NCAAF teams
Brian Fremeau, ESPN Insider 9y

Stanford leads CFB overachievers

College Football, Stanford Cardinal, Boise State Broncos, Northern Illinois Huskies, Louisville Cardinals, Baylor Bears

Success on the field in college football generally goes hand-in-hand with success on the recruiting trail. For the fourth consecutive season, the Alabama Crimson Tide signed the No. 1 class, according to ESPN RecruitingNation rankings. Nick Saban's program has brought in a top-3 class for eight straight seasons in fact, and those elite recruits have led the Tide to three national championships and a berth in the inaugural College Football Playoff in that span.

No other program recruits four-star and five-star players quite like Alabama, of course, and many programs thrive on the field despite the fact that their rosters are populated with lesser talent. We calculated program profiles for each team based on multiple years of recruiting rankings and compared those rankings with every FBS game result over the last five seasons. In total, the team that fielded a more-talented roster beat the less-talented opponent 65 percent of the time.

The five teams on our list of overachievers far exceeded expectations based on recruiting success. None of the five signed a top-25 class on national signing day last week, but each has proved that it can consistently win games against more-loaded rosters.

Stanford Cardinal

Five-year record as less-talented team: 24-8 (.750)

2015 RecruitingNation class rank: 27

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