re: ESPN = Best Recruit Rankings

Rusty and the UGA guys have WAY TOO MUCH say over the recruiting rankings on 247.

The state of Georgia has seven 5 star players alone. The states of California, Texas, and Florida have ten 5 star players COMBINED.

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Rusty and the UGA guys have WAY TOO MUCH say over the recruiting rankings on 247.

The state of Georgia has seven 5 star players alone. The states of California, Texas, and Florida have ten 5 star players COMBINED.

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But that's always been the case with the flavor of the day network dating back to '99 really.

It was Jamie Newberg at one time with Border Wars and his lean towards Georgia and Florida HS talent. Bobby Burton and bias towards Texas and California talent.

I have no clue who it is now or who this particular Rusty is you're talking about ... there used to be a Rusty years ago that was pretty good but I know for an absolute fact it's not him.

Doesn't matter. Whomever it is that is the flavor of the day - that's who has all the ranking power, the one sitting at the head of the committee table four times a year.

When I sold out I walked away from it and never looked back. It also taught me a valuable lesson. These rankings mean very little in the overall scheme of things and even when someone uses some off the wall metric to prove a point about the higher rated, or more stars the better ... no one ever looks at the other side of the coin that proves otherwise.

These Recruiting Services have become the epitome of the tail wagging the dog ... and no one gets it. It's all about premium subscriptions and page views and CPMs.

I can guarantee you right now that some of us could put together an All-American team (built of 3* players) over any three year period one might choose, and then give the other side an all-5* team picked from the same three year period ... and the 3* team would, today, be proven to be better.

The major variable being ... who coaches'em-up.

Odds of Becoming an All-American:

5–Star: 1 in 4.
4–Star: 1 in 16.
3–Star: 1 in 56.

Looks like these rankings are legit.

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Can you pick a 3 star team from the class of 2019 and guarantee that it will beat a 5 star team from 2019?

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I was using a three year parameter metric ... but that's my point about hindsight.

In 2011 when we sat down and reviewed our past six years it was glaringly painful how badly the committee system missed, I mean wiffed, on so many prospects when it came to rating them. Some of us could pull our notes and say, "hey, this kid had a great college career and just made the pro bowl and I tried to get y'all to agree to bump him but you wouldn't because he was an early commit to NC State." (Even though he garnered offers from newrly everyone by signing day.)

Where problems arise are when so-called analysts, who have never played a high level of football or coached or evaluated, are allowed to have too much input ... Bobby Burton and Jamie Newberg are both prime examples and both were Directors of Recruiting for major online networks. They had guys sitting around them who had played NFL ball, college ball, been coaches ... but they got the biggest vote and the final say-so and it left us shaking our heads at times. I got so frustrated with it during a meeting in Vegas one time that I basically told Bobby Burton it was all a farce ... and it was over some highly rated Notre Dame and Texas commits that ended up being flops ... but he admitted to me that night, while drunk, that he wanted to play to the large subscription bases and that subscriptions went up drastically when a team was putting together a highly rated class.

I will say that some of that was Jim Heckman driven. I honestly think when Shannon Terry took over he had more integrity with the process and forced Burton to quit the bullshite bias crap.

Ray Hines, who is a former partner that I have incredible respect for down at Gator Country, he became so frustrated with it that he quit promoting the network rankings (and he was also one of the ones who opted for ESPN after we had gone through Rivals, then our own network, then we were bought out by Scout, then to ESPN ... and now he decided to do the smart thing ... he's independent. Because the networks are all about the bottom line. They have zero integrity imho.

When it comes to recruiting you have to have full time evaluators who actually know what they are doing attending HS games, talking to coaches, watching film and attending camp workouts. Only then can you begin to cut down on some of these massive whiffs coming from the Network ranking systems.

With that said, it's gotten better over the years, it has. But it could be so much better. The problem is that it's not an exact science and too much emphasis is placed on stars rather than doing it using the same approach the really good recruiting coaches use ...

1 - Height, weight, speed, strength.
2 - Work ethic, motor, drive, energy, enthusiasm, competitiveness.
3 - Family and background. (A huge deal these days)
4 - Academics and/or academic potential, mentality ... classroom.
5 - Geographic proximity.
6 - Skills, footwork, coordination, coachability.
7 - Sociobility ... is he well rounded, well liked, does he get along with others. What leadership skills does he exhibit.

That's the checklist and each coach has a way of going down the checklist and an order of importance.

When you look at it from a network perspective it's always first and foremost about five things at that committee table.

