The way that it works with Scout and Rivals is that any publisher can enter a player in the database. However, one of the national recruiting guys (football or basketball) have to give them a projected position and raise their star rating. Obviously, no person can see every player in the country, so it sometimes takes time for a player to get stars or to have his star rating raised. I did a story on Josh Colville today. I had previously put him in the Scout database, but since no national person has ever done a story on him, he remains a No star. Crawford-Tufts was another player I put in the database and when he committed to Minnesota, he was given a two-star rating, even though it is likely no had ever really seen him play. You could argue that if he had committed to a USC, Florida or Notre Dame, he would be a three or four star. The Colorado duo of A.J. Battle and Devonte Johnson are not in any database, which means no stars for either player. Those under the radar types obviously look bad when fans get fixated on the number of stars they have. They are getting looks from Colorado State, Utah and Kansas State, which would make them at least a two-star player.
I put players like Seantrel Henderson, Royce White and Rodney Williams into the database and eventually they were given the right amount of stars
The point is that you can never get get too excited about stars, especially with football. Basketball is easier to see most of the top players with all the AAU Tournaments and top camps, so I think the rankings and stars are a bit more accurate in that sport.
Just my two (maybe one and half) cents.
Chris Monter