BYU Football: 2021 Class By the Numbers

Numerically speaking, how dis this class compare to prior classes under Kalani Sitake?

Wednesday marks the first day of the early signing period where BYU's class of 2021 commits can officially sign with the Cougars. We will have an article about each individual signee throughout the day and you can watch their individual highlights here. Numerically speaking, how dis this class compare to prior classes under Kalani Sitake?

Note: These numbers include the 16 players that are already committed to BYU and will sign on Wednesday. These numbers would change (and improve) if a guy like Jaxson Dart, for example, decided to sign with BYU.

Recruiting Ranking

As of early Wednesday morning, BYU's recruiting class is ranked no. 71 in the country. That will change throughout the day as players across the country make their college decisions. A class in the 70's won't make national headlines, but there are a few reasons to celebrate this class ranking:

• The average star rating of this recruiting class would be the highest since 2010, more on that in a moment.
• BYU would improve their recruiting ranking (compared to 2020) despite signing ~14 fewer players.
• BYU would bite the scholarship bullet that they've been pushing off for a few years.

Recruiting rankings favor large classes. Since BYU is signing such a small class, the average rating of the class is probably a better measure of success than class ranking.

Average Composite Rating

247Sports does a composite rating for each player. The composite rating is an equally-weighted average rating between the three recruiting services: 247Sports, Rivals, and ESPN. From an average rating perspective, this will be Kalani Sitake's best recruiting class since he became the head coach at BYU.

Competing Offers

One of my favorite ways to grade a BYU recruiting class is looking at the percentage of commits that have competing offers to play at other FBS schools. It's not a perfect measure, but it tells an interesting story. First let's look at the percentage of 2021 commits that turned down P5 schools to play for BYU:

Next, let's look at the percentage of 2021 commits that held a competing FBS offer when they signed with BYU:

It might sound cliché, but quality over quantity has been the goal for BYU in 2021.  BYU is trending in the right direction in every category. It wasn't a perfect class that filled every need, but a perfect class doesn't exist at BYU. Jasen Ah You and Jack Damuni deserve tons of credit for the work they've done with their first recruiting class. 

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