Michigan’s blue-chip ratio an outlier among College Football Playoff champions

Michigan Wolverines football won the 2023 national championship with a magical 15-0 season. The Wolverines join the Georgia Bulldogs (2021, 2022), Alabama Crimson Tide (2020), LSU Tigers (2019) and Clemson Tigers (2018) as recent champs, but they didn’t recruit like the others leading up to their title season. In the five recruiting cycles prior to the 2023 campaign (2019-23), 67 of the 119 recruits Michigan signed were blue-chip recruits — which are defined as four- and five-star prospects — per the On3 Industry Rankings. That 56.3-percent ratio is the lowest in a five-year average ahead of winning the championship than any other champion in the 10 years of the College Football Playoff era (since 2014). Every other title winner was at 60 percent or higher, and five posted percentages better than 78.