Bitching about recruiting rankings
Maybe it's just me, but general whining about X recruits' ratings on X sites seems to be on the rise. 98% of this whining is coming from posters with no experience evaluating football talent. The overwhelming number of complaints fall in one of following categories:
- outlier service X is CRAZY to have commit x ranked so low (they are an outlier, after all)
- the only service that gets commit x is outlier service X which has him ranked highly (my advanced highlight film scouting skills put this on good authority).
- commit X has offers from schools X and Y, it is CRAZY that they haven't been given X stars.
If you find yourself making these arguments stop. It's embarrassing.
Recruiting services or people like Magnus who are experienced evaluating talent are evaluating talent independently and will naturally come to different conclusions sometimes. If they all copied each other or coaches' evaluations they'd have no reason to exist.* So conclusion 1: learn to accept differences in evaluations.
Between now and signing day talent evaluators will gain the benefit of summer camps, combines and senior year film. Players will emerge, players will fail to develop and scouts both coaches and not will have more material and time to evaluate. On these bases recruits will move up and down. So conclusion 2: there are 11 months until sigining so don't get worked up about where a recruit stands on a site today.
This may all seem obvious, but it hasn't been observed and it's a point on which I'd like to see this forum distinguish itself from the general internet rabble.
*When there's a discrepancy between a site's ranking and an offer sheet, I'll side lean towards the coaches, but that doesn't mean a site's evaluation is wrong or of no vaue.
March 20th, 2012 at 12:53 PM ^
With all this talk about X sites maybe this should have been labeled NSFW???
What would Mrs. Stephen R. Kass think?
The real question is whether or not Mr. Kass approves of this thread.
If he doesn't, he will leave. If he leaves, do we get more boobz?
March 20th, 2012 at 12:55 PM ^
News at 11.
On a slightly more serious note, I'm not sure offer lists mean nearly as much as they used to. An increasing number of out-of-region offers seem to be expressions of interest rather than real offers.
Good point about offer lists. It's one of the reasons I think independent evaluators still offer something of value. But to your first point, there's been a sense discussion on mgoblog is and should be more reasonable than you find on most other forums. I'd like to see to it that that is the case.
Exactly. With the change of the written offers, you almost have to "offer" anymore by March not to be left in the dust in September when you decide you really want to recruit a kid. Kids are now not feeling respected and often to refer to a school being late when they get offers in March of their Junior year of H.S. The game is changing.
March 20th, 2012 at 12:56 PM ^
Bitching - bad
Bitching about bitching - worse
haha I was just about to say basically the same thing.
You're right. Which is why I plan for this to be the last time I address the topic.
March 20th, 2012 at 10:32 PM ^
META
Since this post is about rising levels of bitching and I've always enjoyed bitching and my nominal amount of bitching hasn't risen, am I allowed to maintain current levels of bitching?
/cause that's what people do in recruiting threads...
The thing about rankings is that sites will all be proven right or wrong in a few years. You can say all you want about the ratings right now, but the only thing that really matters is how the kids play on the field.
Ceteris paribus, we could look at the end product and say "they were right." And with some guys, we can say "yeah, he was overrated/underrated." But coaching/situation/unforseeable subsequent events have a huge, and difficult to quantify, impact.
Was Big Will a disappointment in the first three years because he was overrated, or because he was coached poorly? Is Beilein a genius because he saw Glenn Robinson as a monster when he was only a 3-star, or did he get lucky because GRIII grew a foot and a half overnight? Was Pat White a diamond in the rough who would have been a stud anywhere, or was his success solely the product of RichRod's system? These are largely unanswerable.
Prime example: look at Tebow's success in Denver. I can make equally plausible arguments that (A) Tebow is indeed a terrible, terrible quarterback who was holding his team back, and (B) the scouts were wrong and Tebow is a born leader who can succeed in the NFL, and who dragged his team into the playoffs with his teeth.
I think most of those caveats are irrelevant. The stars/ratings are not attached with "...if he ends up in the right situation." That might be an understanding on our part, but the meaning of 5-star is: "This player will be pretty awesome." Obviously, I'm paraphrasing. But if 5-star ____________ is relegated to the bench for his entire career, then that's a negative for Rivals/Scout/ESPN/whomever. If a 2-star recruit never sees the field, that's a plus for Rivals/Scout/ESPN/whomever.
