home a 1.0 princess cut diamond ring while On3 says you crushed it and your friend didn't do so well.

So which should fans take more into account?

Both evaluations have their purpose. However, from a fan's perspective and what they usually want to know, which is "Did we get better?" it might be better to lean on the On3 rankings.

That's good for Arkansas because with that being the more positive of the two rankings this year, it's the one they are more likely to lean into. That wasn't the case last season when the On3 rankings were decidedly worse for the Hogs.

It certainly turned out to be the most accurate in determining what to expect this season. On3 accurately said the transfer portal was a solid indicator that both Arkansas and Alabama were going to be worse this past season.

Sure enough, the Hogs fell to 2-10 after getting tipped into a free fall by a couple of freak turnovers early in the season and a change in coaching staff. As for Alabama, they technically made it into the playoffs on their name and with the might of SEC commissioner Greg Sankey backing them, but fans in Tuscaloosa have been experiencing their own sort of slow motion free fall after back-to-back four-loss seasons and an absolute beatdown at the hands of Indiana to close the year.

So, while the star ratings might not be over the top for the Razorbacks on average, the athletes who are coming in to replace the players responsible for last year's 2-10 season are presumably better and also nicer fits for what Arkansas needs.

So what does better mean?

That's going to be much harder to determine next year. Sankey got suckered into adding a ninth SEC game after being bullied into doing it by a Big Ten Conference whose three consecutive national championshps were won by playing Kennesaw State, Old Dominion, Indiana State, Akron, Western Michigan, Marshall, East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green.

As a result, instead of getting a guaranteed Arkansas State type win to build confidence and chemistry, Silverfield gets to add Georgia to his slate. Also, the Razorbacks were the greatest 2-10 team of all time.

If Arkansas goes 4-8 next year, but get destroyed in all eight losses, is that officially improvement over a Razorbacks team that, while only racking up two wins, was close in nearly every game and had both playoff teams on the ropes, including what should have been a win over national semifinalist Ole Miss?

Much like the portal rankings, that will be up to how fans want their data interpreted. Perhaps a better gauge is whether Arkansas fans are still watching in October.