re: Recruiting - Defense

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Put it this way: About one in four five-star recruits like No. 1 pick Jameis Winston goes on to become a first-rounder, but only about one in 64 three-star recruits like No. 2 Marcus Mariota does. Any generalizations about star-ratings that use NFL rosters as justification are giving disproportionate weight to the outliers.

Last year, SB Nation’s Bud Elliott examined why some two-star recruits still wind up becoming NFL stars.

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Three stars: 15 (47.8 percent)

Two stars or lower: two (6.2 percent)

A ha! More than half of last year’s first rounders were no better than three-star recruits. Definitive proof that those stars don’t matter, right?

Well … not if you consider the broader dispersal of those stars. Compare those percentages above to the percentage of five-stars among all 2011 recruits (the class that produced the majority of those draft picks.)

Five stars: 26 (0.7 percent)

Four stars: 336 (8.9 percent)

Three stars: 971 (25.7 percent)

Two stars or lower: 2,441 (64.7 percent)

So despite comprising less than 1 percent of all recruits, five-stars accounted for a quarter of 2015 first-rounders. Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of all recruits are designated as being three stars or less, yet their representation in the first round is nearly half that.

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Highlighted by stars like Florida State’s Winston; Washington LB Shaq Thompson; USC DT Leonard Williams; and Alabama’s Amari Cooper, T.J. Yeldon and Reggie Ragland, 38 of the 50 started multiple seasons, 28 earned all-conference honors and 14 made All-American.

Conversely, only seven of the 50 could be considered a “bust,” having never started a full season.

In 2013, Hinton, then with CBS Sports, examined the rate at which each star-level of recruits develop into All-Americans.

So even if you can’t stand all the pomp and the fuss of Signing Day, you probably should pay attention Wednesday to the college decisions of five-star prospects like Rashan Gary, Derrick Brown and Demetris Robertson. Statistically speaking, they are far more likely than not to become future standouts, and the teams that land the most are far more likely to win championships than not.

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