247Sports Starts Benjamin St-Juste at 3 Stars
The most popular college football ranking site, 247sports.com, has once again been the quickest to provide a ranking after a commitment to Michigan.
Benjamin St-Juste has been given a 3-star ranking by 247sports. This is his initial ranking and it may very well rise during the period until signing day as he is a relative unknown. He seems to be pegged as a guy who has a very good physical skillset and body build and hopefully, Harbaugh can mold him into a great college player. The 3-star ranking shows on the team page and the actual numerical score should be displayed starting tomorrow.
As you may be aware, 247sports was also the fastest to upgrade Dytarious Johnson to a 3-star upon his commitment to Michigan. Hopefully, the other sites fall into line and start to view our commits in the light they deserve.
He wouldn't be 3 stars if we committed to Central or UConn or any number of other schools. Juste getting a bump for committing to Michigan
Recruiting rankings are like restaurant rankings - there is some substance, but there is also a lot of qualitative comparisons that can get influenced by powerful/famous people. For example, if Anthony Bourdain goes to some random Coney in Detroit and raves about it, you will see it packed immediately after the airing of the show and it's ranking will suddenly rise. People will eat there and say to themselves, "Anthony Bourdain says this is the best hot dog he's eaten so I sure as hell can't disagree."
There's a little bit of chicken and egg problem here, but I trust Harbaugh's judgment over some recruiting expert any day of the week.
Glad he got the bump, I think a kid who commits to Michigan is going to be a good player or at least have potential.
That being said, I totally get the criticism in thhis case, a lot fo times a kid's film goes unviewed until he commits to a big school, then the services watch his film and rank him accordingly, but this kid's film was not very telling, he didn't get the bump based on his film, he got it based on his offer from us alone, that's pretty dubious, but I'll take it. These bumps our recruits get are good for continuing the momentum of the program and towards bulding hype. A perceived better class rank for us helps Michigan Football in a lot of ways, from perception to actual poll voters.
Who cares what the recruiting sites say now because Harbaugh!!!
Every day I become less interested in recruiting.
Not everyone can hang with Jedi Harbaugh as he brings an energy and passion unknown to mankind to recruiting...personally, I couldn't be more pumped about this entire offseason of Sir James...maybe I'm possessed.
I wonder if 247 and the likes will cut Harbaugh a check for doing their work.
It's an almost unbelievably unlikely coincidence that the 247 site has immediately bumped the last two obscure Michigan commits to 3* at exactly the same time that they are loudly trumpeting the fact that their Michigan board has the fastest growing subscriber base. I mean, what are the odds, right? /s
Yea, that's basically what they are whining about on RCMB. But then again, rankings are a business. They have to cater to their (paying) customer base (to a certain extent). If Sparty fans would pull out their credit cards en masse, they might get better rankings.... who knows.
Oh, absolutely. This is the way it's always been. If you look at a Notre Dame class on *any* service, you need to deduct a quarter of a star just because there are so many ND fans paying money to get good news.
I just wouldn't have expected readers of mgoblog to post about it as if it was indicative of any actual analysis or evaluation being done. If you read the evaluation, they admit they haven't seen him, and admit that they can't tell much from the tape they have because the level of competition is so low. The 3* ranking is purely for their paying Michigan subscribers, which is fine and expected and consistent with the way other teams with lots of fans are treated; but it's not something to celebrate as if it has any meaning.
Wasn't a celebration thread by any means. More like an FYI update post since he started the day off unranked and ended the day as a 3-star. Whatever that's worth.
By the way, andrewgr, you seem like a nice guy for an OSU fan, but I don't get why you would feel the need to read, post and criticize posts on MGoBlog. It just seems like you would have better things to do with your time.
mgoblog is the best college football site on the internet, and Brian is hilarious.
But I do admit, I found it to be more interesting and useful before all the HARBAUGH nonsense. I confess I expected that to have passed by now. Seeing the justifications for the last couple of recruits has really driven home how much like Rivals and Scout and 247 this site has become since his hiring.
It'll pass once the season starts. Right now we're all in the Harbaugh "knows what he's doing; give him a chance" mindset in trying to explain away the random recruits.
But I think we have moved passed the point of any viewpoints opposing these unheralded recruits getting negbanged to death. This will be a very interesting signing day for sure.
Fair enough. It's been bugging me for months now, I'm not sure why I decided to start venting about it the last few days. My mindset until recently has been "it's been rough being a fan for a while, something good has happened and they just want to celebrate without having people rain on their parade". I guess I just reached my breaking point.
I'll try to bite my tongue again for a while. :)
Honestly, you should expect to be 'bugged' on your rivals site on occasion. As it's not supposed to be the most comfortable place for you to hang out.
UM fans are 'fanatics'...so, we will go overboard in our celebrations just like the fanbase for every other major P5 program. And with the hire of Harbaugh our fanaticism is at an all-time high. So, expect it and deal with it.
I mean, It really BUGS me when I see fans from rival programs giving us the ole 'pipe down nothing much to see here' lecture.
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Yea, I like to read RCMB, Eleven Warriors and Irish Envy. I don't have accounts there and don't post there though so it's a bit different. I actually think Irish Envy has a good layout and it's pretty easy to keep tabs on recruits - i.e., each recruit has their own thread so it's easy to see the history re: each prospect. They seem to give Michigan a fair shake and are a bit envious of our, MSU's and OSU's recruiting. The main stories on Eleven Warriors are actually well written, but the side forums are relatively poor quality. RCMB has poor writing, but they have a very active board so sometimes the news gets posted there before here...
