A new Rivals250 was released this week, so we thought we would take Northwestern fans inside the rankings and break down how each Wildcat recruit contributes to the team total.
Right now, Northwestern's 14-member 2021 class is ranked 46th in the country by Rivals, with 1,063 points. But how are those points calculated? Let's take a look.
Players are assigned a number of points based on their Rivals Rating (RR). A prospect with a 6.1 Rivals Rating, the highest rating possible, receives 150 points. A 6.0-ranked prospect receives 135, a 5.9 ranked prospects receives 120, and so on down the line in increments of 15. So Mac Uihlein, Najee Story and Caleb Tiernan, the three Northwestern commits with 5.8 Rivals Ratings, each get 105 points.
Additionally, players in the Rivals250 receive bonus points depending on how high they are ranked. The No. 1 prospect in the country gets 100 bonus points, the No. 25 prospect gets 55 bonus points, each of the Nos. 101-105 prospects get 32 points, and so on. Those bonus points are then added to the points they receive for their Rivals Rating.
There are two Wildcats in the Rivals250 for 2021. Uihlein, the highest ranked Wildcat at No. 171, gets an extra 18 points. Story, at No. 212, gets an extra 10.
Here's how each commitment of Northwestern's 2021 class contributes to the team rankings total.
It's important to note that only the top 20 ranked recruits for each school count in the team race. So if a school has 25 commits, only the top 20 are counted for the purposes of the team rankings.
While this rule is meant to level the playing field and help schools with fewer commitments, it still hurts Northwestern, which has some of the smallest classes in the nation. The Wildcats haven't had as many as 20 commitments in a class since 2016 and have reached that total just three times since 2010. However, this class could reach the coveted 20-commit mark.
Northwestern's 2021 class is currently ranked 46th in the nation, but just 10th in the Big Ten. The class has an average of 3.07 stars per prospect.
