247's Stock Report on Michigan Commits
https://247sports.com/college/michigan/ContentGallery/Michigan-Football-Recruiting-Michigan-commitments-2019-recruiting-rankings-119621063/#119621063_19
Written by Steve Lorenz with 12/19 prospects listed as "Could move up" or "Should move up" and no one projected to move down. Michigan's 4th ranked class in the country could be in store for a solid bump coming out of the Opening!
Buddy, get a comment down here so I can upvote you.
Good post. But after reading it you can get an idea what kind of sham these sites have become. It was stated that one guy isn't going to camp so he's not going to be reevaluated. One guy who won't camp will be. One guy will move up because he's going to play for IMG. One guy won't move up because there's too much talent around him. Consistency? Naw, we don't need that.
I agree with your general sentiment about the recruiting sites, but most of your specific points are untrue.
He said the one player who didn't camp won't be reevaluated live (presumably because he plays in CT), but would be based on his film.
Two of the commits transferred to IMG. He said both could move up because of the increased scouting and level of competition. He definitely did not say they would move up and they weren't in his category of should move up.
Steve's comments seem consistent and level headed with explanations that generally made sense to me. The only one that struck me as odd was about Trente Jones and his teammates.
Jones was one of my points, I believe. Too much talent around him for him to move up. Someone else going to IMG? Going to move up.
Hate there's no edit. He even specifically said that because Hinton won't camp he most likely won't move up, even if senior film shows improvement. That's not all on him, i do think his writing is fair and impartial, but as we know sites want to use their camps for evaluation but Not Camping: Won't Move Up is a poor POV.
Caveat is that he's pretty highly rated to begin with.
Exactly why Hinton can't move up. He's already rated very high. The only way to see him against elite competition would have been if he camped. He's expected to dominate in his senior year, so it's hard to use that to push him past other elite players. It's a much different situation for a 3* who didn't camp.
The other caveat is that all-star games provide another opportunity for players to move up. Steve didn't discuss that, because that's another step away.
There was a camp at Concordia College in 2013 or so which is a five minute bike ride from my house in A2 and I spent a couple of hours wandering around there with a friend.
My first comment is that the evaluators from these sites are typically the very least athletic guys you'll ever come across.
Secondly, they just run a bunch of drills that really don't have any bearing on performance on the field -- especially for QB's. Neither of the two top signal callers that day, Sugar Shane and Tyler Weigers, did squat in college despite being 4-5*s.
A number of guys UM that has received commitments from in this cycle are eschewing the camp circuit which is just fine by me as the whole thing appears to be a waste of time and money for the kids. I'd trust the evaluations of the coaches a lot more than those received from these meet markets. I particularly like how UM is focused on under-analysed areas like New England to find recruits as Dr. Brown has made a living doing that in the past.
Trust the coaches.
I've heard similar observations to yours about camps. I've also heard of plenty of offers going out after camp performances. While the drills themselves may not mean too much, getting to see the players work out in person and respond to coaching must.
Not sure if that camp was an outlier but I didn't see much coaching going on at all.
Not sure if that camp was an outlier but I didn't see much coaching going on at all.
I took it more like they’re unlikely to move because he thinks their competition won’t change and so they’re unlikely to see anything new on film. The IMG and camp comments were about seeing them go up against better talent and doing well. Also, I think the likely to move up should often be has opportunity to move up, because it’s usually more that they’re going to play better quality opponents and could shine, not have already shined against better quality opponents (although those are in the list too).
Maybe he’s interjecting his opinion about guys rising to the occasion, or maybe likely to move up sounds better than opportunity to move up. Sure sounds better than likely to move down. I think he’d only say that if he knew they’d done poorly at a camp already.
Yup rankings these days by the scouting services have been rendered nearly useless.
If kids don't camp then it is harder to evaluate them.
Or the scouts could ya know... do their job... and actually Scout players at football games.
Isnt it strange to you that the people whose JOB it is to find, evaluate, and rank these players can’t seem to find them but Jim Harbaugh and his staff (and many other staffs nationally) can find these guys that don’t camp, all while maintaining their actual coaching jobs/duties?
Well, you don’t know that going to games is actually their job. In fact, it appears that these sites have decided that is not their jobs because they are not sending them. Ultimately it is the site that decides what they will pay for these guys to travel and see, and it has become very clear most recruiting sites are under a lot of financial pressure. I doubt you will see much of the individual scouting again anytime soon, the money just is not there.
Their job is to scout the players and rank them based on how good they are at football. If they’re only doing that by going to camps and evaluating them in T-shirt and shorts, they’re not doing their job.
Their job would be to evaluate them in a football setting to determine who is good at football. Their ranking is rendered virtually useless if they are only ranking camp attendees and ignoring thousands of other football players.
Their job is to make their site profitable which means maximizing hits/readership while minimizing costs. As numerous others have pointed out, there doesn’t seem to be enough money out there to justify the approach of maximizing quality content. Therefore, the industry is now trying the combination gimmick/bullshit/economize strategy.
I agree. My own personal evaluation now is if 1) alabama or georgia offers 2) if the "smarter" schools like Vandy, ND, Stanford, or Northwestern offered
He meant that IMG so over-scouted that Thomas will be scouted despite being surrounded by future D1 players. That obviously isn't the case for Jones, who doesn't play for a school like IMG.
Also, he's a Michigan writer who makes a living getting information from people within the program. He's rarely going to write negative pieces about Michigan players, commitments, or coaches.