I enjoy reading as much as I can about Michigan football from all perspectives. We're at a very important crossroads and everyone is focused on us. The next couple years will be crucial to getting back on track.
No, I don't read any Michigan State sites, except maybe a couple of times during football season whent they have an interesting game. The 3 sites I read, in preferred order, are mgoblog, ShaggyBevo, and the Ohio State 247 premium board. ShaggyBevo is best for pure entertainment value, but doesn't have anything at all comparable to mgoblog in terms of football analysis.
EDIT: I forgot, I also have accountson UHND and NDNation, but I never post there, and only read them after ND losses, for schadenfreude.
If you ever come back to this post I'd love to see the distribution of all 3 stars between 82 and 87. Your comments about the 82 being very low are interesting as most people just throw all 3 stars in a bucket as the same. Obviously to the scouting services a 82 is a lot different than a 86. But I'd be curious if there are 1000 3 stars how they are distributed among those 6 grades....
Something tells me this is more of a Michigan bump than an actual skill bump.
I mean, I had heard of him. So that means 247/Rivals/Scout must have heard of him. One or all of those sites had one or more "analysts" at the Exposure U camp. Even if they had not heard of him before, they could have made a decision to evaluate him based on his performance.
All you have to do is look at his most recent camp film yourself.
IMO, an 82 for him is a tiny on the low side. Kid is very well put together. Very good athlete. Moves well, with unbelieveable size at his Pos.
I am not saying he is a 95, but i would think around 85 +/- 1 spot until further film and evaluations become available.
This is NOT a Michigan bump. What this is, is 'hey, Michigan just landed this kid. Ever here of him? Me either. From Canada - im gonig to go dig around and see what i can find of him. Look, i found some film - it was 3 years ago though. Oh, here is another video of his recent camp. Dang, kid has great size. Camp MVP. Well put together. I think an 82 fits him well'.
Basically, he is NOT getting a bump just because he committed to Michgian. He is getting a bump because he was FINALLY evaluated. Now, you can say that he would NOT have been evaluated had he not committed to a power 5 conference team - i wont argue there. But you cant give a grade to a kid you dont know/havent seen before. Have to be aware of the kid and evaluate him first.
As I said above, *I* was aware of him. And I'm not tooting my own horn. What I mean by that is that if I knew about him, then the guys from 247/Rivals/Scout who are attending these camps also had a chance to see and evaluate him. But they didn't see a need until he committed to Michigan.
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I know you are replacing Harbaugh for Michigan (or I hope you are) in your OP - realistically Harbaugh is going to have little to do day to day with the defense at UM just like Meyer has little to do with the defense. Those 2 HCs are going to put in a mindset and then its going to be up to the defensive coaches (position) and coodinators to develop these type of prospects not Harbaugh. The offense is another can of worms.
Overall Harbaugh and staff have to show a Harbaugh team can field a top level defense without the leadership of Vic Fangio who provided the only good defense (2010) in Harbaugh's 4 years there and led his 49ers defenses his entire time in SF.
As for this rating, I think this is why UM has a pretty high bust rate - just about anyone who commits here seems to get a 3 (there are a few exceptions). If he had committed to Minnesota today or Vanderbilt (still P5) I doubt 247 would have even bothered to do an update for the next month. Magnus doesnt share 247's view that any UM commit deserves an immediate bump....esp with this commit.
Nothing is more telling about that fanbase than the fact the most popular thread on that board by a country mile is an ongoing one discussing Michigan.
Never? That's where I get all my news. How else would I know that Caitlyn Jenner had a lurid threesome with Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian on Kanye West's yacht and that Lindsay Lohan filmed it all with Courtney Love's iPhone?
The Mathlete or someone else on this site calculated which service is most accurate a few years ago. Rivals is most accurate at predicting future success.
of 247's publishing its review, the offer would have gotten him the evaulation at some point. Why not? If Meyer or Saban offer some deep under the radar guy the services are going to notice. Harbaugh has demonstrated that he can successfully coach at the highest levels of this game, college and pro. The services aren't doing their jobs if they ignore a guy who collects an offer from a top coach.
The question is not if St-Juste would have been evaluated if he got an offer from or committed to CMU. The question is would he have recieved the same attention if he was offered or committed to Alabama or OSU. The answer is almost certainly yes.
I don't really put too much weight into the star rankings especially before a kid's senior season. Don't get me wrong I get excited when a 5 or 4 star commits but at the same time I remind myself that that is no gaurantee of success.
The Harbaugh!!! thing certainly gets pushed too much around here but at the same time there is a good reason for that. I don't post a lot but I have mentioned before that I am also a life long 49ers fan. I follow the 49ers very closely and have since back in the Montana/Young/Rice days. I am a member of quite a few fan blogs/forums where there are 49er insiders giving us info and since day one of the Harbaugh years in San Fran one thing that was greatly talked about was his ability to evaluate talent. It became apparent that he is very good at identifying talent and so it becomes easier to simply trust his judgement over other sources that rank talent. With that said Harbaugh is not perfect and will make mistakes in talent evaluation, just like all coaches.
This is why to me I don't care if 247 gives a bump in ratings it happens all the time to P5 schools and is really kind of a non-issue. But if RCMB and others want to get all upset and rant about it then cool! Gives me some fun entertainment so I appreciate that. lol