An insightful look a recruiting stars

[Crockett]

Rick Gosslein, maybe the American journalist with the highest credibility when it comes to NFL talent evaluation and the draft, took an insightful look at recruiting rankings:The Link

 

[Third Coast]

The Alabama reference is somewhat ridiculous. Sure they lost to Auburn on a freak play and then gave an uninspired effort against a fired up OU team in the bowl, but how many championships has the Tide won with those top recruiting classes?

The Baylor situation just proves that three star players and superior coaching will outperform four and five star players that are poorly coached.

 

[jayakris]

The Texas reference is ridiculous too, as far as making a case for what he is trying to say. You pick the worst example of a coach on his way out who had had the worst period of coaching and talent evaluation to make a big case? BS. Even with all the coaching abilities of Briles (he's great), that Baylor team could well have lost to the Texas team even with ONE key player on our team (QB) being better, or heck, even if it was played at our stadium with a conference title on the line, even with the 1.5-star QB we had. That Baylor team's deficiencies on defense was pretty easy to see. Hell, UCF scored 52 and beat Baylor in the bowl game.

I'm not arguing that Briles doesn't evaluate lower rated players superbly and produce offenses that are topnotch. In fact I would say that he had close to 20 players of 4 star quality on offense itself while only 8 or 9 may have been originally 4 stars. I don't think he has done that kind of talent evaluation on the defensive side either (though he probably had 10 or so 4-stars there too, while only 5-6 may have been originally 4-stars.

But my complaint is that to take a coach who does that for a living and does it superbly and a coach that has been THE worst at that over the last 4-5 years, to make a case for something that applies to college football is really ridiculously stretching it.

Then he couches the whole thing (may be not to look like he is one more guy who is rehashing the oh-so well-known Texas problem) with an Alabama reference which is even more ridiculous. Throw in a couple more bad-coach/good-coach scenarios with Muschamp-vs-Jimbo and Hoke-vs-Dantonio, and you have an article that says stars don't matter in the normal case? [Heck, Muschamp-vs-Charlie last year would have been an even better case of a bad-coach/good-coach scenario. Some 55 odd 4/5 players at UF against Charlie's 11 fours at UL. The biggest point-spread upset in BCS bowl history!]

Yeah, Gosslein may know his stuff, but he wrote a weak article there. But then this BS about stars not mattering has been there for ever. Of course, talent evaluation and coaching can overcome a lot. But that doesn't mean that higher rated stars are not better players that the same good coaches can't do even better with. "Lack of star power doesn't mean a thing" (the title) applies to a few coaches. What's new? That was always the case. That fact doesn't mean a thing for a majority of coaches.

 

[LikeMike]

No ranking system of 18 year olds will always be accurate. The exceptional three star guy will often be overlooked.

But, the columnist would have done us all a better service if he had done a10 year or at least 5 year analysis. Simply lazy, I guess.

Who among you would rather start next years season with Alabama's roster versus Baylor's.

 

[Crockett]

I think the article shows that recruiting rankings is only one reference point. I'm betting that Mark Dantonio and Art Briles signed a lot of two and three star players they knew were better than some the journalists who puts together the rivals list rated with four stars.

Remember Sam Acho, a three star recruit with offers from Texas and USC? He wasn't an untalented guy who was "coached up" to become an NFL player. He was a prospect the coaches correctly evaluated who played well from the day he arrived at UT. Player evaluation is inexact and subjective. Results show some coaches do it better than Rivals and Scouts.

 

[It Hurts]

Is the star system nothing more than an attempt to get someone to buy a subscription? When you look back the history of football the AP rating was nothing more than an attempt to sell more news papers so the same could be said of the recruiting services. I am sure that Rivals has a marketing team that can crunch out numbers that generate the best sells results.

 

[blonthang]

1. The only "exact science" is mathematics, in which proofs can be made exactly. All other sciences have theories that are "proven" only within acceptable statistical error.

2. We still accept and use things knowing they aren't exact: You get on an airplane knowing that there is a non-zero likelihood of the plane crashing from a variety of reasons that have science as a reason for reliance upon them --- weather predictions, engineers' reliance upon materials science (will the wings fall off), dynamics (do the wings have enough lift), etc. None of these and thousands of other parameters are exact.

3. Relating to college football recruiting. Sure, there are 5 and 4 star busts all the time. And there are 3 and 2 and 1 star players who wind up like 5 stars, or.... perform as 3 or 2 or 1 stars, or bust like a 5 or 4 star.

4. Without researching it to support the following claim, more 5 stars are the "glamour" positions, QB, RB, WR, etc. More 3, 2, 1 stars are the big uglies, LBs, kickers, etc. We see more dramatic failures with 5 and 4 stars (interceptions, fumbles, etc.) than we see with others (missed tackles, being out of position on a play).

5. Championship caliber college football teams are typically characterized as having both a 5 star or two which make a difference (e.g. Vince Young), but also a boatload of 3-star level support players (e.g., big uglies, etc.) 2 and 3 and 4 deep that can virtually be interchanged. Lessor programs (i.e., non-championship level teams) don't. It's why the 1st quarter and 2nd quarter scores between powers and OOC record-padding cannon-fodder teams can have the lessor team leading, but as the game progresses the very, very deep 3-star talent of the power, well, overpowers that weaker team with one 5-star and 50 1-star and less players.

6. To win in any sport, at any level, the first order of business is to get the best players you can. It would be stupid to say: "To HELL with THAT, I'm going to show them just how GREAT of a coach I am, I'm going to get a bunch of bottom-feeders, coach 'em up, and beat the other teams with better players." Good luck, because those other teams with better players, a lot of them ALSO have good to great coaches as well.

7. Which leads to, sure, there are always exceptions to the rule, and there are variances in performance of a program over a given short period of time due to a number of reasons, injuries, defections, internal program conflict, poor assistant coaching performance, etc., etc., but in the long run, the teams that get the best talent (unless they have poor coaching) win more games than the teams who don't get the best talent (unless they have a really, really exceptional coach). The best approach would be to have the best resources available, the best coaches available, and THE BEST TALENT AVAILABLE, whether as valued by ranking services or by recruiters.

The recruiters are seeing the same things as the ranking services, either by going to high school games to watch, talking to high school coaches, or watching film. It's no coincidence that recruiters compete for the highest ranked players, nor just because a 5 star winds up a bust is that an indictment of the ranking system.

It's not an exact science.

 

[Brad Austin]

Recruiting info has become big business with strong national interest. Hard to believe that outside influence hasn't begun to have an impact on the ranking system and star designations.

 

[puckhead]

Fascinating