V-BAR rankings

Note:  I edited this since my original post to better utilize the ESPN data. Apologies if this makes some of the comments confusing.
 

Never having contributed anything of value to this site, I thought I’d take a shot at combining the Scout, Rivals, 247, and ESPN player rankings into one.  The goal is to come up with a straightforward way to compare elite recruits’ status with the ranking services (i.e. without forcing people to juggle rankings and star ratings from four different sites in their heads).

Aggregating across the sites is not easy, partly because of data availability and especially because of the different methods used by different sites.  There are countless ways to do this, with most requiring some kind of data imputation.  Since no data imputation strategy would be liked by all, I’m proposing a different method that requires no imputation.  Let’s call it the Veto-Based Aggregate Recruiting (V-BAR?) Rankings.  (Crappy name & acronym?  Check.)

The basic idea is that we restrict the rankings to players who appear in every site’s top X list (i.e. no one was unimpressed with the recruit) and then order them based on their average rankings across the sites.  It’s “veto-based” because any site can prevent a player from appearing on the aggregated list. 

I see two primary objections to this:
(1) It eliminates highly regarded prospects when only one outlier site is unsold on them.
(2) It gives excessive veto power to ESPN (and eliminates a lot of players) just because the ESPN 150 only ranks 150 prospects while the other services rank 247-300.

First, for (1).  This is just the design of this ranking.  Basically, to get on this list, there is consensus that you’re outstanding, and the average rankings tease apart just how highly you’re regarded.  Interestingly, for each recruiting service, one guy stands out, rankings-wise, as a glaring omission.  For Rivals, it’s Sheldon Day (#65 to Scout, #80 to 247, #144 to ESPN).  For Scout, it’s Amos Leggett (#104 to Rivals, #75 to 247, #95 to ESPN).  For 247, it’s Avery Young (#38 to Rivals, #13 to Scout, #119 to ESPN).  For ESPN, it’s Zeke Pike (#72 to Rivals, #33 to Scout, #18 to 247).  In general, though, there aren't too many really serious outliers.

Now for (2).  Giving ESPN excessive veto power seems problematic, especially since ESPN’s rankings are often questioned for their quality and objectivity.  Therefore, in addition to using the ESPN 150, I grabbed the next 150 players from ESPN’s recruiting rankings (link: http://espn.go.com/college-football/recruiting/prospects).  So we have rankings for 300 players from ESPN.

By my count, 147 players appear in Rivals’ top 250, Scout’s top 300, 247’s top 247, and ESPN’s top 300.  Here they are in order of average ranking across these four sites:

VETO-BASED AGGREGATE RECRUITING RANKINGS (as of 6/19/11)
(incorporates Rivals, Scout, 247, and ESPN)

Feedback welcome.