Yes, there are caveats, but anyone and everyone understands that a 5-star kid who robs a bank and goes to jail is an outlier, and a 3-star running back who turns into a star by playing QB for Paul Johnson is an outlier, too.
Attaching a "number" or a "star rating" to a kid is reductive by nature. Humans are not numbers.
I agree that in general we can, at the end of the day, compare ratings to results. And we can make generalized statements like "Scout overrated the Midwest" or "Rivals failed miserably in their analysis of the QB talent in this class." But that DOESN'T mean that you can look at any particular player, compare his rating with the end result, and say with any certainty that the scouts were "right" or "wrong."
Look at Dayne Crist. Did he fail because the scouts were wrong, and he really wasn't that good? Did he fail because of the instability in the system? Because of injuries? Because of the new system Kelly put in place?
There's a Heisenberg Effectof sorts; we can only truly evaluate a player by putting him through a set of circumstances, but the more complete the evaluation the more variables (and therefore uncertainty) added to the system, so the less sure we can be about the results.
He faied bc he went to ND:a place where talent goes to die.
it's my understanding that the star ratings on most services relate to the probability that a player will make it to the pros. true? if so, i've never understood this philosophy.
big will campbell is a prime example; a guy with nfl size but lacking in skill. imo, a smaller guy with great technique should be rated higher, because he probably has a better chance of succeeding in college than bwc, but perhaps less of a chance of making the pros due to lack of size. in other words, bwc would have bigger upside but greater chance of failure at the college level.
When following recruiting you have to remember one thing; its for profit hence anything the services say is meant to get clicks, the more outlandish the better.
This is why in my own personal ranking system I go with the consensus star ranking (gets rid of that outlier) and how well they fit our(any) system. We need 6'5 recievers who are often a little bit slower than midget burners, however the "rankings" will say he's a "terrible" player because he cant run with the best of them so he only gets 3stars where as a 5'10 kid is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
That is the exact opposite of what this board was saying when Martavious Odoms/Jeremy Gallon/Terrence Robinson were recruited.
Did you miss the part where he says he bases it off of our system or needs? We were running a completely different offense when those guys were recruited.
Did you miss the part where he said recruiting sites think 5'10" kids are the greatest thing since sliced bread?
All the slot midgets are/were ranked really low because they lack size and/or NFL potential. The recruiting sites don't think 5'10" kids are the greatest thing since sliced bread - they knock them down a peg or two because of a lack of height.
Did you miss the part where I didn't read the entire post before replying? Apparently not.
You win.
Thank you! There's always gonna be one recruiting service that either gets it totally wrong or is just trying to be different. (Or both.) Unless you are a recruiting expecting -- and virtually no one is, aside from a handful of guys who spend their entire lives breaking down film all day -- logic dictates that the most reliable formula is to:
1) Average out all ratings from the top 4 service.
2) Consider whether or not the average jibes with the player's offer-list. If the kid is a 4 or 5 with offers from plenty of top-tier programs, you can feel pretty comfortable. If not, adjust for margin-of-error. Granted, there's often a degree of group-think at play: the services react to offer-lists, and vice-versa. But this formula, though flawed, remains the only way to go for us non-experts. It sure beats relying on message-board experts and 30-second highlight-clips.
Thank you! There's always gonna be one recruiting service that either gets it totally wrong or is just trying to be different. (Or both.) Unless you are a recruiting expecting -- and virtually no one is, aside from a handful of professionals -- logic dictates that the most reliable formula is to:
1) Average out all ratings from the top 4 service.
2) Consider whether or not the average jibes with the player's offer-list. If the kid is a 4 or 5 with offers from plenty of top-tier programs, you can feel pretty comfortable. If not, adjust for margin-of-error. Granted, there's often a degree of group-think at play: the services react to offer-lists, and vice-versa. But this formula, though flawed, sure beats relying on message-board experts and 30-second highlight-clips.
Magnus has zero experience evaluating football talent as well. Seriously.
I'd bet he has more experience than most of the "experts" on the recruiting sites.
He's an assistant coach for a high school team. Could be JV.
March 21st, 2012 at 12:40 AM ^
And most of these experts are fans of the sport who took up writing. I would bet that most of them never even played. And yet, because they are on a site with a subscription, their opinion matters more than someone who actually knows enough to teach the sport?
