Magnus

May 9th, 2011 at 1:15 PM ^

Part of Rivals' ratings involves NFL potential.  Barry Every stated that Royce Jenkins-Stone had higher potential than Ross, based simply on the fact that he's a couple inches taller and should end up being the bigger of the two.  You don't see many 6' linebackers in the NFL (there are some, mind you), but 6'2" is a more ideal size.

NOLA Blue

May 9th, 2011 at 12:12 PM ^

Every dag-nab year we all come back to this...

Over 1 million kids play high school football in this country.  Therefore, the top 100 seniors makes up approximately the top 0.04% of all senior high school players.

This means Rivals is attempting to tell you which football players are in the 99.96th percentile.  Which in turns means that you (and everyone else who is confused/irritated/shocked) have essentially posed the question:  "What?  Ross didn't score a 43 on the MCAT?" or "What?  Ross didn't score a 179 on the LSAT?" or "What? Ross didn't score a 2390 on the SAT?"

The granularity at that level of analysis is so fine that it is insane to try to give so much of your lifeblood to determining the credibility of whether or not a player belongs in the 99.92nd percentile versus the 99.96th percentile.

From what has been told on these blogs, Ross was rated the #2 ILB in the nation and RJS the #6.  Is there really that much difference between those two position rankings?  I'm guessing that over a period of 100 different evaluations they would jump each other 100 times.  We've got 4 damn good backers going Blue.  Rejoice, and ignore finely-granulated rankings.

ken725

May 9th, 2011 at 12:22 PM ^

Very strange indeed.  Here are some that should be of some interest to us:

#19 Gunner Kiel

#34 Erik Magnuson

#37 Devin Fuller

#41 Yuri Wright

#45 Jordan Simmons

#48 Ifeadi Odenigbo

#61 Sev'on Pittman

#74 DJ Foster

#86 Adolphus Washington

#88 Greg McMullen

#93 Dwayne Stanford

Also Vice Biegel checked in at #95, which was interesting to see.

ken725

May 9th, 2011 at 1:31 PM ^

I think Chris Wormley is a very good prospect and will be in the top 250.  I think as fans we tend to overrate players that say that they are a lean to their schools.  The same thing happened with Ricardo Miller.  Early reports were very promising and we were all excited that he was a Michigan lock.  When the actual reports came out, it was very disappointing.  He might have been underrated in a sense because he played at AA Huron who did not have a very good QB for his senior season.  Either way I think he will be an important players for us and the same goes for Wormley.

Magnus

May 9th, 2011 at 1:36 PM ^

Ricardo Miller was WAYYYYY overrated by Michigan fans.  It wasn't just because he played for Ann Arbor Huron.  He just wasn't/isn't that athletic.  There's a reason he's playing H-back now and that the slow-footed Jeremy Jackson beat him out for playing time as a freshman.

ken725

May 9th, 2011 at 11:51 AM ^

I think Rivals is trying to differentiate themselves from 247sports.  Rivals mods even went as far to say that they decided to release their list later because some services were stealing their evaluations.

Dreisbach1817

May 9th, 2011 at 11:06 AM ^

"Michigan, 10th on the list for states producing NFL talent, is led by Detroit Cass Tech linebacker Royce Jenkins-Stone, the only player in the 100 from his state in a down year."

I know Rivals is traditionally sour on Midwest talent.  But this is the first time I've heard of the 2011 crop as being a "down year" for the State of Michigan.  Thoughts?

ken725

May 9th, 2011 at 11:55 AM ^

Even the rivals experts was saying that the talent in the midwest this year is the best they have seen in a long time.  They were talking about how Brady Hoke walked into the perfect situation because he wouldn't really need to go outside his "backyard" to land a very good class.  

This top 100 list seems like a complete 180 from what they were saying earlier in the year.  This could be just their careless attitude towards the midwest and covering recruits in the midwest.

Timnotep

May 9th, 2011 at 11:13 AM ^

I'm not surprised they'd make an idiotic assumption such as this... I'm a little surprised RJS was the only one in the Top 100, but I probably shouldn't be considering that Rivals hates midwest kids.

wile_e8

May 9th, 2011 at 11:15 AM ^

It's considered an up year because Michigan has a lot of high-ranked recruits.  But now that Rivals has redone the rankings and determined that most of the instate recruits aren't high-ranked anymore, it isn't a good year, at least according to Rivals.

Dizzo

May 9th, 2011 at 11:10 AM ^

"Michigan, 10th on the list for states producing NFL talent, is led by Detroit Cass Tech linebacker Royce Jenkins-Stone, the only player in the 100 from his state in a down year."

link: http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1219920

Surprised this year is a "down" year for the state with RJS, Ross, O'Brien, Burbridge, T-Rich, and others being somewhat on the national radar.  Complete opposite to the front page posts saying the state is on an upswing after being down for a few years...

Edit: Two minutes too slow.  I shouldn't re-read posts for grammar errors multiple times.

Fresh Meat

May 9th, 2011 at 11:08 AM ^

Very interesting.  Not only are a lot of our commits not on there but a lot of guys we think are Michigan leans (Wormely, Diamond, etc) are not on there.  Maybe Hoke isn't dominating recruiting quite like we thought, I don't know.

justingoblue

May 9th, 2011 at 1:07 PM ^

Well considering that Rivals seems to be the outlier, I would say it's more likely a problem with Rivals than it is with Hoke and Mattison. It's not like there are serious red flags when people watch these guy's film.