How many stars is that recruit?: A proposal
I've noticed that, when discussing a recruit, we tend to label him the highest number of stars any service has given him. So if Scout gives him four stars and the other 3 services give him 3 stars, we call the guy a 4 star player. But if the tables were turned, with Scout as the outlier, he is still a 4 star player. While this is an understandable tendency, it isn't a particularly accurate description: a 4 star player on every site is certainly more highly regarded than a player drawing that 4th star from only one site. Calling a player "consensus" 4 star helps, but is still inexact; consensus could mean 3 sites agree, or all 4 sites agree.
So what to do?
The most accurate method would be to calculate the average number of stars, but that is a bit labor-intensive, and there's trouble when a player hasn't been evaluated. Tim gives the player a "0" when he calculates the averages, but that seems a bit unfair; we can presume the player would receive at least 1 or 2 stars - but again, there's uncertainty. There are also questions of how much weight should be put into each respective service - should ESPN's opinion count less than Scout's? It's all subjective.
A while back, Turd Furgeson came up with a great method of aggregate recruitng rankings but, again, that method is unwieldy, particularly if the board is just discussing a new offer or talking about a new prospect.
A proposal:
A quick, easy way to accurately represent a recruit's evaluated potential can be obtained simply by listing his stars from each of the four sites, like this:
Jarrod Wilson (4444)
Devin Funchess (4443)
Kaleb Ringer (4333)
AJ Williams (333NR)
The order is descending, with no regard for which site gave which rating. Every site makes good evaluations and every site makes bad evaluations, what's important is the big picture. This method can be done with a quick Google search (or glancing at Tim's class rankings, if applicable) because most players' recruiting profiles from all four sites will be found on the first or second page of search results.
What does everyone think? If it's a terrible idea tell me why, I'm bored at work and up for a debate.
Looks good to me. I don't care how you show their rankings, I need MOAR recruits to talk about. I'm getting spoiled, and bored.
This will have a chilling effect on those that love to post "Mike Hart was a 3 star!"
"Mike Hart ws a 333NR star!" is just too cumbersome.
On a related note, I propose that we refrain from discussing recruits who have not yet reached legal driving age (See, e.g., Morris and Elmer)
I think it is alright if they are already committed.
Agreed, and if they are performing well at camps (like Morris hanging with this year's top crop), it is also fine with me.
We could always get together and eat caramels too. Because when you really think about it, it's just as arbitrary as setting the recruit discussion age at 16.
Can we get Goetze's Caramel Creams? Those are probably my favorite candy ever. I'll bring a bag over and we can watch The Princess Diaries with Devin.
delicious....
Available at fine candy stores only, I suppose.
Tip of the cap sir.
Look at basketball, I think NCAA rules in basketball go into effect when a player is in 7th grade. It seems strange, but the fanbase reacts to the coaches - if a coach is evaluating a player in his first or second year of high school, it seems fair that the fanbase does as well.
I think tweeting at recruits and facebook stalking them is creepy though.
Supposedly Jud Heathcoate met Chris Webber as a 7th grader and was crushed when he realized he was too young to offer. If only Jud had met Lane Kiffin.
Basketball recruiting is creepy and weird. That there are only 3ish signees each year means coaches are more able to be proactive and scout younger players.
There is an industry (although small) to create a website that is devoted to importing recruits into a database and popping out the average star ranking for each recruit, ranking them in your own system (with no subjectivity on your part) and then figuring out which team has the best recruiting class...If you update it weekly you can probably bank off of the ads you can put on the site.
I like that, it sounds like it puts control with the user when it comes to which sites get included.
It doesn't even have to be that advanced... A user on here posted a diary several weeks back that ranked the top 250 prospects by averaging the 4 main site's rankings. It would essentially be the same except keeping it up to date once or twice a week, links to each of the 120 D1 football teams to show who is committed to them with all of the rankings, and then have a team ranking.
I've never liked the formula as it stands that just because a team has more players that boosts them in the rankings...I think something like "Relative depth need vs. Quality of position recreuit"
One problem is that sites dont have the same number of players in each "stars" category. For instance, Rivals has fewer 5* players than Scouts.
Player X is the 15th overall player in the nation according to Rivals, and the 24th overall player in the nation according to Scouts.
Player Y is the 24th overall player in the nation according to Rivals, and the 15th overall player in the nation according to Scouts.
Theoretically, these two players should have identical "ratings" if we think about it compared to their entire class. But Player X would be a (55) and Player Y would be a (54) using your rating system. This would mislead people into thinking player Y is worse than Player X when in reality according to the data they both have an identical aggregate overall rating.
That's a good pioint. I think the criticism of Scout's decision to give out a blanket number of 5 stars evey year is logical because each year is different. But to argue the counterpoint, look at the huge sample size. Of the tens of thousands (or is it hundreds?) of players every year I doubt there's much variation in the top fifty players from year to year. Recruiting is so inexact, I sort of think a lot of these services flip a coin when deciding who to rank ahead of who. You could probably shuffle the entire Rivals 250 and have it be just as (in)accurate from year to year (save the handful of can't miss Jadaveon Clowney types every year - keep them at the top).
If you're going to use this logic, then isn't there absolutely no need to distinguish from a 4443 and a 4433? Like you just said, its an inexact science.
The best way to possibly do this is to average their overall ranking across the 4 sites weighted evenly, but that would take a long time to do.
I was sort of playing devil's advocate there and talking specifically about ranking players - i.e., if Scout has one 4 star ranked 75th and another ranked 125th - to me that's where the coin flip is. I assume (hope?) they see demonstrable improvement between 3 and 4 star players.
Recruiting is indeed an inexact science. But using inexact ratings further deteriorates our already limited ability to judge a player's potential. I agree that averaging the stars is usually most precise, but it's easily swayed if one site has gotten around to evaluating a player yet. Using only averages doesn't tell the whole story. And like you said, it's unwieldy.
I'm fine with having players who have 4,444 stars
I think its a little too much to ask people to know all 4 - or even which 4 ratings you are talking about. The easiest covention would be to just call them 3/4 Stars, consensus 3 star, consensus 4 star, etc.
I can see that. I think VideoTom's idea of a small site that provides a composite score would be ideal. Just one place that uses a formula to determine a player's rating. I'm sure the big 4 evaluators wouldn't be happy with it though.
I agree we shouldn't talk about recruits before they reach legal driving age. Here in Idaho people get their license at 15, and if they live on a farm they can get a license to drive farming equipment at 14.
You could add the star rankings from the four sites (Scout, Rivals, ESPN, 24/7) together. Then a consensus 5 star would be a 20 star; a consensus 4 star, a 16 star and so on. That would give you a wider range of rankings without being overly confusing.
This is the easiest way to distinguish player rankings and ratings.
Mike Hart- 9 star
Rule is you need at least 6 data points, but it could work..take the average then add standard deviation..
In my opinion, I always look at the offers the players have, and the depth of the position they play at at the offering school...