Recruiting Rankings

Once again we are near the bottom of the heap. Face it, most other schools are more attractive to the majority of football players than we. It still amazes me that our coaches find a way for us to stay competitive. Tied for third last year ? Amazing job. Thanks coaches for your hard work.

keeper said:

Once again we are near the bottom of the heap. Face it, most other schools are more attractive to the majority of football players than we. It still amazes me that our coaches find a way for us to stay competitive. Tied for third last year ? Amazing job. Thanks coaches for your hard work.

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It is a great testament to their abilities as scouts. This class has more stars than any class in Grobe's tenure. It has continued to evolve.

The ranking system is what should be on trial. After the first 25 "sure- things" and the next hundred "ought to's" the whole system begins to crack.

Offers also must play a more important role -- A kid like Crump had a very real offer from Mark Richt and Georgia. How many of the Duke kids had legitimate competing offers from name schools?

Didn't another one of our guys have an offer from Stanford, and didn't Cameron have an offer from LSU?

Lectro: Would you say Crump would be a 4* if he had camped out more?

Turner said:

Didn't another one of our guys have an offer from Stanford, and didn't Cameron have an offer from LSU?

Lectro: Would you say Crump would be a 4* if he had camped out more?

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Hey Turner...

On Crump...just take a look at his sophomore film. He's a man-child. This guy hasn't had competition really push him in awhile. He is an Elite Ath at 6'3-200 who can run right at 4.5 and has an extremely quick and explosive vertical...the guy springs to the apex and catches the ball when he is fully extended. That ain't easy and he does it routinely. He is goal-line Gold for that corner high-ball.

I'd say that had he shown any interest in 'playing the game' that he could have worked himself into a high 4 star ranking.

Bottom line is that the University of Georgia offered our top WR pledge a scholarship because Jared is a player. Mike visited Georgia (un-officially) and they kept tabs on him...eventually they saw him as a West Virginia type. No doubt he is a body type with which Galloway has had much prior success.

Both Cameron and Harris had offers from LSU and Stanford. I went over to Scout and compared Wake and Duke and Lectro is right. Our 3 stars had much more impressive offers than Duke's, except the ones that were injured and oddly enough Vason who most WFU pundits are excited about.

Sorry Harris did not have an offer from LSU.

More and more it would appear that beyond certain exceptional players, ratings are show business. Of course speed, size and strength are measurable but so many things are beyond the reach of those who assign ratings.

At least we know that our coaches have to work hard at evaluating talent and weighing the intangibles. The quality of their work shows in being competitive against teams whose recruiting classes are always rated way above ours.

Contrary to what you'd expect, I think recruiting sites, for basketball and football, are actually less dependable now than they were in the past. There's just not as much money in it anymore with the freer flow of information, because of twitter in particular -- I know rivals has had to cut back on staff in both basketball and football. And then on top of that, it's so easy to just start your own recruiting site instead of working for or feeding info to the big guys.

There are a lot more sources of info nowadays, and it's often free, but I don't think the quality is as high as it's been in the past.

Trashing the ratings services has been a long tradition on here (I am counting all the years on the old Scout board and Rancho de Nada before that -- yes, I go way back).

We all know why the ratings services get trashed on Wake boards, because Wake traditionally ends up with low-ranked classes, so we console ourselves by telling each other that our recruits are really much better than they've been ranked. And occasionally a few are, but most are ranked exactly where they should be, and their performance on the field later confirms that. The truth is that Grobe does a really incredible job with the level of talent that he is able to attract and qualify at Wake. Really incredible, and he does not get enough credit for it (although he is paid exceptionally well).

Say what you will, but take the programs in the Top 15 ranked classes (Rivals, ESPN, SuperPrep, etc.) year after year, and you will find an amazing correlation to the final season rankings based on Ws and Ls year after year after year.

Coincidence? You make the call.

FreeStateDeac said:

Trashing the ratings services has been a long tradition on here (I am counting all the years on the old Scout board and Rancho de Nada before that -- yes, I go way back).

