Why Talent/Recruiting Rankings Matter

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Face The Facts said:
I'm an idiot so I don't know this, but what are the rankings based on?

Is it just one amateur scout's opinion?

Or is there at least a grading card of some sort where scouts include some tangible data like...

Speed, bench press, ability to jump, turn, etc?
Or is it just some overweight guy like me that volunteers to watch some football games, (who happens to be affiliated with a scouting website), then says, "Hey, this kid for Eden Prairie is pretty good". In which case I write 3-5 sentences that says:
"Covers receivers well. Good size to cover tall WR's. Top end speed. Tends to not wrap up when supporting the run. 3 stars!"




And then after the entry is made in the scouting service, do coaches agreeing with your ranking help the ranking?


Or are the rankings increased by the number of offers?
Or are they supposed to be completely independent of offers.

In theory, can there be such a thing as a 2 star kid who gets offers from every Big Ten school and SEC school, or is the ranking composed so that essentially can't happen?
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The most important thing is fluid hips...

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gotomn said:
The evaluations are subjective with the exception of the top 200 or so who have attended a camp and competed without pads against peers. They typically have 40 times, bench press and similar drills to the NFL combine. The top 200 outperform their peers who attend other camps. The process usually works like this:

Sophomores who have good pub will be viewed on film. If they are aggressive, or in the south near a camp site between their sophomore and junior years, they will go to the Nike camps or one of the Rivals eval camps, where they will be evaluated against other kids their age. This is one reason kids in Minnesota and Wisconsin typically don't have ratings, is that the only camp is in Chicago area. Michigan is similar with 1 camp in Detroit. Contrast those camps to Dallas, LA, Miami etc, which typically have 2 or more camps.

Junior year game film becomes a big thing. If a kid is dominant in junior game film and had good camp , they typically will get a big rating. Most offers come junior camp season and the "player rankings" are based on the junior year tape plus junior year camps. The performance in the sophomore camps plus junior year film are the biggest basis for player ratings of the top 200 players.

Senior year. The struggle, and the hole in the system, is the kid who develops late i.e. late junior year and junior-senior summer, who then blows up as a senior. Those kids are not highly rated because the Rivals/247 system doesn't really re-rate until the end of senior year. There are some coaches who hold back a bunch of scholarships until late senior year for this reason. The reason is you are evaluating a more finished product then the kids after junior year. ****My opinion. This is why some of the NFL draft picks are not top recruits. They are late developers who don't get offered until late in the process. I have zero stats to base this on, just an opinion****

The evaluators at Rivals and 247 typically have had some small school college experience as coaches or high level high school. To my knowledge, none of them are former pro scouts and only a couple coached D1 football. That said, it doesn't mean they don't know what they are doing. The challenge for players who are not top 200, or don't go to the camps, is that the "evaluator" might be a local guy who knows someone at rivals. He alerts them to the player and they view some highlight tape (i.e. Hudl) The evaluators then give them some ranking. The rivals camps are effectively pay to play, where you attend and get a ranking

For example, Josh Helmholdt of Rivals played at Grand Valley State(was a 2nd string player), then became the recruiting guru for The Wolverine Magazine and now Midwest recruiting analyst for Rivals. He has never coached at all nor played above Division 3.

Mike Farrell, the top dog at 247, is considered a top recruiting analyst, never eve played college football at all while attending Central Connecticut State. He started evaluating as a college kid as Rivals and rode the train to become the top recruiting analyst in the country.

It doesn’t mean these guys are not smart and can’t evaluate given that they are doing it every day, but I don’t think Nick Saban is bringing them in to become his chief talent evaluators at Alabama if that is what you are wondering.
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I think this a great post but a little bit outdated. Not because your information is wrong or misguided. I think that the top 200 was valid maybe 10 years ago but now it is not. A lot more than 200 kids go to these "elite" camps now. They get legitimate 40 times, bench press, verticals, etc... Far more kids get legitimately evaluated these days and that leads to CRAZY star inflation. There is no possible way to compare a recruiting class from today with one from 10 years ago when only a couple hundred players were actually evaluated. Take 247 for example. They run a "composite" ranking that supposedly gives each recruit a star rating and also a numerical rating based on a composite of ESPN, Rivals, Scout, and 247 ratings. Well now Scout and 247 have merged so there is only one rating between them. Almost every single player committed to a decent P5 team gets an automatic 3 star ranking these days. Why? Well there are a few factors.

