Scout and Rivals Recruiting Rankings Question
I have a question for those that follow the recruiting rankings closely year in and year out.
How drastically can a ranking change from before high school football starts, throughout the season, and then after the season?
For example ... by looking at the rankings on Scout it appears they currently have Magnuson ranked at 16, Bars at 38, Ojemudia at 22 and and Standifer at 26. These are all rankings that ... based on camping news.... could be vastly underrated. Does it ever happen where a player starts the season ranked 16 at OT and then moves up to 5 at OT during or after the season?
The sites typically do some ranking adjustments before season starts (camp evals) and then some final adjustments after season is done (getting more in game looks at kids)
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Players can make huge jumps throughout the camping seasson, after their senior year, etc. You'll especially see it after the all-star games. I can't guarantee you that any of those players specifically will take huge jumps, but it happens. The first example that comes to my mind is Delvon Simmons, who ended up signing with Texas Tech. He was a middling 3* to most of the services until his all star week...after which he was a 5* to Scout and in the top 5 of DTs to both Scout and Rivals
I'm probably the wrong person to answer, but yes, players move up. That said, it's a lot harder to move into the elite level because those players are all elite too and camp reports all appear to be similarly breathless for every top player.
It's more likely that a high three star gets his fourth star or that a low fourth star moves up to a solid four star or down to a high three star.
That said, a guy like Kalis will probably pick up a fifth star as Rivals adds five stars to a few more players.
Camps are the best time to move up, they want to see how you do agaist other elite prospects cause most kids do not face elite talent week in and week out during the high school season.
Kalis is missing that fifth star by one spot on Rivals. Almost guaranteed to move up. Mags likely will move up. People do move down as well though. I think those are the only guys that most likely will move to 5*, though our LB corps has a chance.
I'd argue that its QB then trenches, however in Michigan's case it's somewhat irrelevent given that Shane Morris seems to be one of the very top QBs in the country already even compared to 2012 QBs.
No way - your quarterback can't live up to his star billing if he is not protected. Games are won and lost in the trenches.
I know you're talking about the 4-5 year future, but I get all happy knowing that Devin Gardner is around. The post-Denard QB situation at Michigan looks really good for a number of years.
Yeah, the OL is more important than the QB. The difference is one 5-star QB takes care of that position for a little while, and one 5-star lineman can't do much of anything on his own. So it's hard to compare a position group that has one player to a position group that has 5.
That said, I'd rather have an OL full of top prospects with a pretty good QB than a top QB prospect and a pretty good OL. Both are obviously important, however.
There are some rumors out there that Dwayne Stanford can drop in some rankings. Sometimes you will see some kids that commit early drop. It seems like Michigan commits tend to drop once they commit, but that is just my tin foil hat side speaking.
I could see Braden and Stacey possibly moving up too. They are among the lower ranked position wise but what has been written about them since has been very possitive. Not sure they have done as much at camps, but they might get a bump during the after senior season rankings.
I personally think they should move up, but the analysts might feel differently. In a chat one of the analysts for rivals or 247sports I can't remember said that he thinks that Braden is ranked correctly. That is not saying that he can move up with a good senior season and more breakdown of his play.
Trieu thinks Braden will end up with a 4th star on Scout after he went beast mode this camp season.
As a bit of a noob following college fb (Michigan) recruiting, I too find the wide variations between recruiting sites very annoying. Between Scout, Rivals, 24/7 and Espn - who is the best? Is there anyway to judge them objectively based on past rankings? Which is considered more of an authority by Michigan fans? Or is it better to just average their rankings instead of looking for consensus? Just wondering who you guys listen too and why....
24/7 is too new
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<br>Scout and rivals about the same with rivals being a bit bitter I think?
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<br>Brian did a whole post about this(or someone)
I look at all four and take them all together. If you see one with an outlier as a ranking, then they are likely off. If you have three sites with a 4 star and then one with a 3 star, then likely they are more towards the 4 star range and not the three star range.
Just look at all of the rankings and make and educated judgement call.
As a general rule around here just go with the service that has Michigan's class ranked the highest and trust them the most. You can also just take the service that ranks a particular recruit the highest and go with them.
As far as projecting to the NFL, Rivals seems to do a better job.
Scout has done a better job with Michigan recruits recently, IIRC.
ESPN sucks.
247 Sports has been doing a pretty good job, I think, but they're new and don't have much of a track record.