Started By
Message
Are the services ever going to be able to issue even decently reliable transfer rankings?
Posted on 1/7/26 at 2:08 pm
Posted on 1/7/26 at 2:08 pm
I am skeptical. In high school, the number is manageable. Multiply that number times 5, then redo all of those, every year. Seems impossible.
As colleges become more professional with more personal dedicated to scouting, colleges will no longer be as dependent on outsourcing their scouting to the recruiting services. A big part of a good coach will be just the organization of identifying talent, which seems harder at the college level than the high school level. Any idiot can notice that a man amongst boys stands out in high school. But it takes real knowledge and skill to know whether, for example, player A or player B was the problem (or the reason for excellence) on a P4 college offensive line, where everyone is 6-4 315.
I don't trust the recruiting services to have either the manpower or the knowledge to sort the wheat from the chaff on a field full of big and fast dudes, with dudes constantly needing to be re-ranked.
As colleges become more professional with more personal dedicated to scouting, colleges will no longer be as dependent on outsourcing their scouting to the recruiting services. A big part of a good coach will be just the organization of identifying talent, which seems harder at the college level than the high school level. Any idiot can notice that a man amongst boys stands out in high school. But it takes real knowledge and skill to know whether, for example, player A or player B was the problem (or the reason for excellence) on a P4 college offensive line, where everyone is 6-4 315.
I don't trust the recruiting services to have either the manpower or the knowledge to sort the wheat from the chaff on a field full of big and fast dudes, with dudes constantly needing to be re-ranked.
This post was edited on 1/7/26 at 2:09 pm
13
Posted on 1/7/26 at 7:52 pm to Hugh McElroy
I think it's easier to identifying talent at the college level. if they are playing every down..they have already risen to the next level and succeeded. there's no guessing if they can make that transition....they are plug and play.
The guessing game is with those 5 star guys that didn't get playing time and want to leave...like Calen Odum....5 star tweener OM signed in this past years portal class. If we paid him like a 5 star we over paid...he only played 20% of the snaps and maybe caught 20 balls this year. He could develop into the next Evan Ingram...but whatever we paid this year it was too much.
The guessing game is with those 5 star guys that didn't get playing time and want to leave...like Calen Odum....5 star tweener OM signed in this past years portal class. If we paid him like a 5 star we over paid...he only played 20% of the snaps and maybe caught 20 balls this year. He could develop into the next Evan Ingram...but whatever we paid this year it was too much.
Posted on 1/8/26 at 4:58 am to Hugh McElroy
247 going with HS rankings for guys that haven't seen the field much inflates their value usually. Also with some players they won't drop them much despite poor play. Lagway is still given a high rating despite playing worse than most all of the 3 star listed transfer QBs.
Posted on 1/8/26 at 11:43 am to Hugh McElroy
No way, it’s impossible. Think of a good solid program and what their player evaluation team looks like now. It’s dozens of people at this point. An individual school basically rivals the amount of evaluators these services have and frankly if these guys were any good at their job, they would be working for a school getting paid a lot more to do it.
They don’t have the manpower or the know how to evaluate transfer players at all. Transfer rankings are worse than useless.
They don’t have the manpower or the know how to evaluate transfer players at all. Transfer rankings are worse than useless.
Posted on 1/8/26 at 11:58 am to Hugh McElroy
Like I said before, if Ian Geffrard is considered a top portal addition they need to work on portal rankings, one of the worst DTs you’ll ever see
Posted on 1/8/26 at 12:16 pm to Hugh McElroy
It's ludicrous to expect a handful of people to accurately rank 5k players in a matter of 3 weeks. Outside of the very obvious guys, it's a waste of time.
If you like your team's rankings and want to brag about them, that's great. If you aren't highly ranked but think your team got it's needs and you want to ignore the rankings, also great.
If you like your team's rankings and want to brag about them, that's great. If you aren't highly ranked but think your team got it's needs and you want to ignore the rankings, also great.