I don't have a problem with people complaining as long as they're making reasonable points.
Complaining about people complaining . . . feels like Reddit.
In reality, who even cares about star rankings? Sure, they're good for national perception and all, but if the coaches think somebody is good enough to offer, then who cares what his star rating is? If he ends up being a contributor on the field (meaning more wins, fewer losses) then that will boost our national perception more than star ratings will.
If you find yourself bitching about people discussing college football-related topics on a college football message board, stop. It's embarrassing.
So why is Gareon Conley not ranked 4* on Rivals yet?
hah
It's obviously because Mike Farrell hates us.
I would be offended by that.
If you were a fictitious cartoon character named Kyle you'd REALLY be offended.
The complaining will not stop, and in some ways it is justified. Recruiting rankings are designed to attract fan attention, but the rankings are not tailored to specific fits for specific teams. There will always be a discrepancy here (though occasionally in "class rankings" fits are considered). A lot of the sentiment you're attacking is concerned with this discrepancy. Imagine if Brionte Dunn committed to Penn State instead of Ohio State. The folks at Rivals might know that this move makes him slightly more likely to make the NFL (because of the fit/exposure, perhaps), but they cannot possibly change the rankings after he commits to Penn State (so we assume). All too often someone makes a post proclaiming that fandom is unnecessary. As others have pointed out, this is self defeating.
I'm sure the coaches could care less about a recruits rankings which is how it should be. Rankings and stars are for fans. Otherwise what the hell are we gonna argue or complain about for the six months of the year our guys aren't playing football?
If I hadn't seem some of the low-ranked comments you're talking about I'd say you were going all straw man. Still, that's a small percentage of people who get excited about our recruits and get frustrated when experts aren't sharing the same excitement.
Remember no matter where any of these guys rank according to whatever site -- including this one -- it won't have any tangible effect on how the player performs for Michigan.
Anyway, a lot of the so-called complainers I think do have a specific beef specifically with regard to Rivals.com because they don't have a Midwest recruiting analyst and that means a lack of information from one of the leading recruiting sites about our core stomping grounds. Even more specifically, the way they handled Deveon Smith is kind of embarrassing. Here's a player who has been covered by Duane Long and lots of other people who know Ohio recruiting. He shouldn' t be a mystery. Yet he has been to Rivals, whose public analysis of this particular recruit essentially boils down to "who's that guy who committed to Michigan? Oh he's a 4-star to Scout. Oh he has an offer from Ohio State as well as Michigan. Okay, let's give him a 3-star."
If anybody is complaining that Shane Morris is ranked too low, you can punch them -- he has been scouted to a T for several years by everybody and he's sitting comfortably in the spot you would expcet him to: 2nd overall pocket passer, in range of what typically ends up 5-star.
Rivals does have a midwest recruiting analyst. His name is Josh Helmholdt.
Also, they haven't ignored DeVeon Smith. They just didn't rank anyone (until yesterday) who was below the 4-star level. There are a few hundred other 3-stars out there who were "ignored" until yesterday, too. Scout has also failed to release their 3-star prospects. ESPN hasn't released all their 4-stars or any 3-stars, as far as I know.
So if you have a beef with Rivals, then you also have a beef with Scout and ESPN.
Josh is by himself in regards to the Midwest is he not? I'm asking because I never liked Mike Farrell, and Rivals didn't have a Midwest guy for the longest, so I was drawn to the Scout forum for the Midwestern recruiting content. Trieu is pretty good, and they dedicate two guys essentially to the state of Ohio for the most part.
I assume this discussion was probably triggered by Deveon Smith's place with Josh at Rivals? The way I see it, if a Buckeye slap like Greene, and a guy who never was shy about hating Michigan like Berk, along with the guys on the Bucknuts site are unbiased enough to rank Smith as the top 3-5 player in Ohio, than that's good enough for me.
AFAIK, Helmholdt is the only midwest guy. But the writers for the various midwestern schools have some input, too. For example, Helmholdt had some input when he worked for The Wolverine.
Ah frikkernuckers. I forgot about that.
recruiting analyst. He used to work for the Michigan Rivals' site which is why they hired away Tim when Josh left to move up. But the position is still relatively new, Helmholdt has been on the job for less than a year.