We all know why the ratings services get trashed on Wake boards, because Wake traditionally ends up with low-ranked classes, so we console ourselves by telling each other that our recruits are really much better than they've been ranked. And occasionally a few are, but most are ranked exactly where they should be, and their performance on the field later confirms that. The truth is that Grobe does a really incredible job with the level of talent that he is able to attract and qualify at Wake. Really incredible, and he does not get enough credit for it (although he is paid exceptionally well).

Say what you will, but take the programs in the Top 15 ranked classes (Rivals, ESPN, SuperPrep, etc.) year after year, and you will find an amazing correlation to the final season rankings based on Ws and Ls year after year after year.Coincidence? You make the call.

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Yes you will. The Top 10 0r 15 always get it done in recruiting.

5* players are usually can't miss gets; however, I am not so sure that the distance between 4* and 3* players is as substantial as between 5* and 4*.

It'll probably never happen, but I would love to get a dynamite class that made waves in the college recruiting circles.

Deac65 said:

It'll probably never happen, but I would love to get a dynamite class that made waves in the college recruiting circles.

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Not as long as we have the academics that we have, no way to get them in, no place to keep them in, etc. Hatch & Wellman have us trying to become the Notre Dame of North Carolina. They now want the roughly 25 acadmeic exceptions that used to go to football & basketball, that since have been spread out among all the athletes to go to regular students. Hasn't worked for Notre Dame in football in a long time.

But as long as they put their socks on right........

Deac65 said:

It'll probably never happen, but I would love to get a dynamite class that made waves in the college recruiting circles.

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I understand; but I haven't recovered from the disappointment following all the hype surrounding CJ Leak.

mebanedeac said:

I understand; but I haven't recovered from the disappointment following all the hype surrounding CJ Leak.

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Yeah, I was here for that fiasco as well. I know all the reasons why my wish will never happen, but I can still dream.

mebanedeac said:

5* players are usually can't miss gets; however, I am not so sure that the distance between 4* and 3* players is as substantial as between 5* and 4*.

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It really is a crapshoot and the recent Wall Street Journal article touched on how flawed the star system is. If you were to actually break down how the majority of rankings are made you would have something akin to a Malcolm Gladwellesque essay on how they become skewed.

(A) How large is the pool of athletes and how much speculation surrounds them?
(B) Does the "talk" dwindle as you have less and less members of the recruiting pool to discuss?
*If (B) is "No" and it is in a big way then you have a situation where fewer players are gathering more interest and commentary as the pool dwindles. This is the time when
significant numbers of players are given a "push" or have
their grade rounded up.
(C) Do the ranking services have an ulterior motive to improve rankings late in the recruiting cycle?
(D) What effects arise from fanbases' rabid need for information? Does this affect the services and the way they present information and decide upon rankings.
(E) Do coaches feign interest in players to throw other teams off -- Do coaches lie sometimes about a prospects ability or lack thereof?
(F) Do the services really evaluate the attitude and mental capacity of some of these prospects or do they only feign interest in the players off field activities and persona?

There are so many variables that go into player rankings that have nothing to do with actual ability or performance. After the first 100 prospects it is a complete crapshoot.

FreeStateDeac said:

Trashing the ratings services has been a long tradition on here (I am counting all the years on the old Scout board and Rancho de Nada before that -- yes, I go way back).

We all know why the ratings services get trashed on Wake boards, because Wake traditionally ends up with low-ranked classes, so we console ourselves by telling each other that our recruits are really much better than they've been ranked. And occasionally a few are, but most are ranked exactly where they should be, and their performance on the field later confirms that. The truth is that Grobe does a really incredible job with the level of talent that he is able to attract and qualify at Wake. Really incredible, and he does not get enough credit for it (although he is paid exceptionally well).

Say what you will, but take the programs in the Top 15 ranked classes (Rivals, ESPN, SuperPrep, etc.) year after year, and you will find an amazing correlation to the final season rankings based on Ws and Ls year after year after year.

Coincidence? You make the call.

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Excellent post. You could substitute NC State for Wake and it would go perfectly on our board, except Grobe does a better job with his talent than TOB.