ESPN article on 2006 class and their rankings
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/news/story?id=4860278
ESPN looks back at their top 150 and explains what happened to them. For all the grief many of us (myself included) give ESPN for their recruiting analysis, this is a pretty solid list.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:32 PM ^
Interesting how many Michigan players are on there and thinking about their careers. Hopefully Mouton will make significant strides this year.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:40 PM ^
#17 Al Woods and #19 Sam Young look a lot alike. I wonder if they're related?
January 28th, 2010 at 3:12 PM ^
That sort of illustrates the point I made on the diary about "stars." It's very easy to pick out the five star guys. And it's very rare for those guys to fail athletically. The ones that don't pan out usually fail because of drugs or grades.
From that list of 25, basically ONE didn't pan out because he wasn't good enough.
January 28th, 2010 at 3:54 PM ^
I count at least 8 that have had less then stellar careers and the excuse of drugs or grades doesn't cut it with me as that is part of being a student athlete. Injury on the other hand is a valid reason for a poor career. I'm assuming you're talking about Mustain as not good enough. Yet, include a DE who averaged roughly 1.5 tackles per game and 1 sack every 6 games as panning out. How about 586 receiving yards in three years for a WR or 79 tackles in three years for a LB. Remember were talking about the top 25 HS players in the country here.
I would hope if we land the #1 overall player coming out of HS he ends up better then second team all conference and I didn't include him among the less then stellar careers.
January 28th, 2010 at 7:32 PM ^
"the excuse of drugs or grades doesn't cut it with me as that is part of being a student athlete."
I'm with you a hundred percent here. If you wash out, whether it is from injuries, talent, drugs, or grades, the bottom line is that you still wash out, no matter how many stars you do or don't have.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:06 PM ^
71. Justin Boren (Pickerington, Ohio/Pickerington)
Position: OG
College: Michigan
Boren played two seasons at Michigan; as a sophomore in 2007 he was honorable mention All-Big Ten. Following that season he elected to transfer to Ohio State -- but not before he took some parting shots at new coach Rich Rodriguez.
ESPN: masters of the understatement.
January 28th, 2010 at 6:36 PM ^
And also validates recruiting rankings, IMO. Although there are many other pieces of data that we've seen on this blog and elsewhere that show even more definitively that ratings matter.
January 28th, 2010 at 7:38 PM ^
Of course ratings matter, but they aren't the only relevant data. In other words, five stars don't guarantee stardom and three don't guarantee medoicrity. Star ratings, for the most part, identify who is already a finished product with the most desirable physical attributes in HS.
It's sorta like a gigantic beauty pageant but without the skimpy bathing suits.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:10 PM ^
i kind of disagree. check out scout and rivals. they did a much better job. espn's list is good at the top and then pretty horrible. rivals and scout are more consistent.
January 28th, 2010 at 6:48 PM ^
Q Patilla, Boren, C. Mixon and Q. Woods.
The other 15 did pretty well.
Four 5 star commits. *Sigh*.
January 28th, 2010 at 7:12 PM ^
.... and I had just started to forget the kick in the dick that was Jai Eugene's decommit
January 28th, 2010 at 7:21 PM ^
Under 1000 yards for his career, talk about a bust...Actually, if you look at all of ND's players listed there you will see that none of them have had much success, except maybe Zach Frazier, who transferred to Connecticut.