1) Paying subscribers from each school want their recruiting class to be good so better star ratings mean better recruits and we can sell you that your class is pretty dang good. Look at all these 3 star recruits who got that rating just by committing to your school! If you followed Rivals and Scout for any period of time your would notice that Minnesota and Wisconsin commit ratings differed greatly between the two sites. Rivals was by far the biggest Minnesota site and Minnesota commits were inflated there because a lot of Minnesota fans paid to belong to that site. They want to see good recruiting classes. The Scout Minnesota classes were not rated as highly. Wisconsin, on the other hand, had recruits who were rated vastly higher by Scout than Minnesota recruits (well maybe that is actually true based on records) because the Wisconsin Scout board has a huge following.

2) Increased number of kids who actually got rated combined with the don't want to miss on a prospect factor. It is a simple truth that more kids are actually evaluated now than ten years ago. If you put out decent numbers you will get a decent rating so I can't fault the sites for having more 3 star recruits now if you base it on numbers. More kids go to the camps and get good ratings. In the past you never went to a camp and never got rated so you maybe got the token 2 star rating if a few schools were interested in you. If you committed to Minnesota or Kansas because you were an in-state kid with no other offers 2 stars seemed legitimate. Well holy cow if you turn out to be All-Conference in a P5 conference that really makes the "expert services" look bad right? So they kind of went to the 3 star is the default for the P5 commit. Perfect right? 3 stars aren't guaranteed to pan out but a 3 star who turns out to be good can be a diamond in the rough that the "expert services" can say they at least gave 3 stars to. Rivals jumped on the everybody gets at least 3 stars bandwagon well before Scout did so Minnesota classes on Rivals looked better (also based on subscribers). Rivals developed an internal scoring system that allowed the discerning message board follower to differentiate between a "high 3 star" and a"low 3 star" recruit. That allowed for great message board chatter among the Minnesota faithful about whether or not 3-star recruit who was a 5.5 deserved that bump to 5.6 which really meant absolutely nothing. As Rugger pointed out, everyone soon knew that posting things about a recruit's "fluid hips" meant that you were in the know when watching grainy HS highlight film. Mason won 10 games with a bunch of 2-star recruits. 2-star P5 commits don't even really exist anymore but supposedly Minnesota recruiting has greatly improved.

I like this recruiting class and I think PJ and staff have done a great job but it is impossible to rate it against previous classes.

Anyway. I digress. Kyle at 247 went as far as stating that he has proof that a 247 composite ratings bump for a Minnesota recruit resulted in new big-time offers for one Minnesota commit. If SEC coaches are relying on 247 for their recruit rankings maybe they should go back to D3.
 

ComoGopher said:
Anyway. I digress. Kyle at 247 went as far as stating that he has proof that a 247 composite ratings bump for a Minnesota recruit resulted in new big-time offers for one Minnesota commit. If SEC coaches are relying on 247 for their recruit rankings maybe they should go back to D3.
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Even tho every coach says they don't use them, if KG - a guy who clearly has no personal motivation whatsoever to make that up - says he has proof, there really is no debating it.


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gotomn said:
The evaluations are subjective with the exception of the top 200 or so who have attended a camp and competed without pads against peers.
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Evaluations are by definition subjective, including the top 200 or so.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Evaluations are by definition subjective, including the top 200 or so.
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Good point. There will always be highly rated recruits who are busts and there will always be walk-ons and players who went to lower-level schools who end up in the NFL. It is not an exact science and it is absolutely subjective like you said.

