I seem to recall on or around NSD 2012, Urban publicly encouraged the rest of the B1G coaches to step up their recruiting efforts. Fans of other teams bristled over his suggestion, which they interpreted as a lecture, maybe even akin to scolding. But what about their coaching staffs? Did they take his suggestion to heart?

It's July 16, 2018. Here's how many recruits each B1G school had as of July 15 in 2015, 2016 and so far this year. The (#) in parentheses is each school’s final national ranking is for its 2016 and 2017 classes and its current ranking for 2018. I chose 2016 because there's been so much coaching turnover since Urban came on board in November 2011--I think he's now 4th in coaching tenure behind only Ferentz, Fitzgerald and Dantonio. I used Rivals’ rankings because I’ve found its database is easier to search for recruits’ commitment dates.

Coaching changes and decommitments are an obvious factor, i.e., Michigan’s 2015 class, Harbaugh’s first, had a boatload of guys who jumped ship and those deflections hurt its ranking; however, I did not include decommits—it’s just too much work to track when they originally committed and then when they decommitted.

• Illinois – 2016: 4 (67th); 2017: 6 (48th): 7; 2018: 9 (70th)
• Indiana – 2016: 6 (54th); 2017: 8 (65th); 2018: 7 (75th)
• Iowa – 2016: 20 (42nd); 2017: 12 (40th); 2018: 11 (54th)
• Maryland – 2016: 5 (39th); 2017: 10 (17th); 2018: 15 (29th)
• Michigan – 2016: 11 (4th); 2017; 13 (4th); 2018: 10 (30th)
• Michigan State – 2016: 14 (18th); 2017: 14 (33rd); 2018: 12 (39th)
• Minnesota – 2016: 5 (50th); 2017: 4 (61st); 2018: 19 (21st)
• Nebraska – 2016: 9 (24th); 2017: 10 (20th); 2018: 10 (23rd)
• Northwestern – 2016: 19 (46th); 17 (55th); 2018: 16 (25th)
• Ohio State – 2016: 13 (3rd); 11 (2nd); 14 (2nd)
• Penn State – 2016: 12 (21st); 2017: 7 (12th); 2018: 17 (3rd)
• Purdue – 2016: 5 (73rd); 2017; 2 (68th); 15 (T50th)
• Rutgers – 2016: 7 (78th); 2017: 17 (43rd); 2018: 13 (T50th)
• Wisconsin – 2016: 12 (35th); 2017: 10 (35th); 2018: 19 (11th)
• All B1G Totals: 2016: 142 (35th); 2017: 141 (36th); 2018: 187 (36th)

(Note: B1G average ranking is based on totaling all teams’ rankings and dividing by 14; I apologize in advance for any mathematical errors.)

The # of commitments is up considerably from 142 in 2016 to 187 today—however, some of the 187 are bound to decommit, which will bring 2018’s “as of 7/15” total down—but the B1G’s average ranking hasn’t changed over the past three years. Admittedly, I cheated in calculating the B1G’s average ranking but on its surface it does seem to suggest that a lot of coaches, not just the B1G’s, are becoming a lot more aggressive with their recruiting.

Anything stand out to anyone?