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Medina, what great research? I love it. There are a couple things imo you are not giving sufficient emphasis. If you will notice Ohio State, LSU and Texas all have one substandard class which dramatically reduces their average ranking. 

I get that, that was why I referred to "median" rather than average or mean in my original post.  Ohio State's average class over the five years is ranked 5.4 but that is REALLY dragged down by that #14 class in 2019.  Ohio State's median class is ranked #4, that being the middle ranking:

• #2 in 2018
• #2 in 2017
• #4 in 2016
• #5 in 2020
• #14 in 2019

Secondly, the differences between one, two, three, four, etc are usually miniscule. One team has a couple more four or five stars than another which represents very little when spread over 25 kids and three years.                                                                                 

I get this and it is a point I have made numerous times to others in similar situations.  I'll give you a little history here of my perspective.  Way back in the late 1990's I got REALLY into recruiting.  There was a Linebacker that year that was a top-notch 5* recruit.  It was a battle for him between Ohio State and Nebraska (this was before Nebraska was in the --then-- Big11Ten).  Anyway, the kid ended up picking Ohio State and I remember being super pumped that "we" got this awesome linebacker.  In the same class Ohio State got a somewhat unheralded 3* (IIRC) linebacker.  I remember wondering why "we" would expend a scholarship on such a lowly recruit.  

The 5* kid never ended up contributing much of anything on the field.  I can't remember if it was grades, injuries, or simply failing to live up to his billing but the bottom line is that he was a dud.  Meanwhile, the 3* kid's name was A.J. Hawk.  You might have heard of him, LoL.  

My point is that each of us on here have watched enough football and followed enough recruiting that I have no doubt that each of us could name a "can't miss, 5*" who was a dud and a 3* who ended up an all-american.  

That said, the larger the sample size, the more important recruiting stars become.  What I mean is this:

If you picked a random 10 5*'s from Alabama and a random 10 4*'s from Auburn I can nearly guarantee that at least one of Auburn's 4*'s is going to end up better than one of Bama's 5*'s.  However, I can also nearly guarantee that, in the aggregate, Bama's 10 5*'s are going to be better than Auburn's 10 4*'s.  

So I agree with you generally.  Ohio State's #2 class in 2018 (right behind #1 Bama) may well turn out better than Bama's 2018 class.  Ohio State's #2 class in 2017 was actually ranked ahead of #5 Bama and Ohio State's #4 class in 2016 could theoretically have been better than Bama's #1 that year along with Ohio State's #5 class in 2020 over Bama's #2 class that year.  That said, weight of numbers eventually prevails.  It is extremely unlikely that Ohio State's five year cycle is better than Bama's five year cycle when you compare:

• Bama #1 in 2019, Ohio State #2 in 2018
• Bama #1 in 2017, Ohio State #2 in 2017
• Bama #1 in 2016, Ohio State #4 in 2016
• Bama #2 in 2020, Ohio State #5 in 2020
• Bama #5 in 2018, Ohio State #14 in 2019

Lets add in Georgia, LSU, Texas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Auburn, and Clemson.  Now you get:

Look just at the "worst" two classes for each of these schools over the past five years.  Bama's are #2 and #5 and UGA is right behind with a #3 and a #6.  Ohio State's second worst (#5) is close to Bama/UGA but the Buckeye's worst is WAY behind and everybody behind Ohio State (with the curious exception of Auburn) has an even worse "worst" class than that.  Only Bama, UGA, tOSU, LSU, and Texas have had at least four of their last five classes ranked in the top-10.  

My point is that when you stack all of those highly ranked classes on top of one-another, it becomes exceedingly unlikely that anybody outside of UGA and maybe Ohio State is going to actually have the talent to match Bama in a given year.  Even for UGA and tOSU it is a steep hill.  In theory UGA should be right there but in practice they haven't been able to convert those stars in to performance yet.  Ohio State is further back.  Everybody else is looking up at Ohio State.  Clemson is "doing more with less" while UGA, Texas, and Michigan are "doing less with more".  

I'm sure that Bama has some recruits over the past five years who failed to live up to expectations but the thing is that is also true for UGA, tOSU, LSU, and every other team.  

If UGA had retained Fields ....  

Did anyone else know that in the final stats, OSU allowed over 300 yards passing per game in 2020?  
Sheesh.

A really good team can give up a lot of passing yards if they go up in the first half say 24-3.  The other team isn't going to run much then.

A really good team can give up a lot of passing yards if they go up in the first half say 24-3.  The other team isn't going to run much then.

Of course.  But still. 


I thought Florida's defense was unconscionably bad, but really no one's was especially good. As I go through and create more and more 2020 teams for Whoa Nellie, I suspect this will be confirmed.  Of the top 10 teams, only UGA's grades out at what I'd call good/avg vs run and pass. 
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All that being said, no defense schemes to allow 300 yards passing per game, regardless of who they're playing against and what the scores happen to be.

I'm taking all of that into account.  You may be correct that 300 is the new 250, but I still find it noteworthy that a near-NC allowed so much through the air.  An unprecedented number, really, for a team that was so successful.
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I do anticipate defenses to fight back in the near future, with some form of answer for the RPO.

Oh, there's plenty to it.  HCs have started doing what kids would do on video games - putting their best WRs in the slot instead of out wide.  Defenses (lazily) kept their best cover CBs outside, but we see the "star" position growing - and soon the lockdown CBs will be that.  The west-coast offense relying on short passes and getting the ball out of the QBs hands is still a thing - so it's harder to get sacks.  The zone blitz with a DE dropping back to pick off slant routes was one effective defense to that, but we're well past that now.  
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For this RPO, where it's either a dive play or a slant route, defenses will figure it out.  Maybe stack a couple of LBs with each focused on either option or have defenders defending routes instead of men or even zones.