Fluid hips is still the single most important factor in rating recruits. [emoji1]

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I would agree with all the points about the evaluation process and would agree that they are doing more to composite rate the recruits. It is still, however, a process that relies heavily on players in their sophomore and junior years results, with little rating toward senior years. I think there is a lot of development that goes on with the bodies and makeup of any high school athlete between the ages of 16-18. The evaluation process probably does not give enough respect to that development.
 

ComoGopher said:
1) Paying subscribers from each school want their recruiting class to be good so better star ratings mean better recruits and we can sell you that your class is pretty dang good.
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This alone is well more than enough for me to dismiss the ratings part of it as nothing more than "Just for entertainment purposes". Because that's what it is.

But I'm not going to pee in anyone's cheerios -- if you want to get excited because someone you paid to tell you "good news" is telling you "good news", go right ahead.


gotomn said:
The evaluation process probably does not give enough respect to that development.
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But this just goes right back to the fundamentally inherent silliness of the whole ratings part of it: the only thing that actually matters is which players sign with which programs.


In other words, if some player gets a 4-star rating but signs with a DII school .... what did the 4-star rating matter? OR if a kid gets a 2-star rating but signs with Alabama, what good is the 2-star rating??

The ratings part is made up. The actual value provided by these services is entirely within the reporting of recruiting updates, commitments, and signings.
 

MnplsGopher said:
This alone is well more than enough for me to dismiss the ratings part of it as nothing more than "Just for entertainment purposes". Because that's what it is.

But I'm not going to pee in anyone's cheerios -- if you want to get excited because someone you paid to tell you "good news" is telling you "good news", go right ahead.




But this just goes right back to the fundamentally inherent silliness of the whole ratings part of it: the only thing that actually matters is which players sign with which programs.


In other words, if some player gets a 4-star rating but signs with a DII school .... what did the 4-star rating matter? OR if a kid gets a 2-star rating but signs with Alabama, what good is the 2-star rating??

The ratings part is made up. The actual value provided by these services is entirely within the reporting of recruiting updates, commitments, and signings.
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All of this is completely false
 





GopherWeatherGuy said:
No you are and are completely making stuff up
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Seems pretty standard for anyone who doesn't agree with you.

BTW - have you figured out yet why 247 removes players who didn't qualify or dropped out or quit or transferred to come up with "talent rankings" rather than to just use their initial recruiting rankings? I'm sure there is a good reason. What could it be......


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Spoofin said:
Seems pretty standard for anyone who doesn't agree with you.

BTW - have you figured out yet why 247 removes players who didn't qualify or dropped out or quit or transferred to come up with "talent rankings" rather than to just use their initial recruiting rankings? I'm sure there is a good reason. What could it be......


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I am actually a fan of the recruiting sites. I like to read their information and I think Ryan and Kyle do a good job. I have just been a big follower of recruiting for a long time so I take everything with a grain of salt. The message board at 247/Scout is a lot more level headed as well. They may be drinking a little bit of PJ kool-aid but they don't generally have thread after thread that devolves into some kind of pro-PJ or anti-PJ argument. If you are a recruiting guy this is your favorite time of the year and this class looks really good according to the ratings.

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Spoofin said:
Seems pretty standard for anyone who doesn't agree with you.

BTW - have you figured out yet why 247 removes players who didn't qualify or dropped out or quit or transferred to come up with "talent rankings" rather than to just use their initial recruiting rankings? I'm sure there is a good reason. What could it be......


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Lol are you going to actually try and argue this again? I mean I shouldn't be surprised, rinse and repeat. I thought we were making progress.
 



GopherWeatherGuy said:
Lol are you going to actually try and argue this again? I mean I shouldn't be surprised, rinse and repeat. I thought we were making progress.
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Argue what? Simple question. Why would they do that?

Your initial post stated, "It does not include players that left the program, were kicked off, etc, <b>that may have bumped up the rankings for previous recruiting classes.</b>

Is that still the running theory? LOL is right. I'm sure that's why they remove those players.


