Recently we looked at recruiting classes throughout the Big Ten, keep in mind the conference has expanded to 14 teams. So this was not a small amount of research and we totaled 305 recruits across the 14 teams. Specifically we looked at multi-sport participation and track participation by recruits.
KEY STATS:
* Overall multi-sport participation for all 2014 Big Ten recruits was approx 83%
* Overall track & field participation for all 2014 Big Ten recruits was approx 59%
* Overall basketball participation for all 2014 Big Ten recruits was approx 46%
Iowa led the Big Ten classes with 100% multi-sport participation, followed by Northwestern 94%, Minnesota 91% and Ohio State with 91%.
Minnesota led the Big Ten classes with 73% track & field participation, followed by Iowa 70%, Northwestern 67% and Ohio State with 65%.
Michigan State, Minnesota, Illinois and Rutgers’ recruiting classes had the highest average PAI scores
Note: PAI scores are TrackingFootball’s own height, weight, speed and power index scores.
See chart below…
Big Ten Recruiting Class Multi-Sport Chart
What’s the takeaway from this?
Fairly simple…over 8 out of 10 Big Ten recruits participated in at least one other high school varsity sport. And a lot of recruits participated in high school track almost 6 out of 10. It pays to be a well-rounded athlete and competitor.