1 - Is he an early commit? If so that's a negative. They want them to drag it out and raise the suspense level.
2 - Height, weight, speed. (Weight room ethic is not a factor)
3 - Offer list (and this is where it gets crazy. When phone interviews are conducted a kid may sling an offer list out there ... but when we learned to double-check we would discover a big difference between what we called a conditional offer and a commitable offer. Yet the board rarely cared. A kid may have a long list of conditional offers ... contingent upon grades, or discipline issues or a lingering injury that needed to be cleared, or attending a camp or feedback from a HS coach ... but it would still be treated as a commitable offer.

Worst of all is when a network evaluator, and this happens more than most know, builds a relationship with a kid and then advises him that his stock may rise or fall depending upon how long he holds out before he commits. That used to enrage me when I would get feedback from prospects finding out someone was doing that.

Then there are what we used to call preference bumps. Jamie Newberg used to do this far too often and I once had to sit down with Steve Spurrier and explain to him a specific case where it happened right after he took over at SC. I'll never forget it.

Ron Cooper was our DB coach at the time. He had a great eye for DB talent. He had gotten a commitment from this kid out of Florida Dorian Monroe. The kid was an early 2* commit to us ... anyone who watched his film knew he was a hidden gem. So I argued to get him bumped to a 3*. Couldn't get it done. But on signing day he completely and totally unexpected signs with Florida and says it was because he had this relationship with Ron Cooper (who we ended-up keeping) and he felt Coop was going to be let-go by SPURrier when he replaced Holtz.

Regardless, Monroe was bumped from a 2* to a 4* the day after signing day and it helped move Florida into a Top 20 class. (I think they finished like 15 or something)

At the same time Spurrier had landed Ryan Succup, a kicker, who was dropped to a 3* (and was probably our greatest kicker in history and has been All-Pro) and JuCo transfer WR Jared Cook who was a low 3* after being bumped from a 2* who now is wearing a Super Bowl ring and has two All-Pro appearances under his belt.

Those were obvious future stars ... anyways.

I could go on and on. Schools like SC, and others, who are not blue bloods had to fight those battles all the time and, to some extent, still do.

Here's something to think about.

Florida won two National Championships in the 2000s without averaging a Top 10 class either year.

Clemson just recently won a national championship without averaging a Top 10 class leading up to the CFBCG win.

Why? Because they had one or two great players in those classes, both times QBs, and everyone on those teams were coached-up by great unit and position coaches who took players and molded them to fit their systems.

That's what recruiting is all about. That's how you do it.

In the overall scheme of things these rating services mean little to nothing and they are a waste of subscriber's money.

The fact is that you know you can't do better than the current system.

Otherwise, you wouldn't have posted about a 3 year history looking back at the misses in hindsight.

Recruiting is comparing kids to the current class. Not the previous 2.

The current system isn't great. But it is far and away better than anything else that is feasible. As you said... it is much better than it was in the past. Hudl videos, camps, and better networking through the high school ranks are the reason it is so.

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JuCo transfer WR Jared Cook who was a low 3* after being bumped from a 2* who now is wearing a Super Bowl ring and has two All-Pro appearances under his belt.

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Are you sure about this?

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Clemson just recently won a national championship without averaging a Top 10 class leading up to the CFBCG win. Why? Because

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.......Nc state missed a chip shot field goal.

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2016 was the only year tcu struggled since they been in the big 12.

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They have had 3 good seasons and 3 bad seasons in the Big 12.

I don't follow fsu. I can take your word for it.

One problem with recruiting rankings is that the team on the field does not always mirror the classes.

Non-eligibles, transfers, medicals, suspensions and expulsions...

Then look at duplication. Depth is extremely important. But only 1 QB typically handles success a season. 2 RBs typically handle success a season.

There is a lot of talent in a class that doesn't see the field. Richt mismanaged the roster in new ways over and over.

Richt fielded 69 scholarship players in the 2012 SEC Championship game.

Injuries,attrition, expulsions, suspensions. That isn't on 1 class. That is management on 5 (counting red shirts).

I agree to disagree about the QB position.
Consistently, they will be 4 star or better when signing on in the SEC. Put together 5 straight classes of 4 star or better QBs and you are still lucky if you find 2 regular contributors in that bunch.
Those five 4 star or better QBs have a heavy skew in the ratings. But again, only 2 may be contributing over a 6 year period.

No biggie. We disagree. You missed the point of my post (which was made in context and with experience of UGA and out issues the past 16 seasons).