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Spoofin said:
Argue what? Simple question. Why would they do that?

Your initial post stated, "It does not include players that left the program, were kicked off, etc, <b>that may have bumped up the rankings for previous recruiting classes.</b>

Is that still the running theory? LOL is right. I'm sure that's why they remove those players.


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They remove the players because they are only including the ones on the teams. Yes or no, the players included had individual recruiting rankings?
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
They remove the players because they are only including the ones on the teams. Yes or no, the players included had individual recruiting rankings?
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Yes they did. Your turn....
Yes or No, team rankings that include players that don't qualify, transfer out, quit football, etc. are less accurate and predictive than a later adjusted team ranking that removes those players?


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Spoofin said:
Yes they did. Your turn....
Yes or No, team rankings that include players that don't qualify, transfer out, quit football, etc. are less accurate and predictive than a later adjusted team ranking that removes those players?


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Only including the players on the team is more accurate, which is why I used it. Your turn. Show proof that a 5 year composite recruiting average deviates significantly from the team talent rankings.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Only including the players on the team is more accurate, which is why I used it. Your turn. Show proof that a 5 year composite recruiting average deviates significantly from the team talent rankings.
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I think you have proven my point.
Have a nice evening GWG.


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MnplsGopher said:
This alone is well more than enough for me to dismiss the ratings part of it as nothing more than "Just for entertainment purposes". Because that's what it is.

But I'm not going to pee in anyone's cheerios -- if you want to get excited because someone you paid to tell you "good news" is telling you "good news", go right ahead.
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False, there is a strong correlation between recruiting rankings and wins.


MnplsGopher said:
But this just goes right back to the fundamentally inherent silliness of the whole ratings part of it: the only thing that actually matters is which players sign with which programs.

In other words, if some player gets a 4-star rating but signs with a DII school .... what did the 4-star rating matter? OR if a kid gets a 2-star rating but signs with Alabama, what good is the 2-star rating??
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Show me a 4* that signed with a DII school. Alabama has signed several 2* players, what's your point? You an still sign a few lower rated kids and have the best recruiting class.

MnplsGopher said:
The ratings part is made up. The actual value provided by these services is entirely within the reporting of recruiting updates, commitments, and signings.
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The ratings are subjective, but there is plenty of value. As I said above, simple math has proved recruiting rankings matter over and over again.
 

There is seriously a 16 page thread for this? I’m not reading 16 pages on He matter but if anyone is actually claiming that ratings do not matter at all... They must have went to school one state to the east. That is not to say that a 2 star player with drive, great coaching, and enough talent can’t make the NFL (BBC I believe meets these criteria)... but there is a strong correlation between recruiting rankings and on field success.
 


PoockItInfor6 said:
There is seriously a 16 page thread for this? I’m not reading 16 pages on He matter but if anyone is actually claiming that ratings do not matter at all... They must have went to school one state to the east. That is not to say that a 2 star player with drive, great coaching, and enough talent can’t make the NFL (BBC I believe meets these criteria)... but there is a strong correlation between recruiting rankings and on field success.
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You don't get this place. Insanity rules here! I have hardly even posted here and I figured that out.
 

I read this thread earlier and thought I'd post about the correlation between rankings and the NFL Draft, but Poock beat me to it. For those that won't click on the link, of the 31 former 5 star recruits who were eligible to be drafted in 2017, 23 were drafted including 17 in the first two rounds. At the 4 star level, 12 were drafted in the first round making for 22/32 being 4 or 5 star kids.

I am not going to put any effort in to trying to convince people that the rankings have merit and do correlate to on field success (or lack thereof). Like with almost anything there are going to be outliers. I don't know if any of the people posting about this were around when this was an argument during the Mason years and people screamed "GREG ESLINGER WAS A TWO STAR!" But that was literally a thing. They ignored all the two stars that didn't work out, ignored that Minnesota never beat the top of the conference teams (or finished there themselves) and just used a handful of players to justify not putting any weight in the ratings.
 

