Posted by rmancil on 12/2/2012 3:21:00 AM (view original):
No one knows exactly and you also have the coaches record involved. Elites have a edge not a huge one imop. Non elite teams with well established coaches do very well vs elites when the Elite team is dealing with a new coach and a past record that fails to compare well. It is my opinion that the Elites have a edge but it isn't huge. The real edge comes from the fact that most are well coached.
Some years ago I ran some experiments with multiple teams and coaches to define the true "edge". What I came up with is a base advantage in "recruiting effort" of 20%. I measure in recruiting "effort" because of the different costs depending on distance. I ran the experiment in Dobie with other coaches giving me their "spending data" and by having multiple teams under different IDs. My secondary IDs where never used to be competitive, simply gather data.
IMO, based on the data I collected, with all else being equal, an elite will have a 20% edge over a non-elite D1A. For example a non-elite would have to offer (and have accepted) 10 Campus Visits to equal 8 from an Elite. There are many factors that can affect this baseline including but not limited to: Recruit preference, time of "effort" accepted, Reputation, Team success (W/L % over 4 seasons on a sliding scale with the latest season ranked the highest), CCs (over 4 seasons), NCs (again, over 4 seasons), etc.
Hope that helps.