Posted on 1/8/26 at 12:45 pm to Hugh McElroy
I would argue that transfer rankings should be heavily influenced by who is being most heavily recruited by top programs. There is bias there but the rankings would be better than a few random reporters guessing at 5,000 rankings over a few days.
Posted on 1/9/26 at 10:55 pm to Hugh McElroy
That info is very valuable. if you can work through the 25% of cfb in the portal, you sure as shite ain’t givin that out for free
Atleast imo
Atleast imo
Posted on 1/9/26 at 10:56 pm to Jeepin_Josh
quote:
next Evan Ingram
Evan engram
Posted on 1/13/26 at 11:21 pm to Hugh McElroy
no
it's not cost effective to do so. Rankings are mainly for the fans
it's not cost effective to do so. Rankings are mainly for the fans
Posted on 1/14/26 at 1:58 am to Hugh McElroy
On3 is a joke on transfer rankings, it takes into account those transferring out and in both.
247 only accounts for those transferring into a program, which gives an better idea on the impact of those transfers to a program.
247 only accounts for those transferring into a program, which gives an better idea on the impact of those transfers to a program.
Posted on 1/14/26 at 10:56 am to Hugh McElroy
I doubt it.
Posted on 1/15/26 at 11:44 am to Hugh McElroy
Of course not. Just like high school kids, they are basing most of their assessments on “potential” and how much someone was willing to pay
Look at Coleman, not even in the top 15 in the SEC but “if he had a better qb” “his upside is there” “they paid 4 million so the coaches must see something” but will he perform? No one knows
It’s the same for at least 50% of the kids
He was an average OL at one school, but that was because he had no talent around him! He was a mediocre RB? Well he’ll be awesome with a better OL!
It’s just what it is
Look at Coleman, not even in the top 15 in the SEC but “if he had a better qb” “his upside is there” “they paid 4 million so the coaches must see something” but will he perform? No one knows
It’s the same for at least 50% of the kids
He was an average OL at one school, but that was because he had no talent around him! He was a mediocre RB? Well he’ll be awesome with a better OL!
It’s just what it is
Posted on 1/15/26 at 11:59 am to tigger1
quote:
On3 is a joke on transfer rankings, it takes into account those transferring out and in both.
247 only accounts for those transferring into a program, which gives an better idea on the impact of those transfers to a program.
To get a better picture, why would you ignore the ones that are transferring out?
Posted on 1/15/26 at 12:07 pm to Hugh McElroy
quote:
which seems harder at the college level than the high school level. Any idiot can notice that a man amongst boys stands out in high school.
I think the latter makes high school much harder to scout. Yes, it's easy to see who is a D1 prospect, but it's not easy to scout how they'll perform against players who are also elite football players. In college, not only can you evaluate players based on what they've done against elite players, you also will have much better film availability than at the high school and not nearly as much of a need to scout these guys in person. And with the advent of having a team of analysts on every staff, it makes that job a lot more manageable than it used to be.
But to answer your question, no there will never be a reliable ranking. If there were, there would never be any busts at any level of football and the need for scouts would be gone.
This post was edited on 1/15/26 at 12:09 pm
Posted on 1/15/26 at 2:44 pm to Quicksilver
quote:
To get a better picture, why would you ignore the ones that are transferring out?
Should we consider players who were recruited in 2022 and have exhausted their eligibility when ranking 2026 high school recruiting classes?
This post was edited on 1/15/26 at 3:02 pm
Posted on 1/15/26 at 4:36 pm to Quicksilver
quote:
To get a better picture, why would you ignore the ones that are transferring out?
Because it's negatively skewed w/ high rated recruits that were overrated/ underperformed
Posted on 1/16/26 at 11:57 am to Hugh McElroy
quote:
Are the services ever going to be able to issue even decently reliable transfer rankings?
No probably not. Unless they keep evaluating players once they get to college and rerank recruiting classes every year. Then they might have a chance but that seems like they would need double the staff for very minimal returns
Page 1 of 1
Popular
Back to top
Follow SECRant for SEC Football News