PoockItInfor6 said:
There is seriously a 16 page thread for this? I’m not reading 16 pages on He matter but <b>if anyone is actually claiming that ratings do not matter at all... </b>They must have went to school one state to the east. That is not to say that a 2 star player with drive, great coaching, and enough talent can’t make the NFL (BBC I believe meets these criteria)... but there is a strong correlation between recruiting rankings and on field success.
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The debate is not, and never has been, that rankings don't matter at all - even if GWG posts that strawman in his OP. He continues to oversimplify the opposing argument for transparent reasons. I have been part of this debate on this thread because I have an opinion on rankings - but more so I find it comical that it took GWG 16 pages to (somewhat) acknowledge that 247 didn't create these "talent rankings" for any reason other than to cover up some of the biggest flaws with recruiting rankings. As I stated early on, my viewpoint....


Spoofin said:
Since GWG put some effort into his analysis I thought I should do more with my response.

1. Why are we removing players that never made it to campus, are no longer with the team, etc.? That is a primary reason I don't put much stock in team rankings (see Brewster). When has that ever been discussed in the debates we have had here - including the most recent one that started again with the MD debacle? Removing that data is presented here (and by 247) as some way to be more accurate - but it does nothing but invalidate the data when the argument is about recruiting rankings.

2. Few, if any, in the group would debate that an Ohio State team ranked in the top 5 isn't better than a Rutgers Team ranked 75. That has never been the debate (for me at least). My point has always been after the top 20 or 25 or pick a number around there - it is a roll of the dice. The same happens at the back end too, of course. The ranking police would basically argue the team ranked 32nd is better than that ranked 33rd and my argument is I wouldn't even assume that the 25th ranked team is better than the 50th. I wonder how this data would look if we only used teams between 20-60 or 25-75, or something like that? Including the extreme ends is, again, including data not part of the central argument to influence the result.

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Spoofin said:
The debate is not, and never has been, that rankings don't matter at all - even if GWG posts that strawman in his OP. He continues to oversimplify the opposing argument for transparent reasons. I have been part of this debate on this thread because I have an opinion on rankings - but more so I find it comical that it took GWG 16 pages to (somewhat) acknowledge that 247 didn't create these "talent rankings" for any reason other than to cover up some of the biggest flaws with recruiting rankings. As I stated early on, my viewpoint....







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Your opinion on this is wrong and has been proven over and over by math, by other people than just me.

I've answered all of your questions but you continue fail to believe simple math. Your bitterness shows daily on here with your continued attempts to derail every thread, with the same - in this case wrong - arguments over and over again.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
Your opinion on this is wrong and has been proven over and over by math, by other people than just me.

I've answered all of your questions but you continue fail to believe simple math. Your bitterness shows daily on here with your continued attempts to derail every thread, with the same - in this case wrong - arguments over and over again.
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What is sad is you are so blind that you believe this. After all this time and all this go-around you still couldn't explain my opinion as you don't want to see it - you would rather make it what you want it to be (as you did in the OP of this thread). Posting NFL draft links and telling me 75% of "more talented" teams win is not addressing my opinion at all yet you do it over and over and over then tell me I am ignoring math. I took 6 quarters of Calculus at the U - understanding math isn't the problem. Statistics meant to skew results that don't address my opinion at all is the problem.


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Spoofin said:
What is sad is you are so blind that you believe this. After all this time and all this go-around you still couldn't explain my opinion as you don't want to see it - you would rather make it what you want it to be (as you did in the OP of this thread). Posting NFL draft links and telling me 75% of "more talented" teams win is not addressing my opinion at all yet you do it over and over and over then tell me I am ignoring math. I took 6 quarters of Calculus at the U - understanding math isn't the problem. Statistics meant to skew results that don't address my opinion at all is the problem.


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Your only rebuttal in this entire thread is that individual class rankings don’t correlate with team talent rakings. I’ve asked for proof, but you can’t and won’t give any. With your vast calculus experience, this should be easy.
 

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