What factors do you think are important in choosing a college - if you were a good football player coming out of high school?
Mercer University created a model for predicting where a player might go based on these factors:
1. Wheter the athlete made an "official visit" to a specific college
2. Whether the school is in a BCS conference
3. The distance from the high school athlete's hometown to a specific school
4. Whether the recruit is in the same state as a specific school
5. The final AP Ranking of a specific school in the previous year of competion
6. The number of conference titles a school has recorded in recent years
7. Whether the school is currently under a "bowl ban" for violating NCAA rules
8. The current number of scholarship reductions a school faces for violating NCAA rules
9. The size of the team's stadium (JMeasured in terms of seating capacity)
10. Whether the school has an on-campus stadium
11. The current age of the team's stadium
Their model has been reasonably accurate greater than 70% over the last several years. Visit their website:
http://ssbea.mercer.edu/recruiting.htm
It is interesting that certain factors were not mentioned: religion, achedemic excellence, code of conduct, etc.
It also would be interesting to survey the BYU players to find out what factors were relevent to them.
Football play a big roll in the college economic pisture. Quoting from the Mercer study
The importance to a specific college of signing a strong group of athletes on signing day
cannot be overstated. College football has become big business in recent years. The amount of revenue a college or university can generate by fielding a competitive football team can reach staggering levels. The college football program at the University of Texas at Austin, for example, brought in over $53 million during the 2004-2005 academic year. Given the potential for such revenue, as well as the general interest in the sport held by rabid college football fans, an economic model to predict the choices of college becomes useful.
