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Wrong way to look at it, IMO. by bleedsgreen04

And Rivals isn't really the gold standard anymore, they've been falling behind a bit relative to the other sites, and 24/7 has a nice composite tool where they factor in recruiting rankings from several sites, including Rivals. One tool I wish they had, and perhaps they do and I just don't know where to look, is one that takes into account all the players on the roster.

Because while Clemson has some teams finishing consistently above them in those classes (like Alabama and Ohio State), there are some outliers in each of those classes above them, like Tennessee, Penn State, or USC for instance in some of those classes. So it doesn't really mean that Clemson had the 7th best recruiting class as a whole throughout those years, the reality is that they finished a bit better.

Overall Dabo is not "elevating" his roster as much as you think, but he has been getting more out of them than most coaches would. It's also not accurate to say that Kelly's rosters are merely top 12, there are more outliers in that range, so Kelly's roster likely falls closer to the 7 ranking you're attributing to Clemson. That doesn't mean what Kelly is doing is acceptable or anywhere near good enough to actually win the playoffs though, and to make matters worse, even though Kelly is improving ever so slightly, the gap is widening between ND and teams like Clemson, UGA, Alabama and OSU.

A few other things worse considering: Dabo has had the same defensive coordinator this entire time, so better continuity means fewer transfers out, more even recruiting (e.g. you're not switching back and forth between a 3-4 and a 4-3 or something like that) and players don't have to learn multiple systems. They've also established good depth so players aren't forced to play early like ND's secondary in 2016, and the lower rated players have time to develop rather than getting tossed into the fire.

Conversely, Dabo's also been better at putting teams away, affording him lots and lots of playing time for those deep units so they're not forced into situations like ND faces at linebacker this year. Look at how their defensive line didn't miss a beat in the playoffs last year...