It's not a sham, you just need to use your brain.
I'm starting to think that these recruiting services are just getting lazy and like, say, the USNWR rankings that magically find a new too university every year or two, they create all of this intrigue and jostling to goose subscriptions. But they also know it's a scam, hence why cancelling a service you can sign up online with in about a minute requires you to call their offices between 9 and 5 during the week and sit on hold for 15 minutes before getting disconnected and repeating the process again.
Michigan has some talent coming in, and I think the coaches know what they are doing. That's enough for me.
Nah, they do this every year and with every team. Go to any team's site, and that team's beat writer is pumping up the commits, their chances with top recruits, etc. Every team has a couple good commits (relative to their program's standing) and then the rest of the guys are sleepers/underrated.
No, I get that. But what has bothered me recently is how little effort is seemingly put in some of these analyses. I don't ever expect to see a guy get listed as due for a downgrade, but half of these are "he plays at a big school already, so he will hold unless he gets better" or "he went to a camp, so he'll go up". Which is...fine, but is just a nothingburger considering they are charging me money for it.
It's amazing that all of Michigan's commits are likely to hold, could move up, or should move up.
Please share the link when you find it to the team's stock report where their players are likely to hold, could move down, or should move down. After all, if Michigan's guys are moving up because the coaching staff is just that awesome that they only find guys who are getting, then there must be a coaching staff out there that finds highly rated guys who actually suck.
*getting better
I guess we will just have to revisit once the new rankings come out and compare what he said to what happens. Shouldn’t be too long from no I would imagine.
I agree, the piece loses all credibility when it says no one will move down. how is that possible? It is clearly the optimistic viewpoint used to feed a hungry fan base to improve clicks/subscriptions. As my old coach used to say, if your not getting better, your getting worse. There is no staying the same. If others are moving up, then by definition others have to be moving down.
Only the OSU and MSU guys move down.
That's fine.
And so are you.
Semantics perhaps, but he doesn't say that no one will move down. Steve doesn't come right out and say any will drop, but he makes it clear that some could. Magnus is correct, a category of should drop won't appeal to their customers. Reading between the lines, he doesn't seem nearly as optimistic as some are making him out to be. One example:
"We're going to peg Thomas as someone can move up for the same reason any prospect from IMG Academy is liable to see a fluctuation: the amount of scouting/evaluation at the program is unparalleled compared to anywhere else in the country."
The only reason he suggests Thomas could move up is increased scouting. Mentioning fluctuation obviously indicates a chance of moving down. Not a hint that he believes he is currently underrated.
My thought is also if Michigan guys are going to be getting a bump, won't other teams also? If not, then when Alabama has the 1 class so far, are their guys going to just stand pat or regress? It's like saying, well Michigan is going to be better this year, but other teams aren't going to improve.
I don’t think recruiting sites should tout when a player is moving down, just let the rankings speak for themselves when released. To send out that a 16-17 year old has falling stock or is underperforming is kind of in bad taste when there aren’t even games being played right now.
Guarantee Herron will move down and there is a good chance Hinton will as well. A lot of the other guys are already pretty lower rated so I don’t see how they could move down.
I think that’s right RE Harrod. No idea about Hinton. But having evaluations for offensive and defensive line without pads on are pretty useless IMO. Numbers are numbers and drills without pads and facemasks don’t mean much.
The recruiting site business models are obviously unable to support the number of sites over the past few years, resulting in the mergers and/or lack of staffing in the previous four major players.
The reality with any business is that leaders expect higher returns each year so variable expenses like travel and personnel costs are supposed to magically go down while in theory they magically improve the overall product.
This will lead to a much higher focus on the camps bringing the prospects to the evaluators, prospects that are in high proximity to each other or major travel hubs, etc. The reality is that many schools are now staffed up with a large number of staff to evaluate recruits and those programs that hit more often with their own evaluations moving forward will look like savants.
Confused how Lorenz doesn't think McNamara will move up. He's a borderline 4* on 247, yet has been showing out at camps and had a pretty good Opening. If anything he's better than the #10 Pro style QB
I’m pretty sure I’ve read comments from 247 analysts (ones in charge of rankings) saying he won’t move much if at all. Arm strength was cited as the reason.
Just my uninformed speculation but I bet after last year, the coaches are focused more on intangibles and intellect than arm strength.
But even with his "questionable" arm strength and height, he's shown at the Elite 11 and the Opening that he's better than a lot of the guys ranked in front of him, so I don't get his ranking
I mean, he’s a solid 4 star. His performance at the elite 11 (in a down QB year) didn’t blow anyone away so him staying about where he is makes sense to me.
Does not matter whether McNamara moves up in the final recruiting rankings....
The Opening, Elite 11, etc. are just drills and 7 on 7 type stuff. A guy like McNamara can show above his ranking in that setting, yet still not deserve to move up because he does not have 5 star arm strength, size, etc.
The rankings are based in part on educated guesses about a guy's potential ceiling. Guys that performed slightly worse than McNamara at camp drills might still be thought to have higher ceilings if they have a more ideal size and also a stronger arm.
At any rate, being 10th rated QB plus performing above that 10th rating in camps, means he could end up being an incredible QB in college.
Plenty of college QBs have won Heismans or been Heisman finalists even though they were rated 10th or lower as recruits. And plenty of 5 star QB recruits have been merely adequate college QBs.
McNamara is a highly-scouted "good but not great" prospect who seems very competent but doesn't have extremely high upside.
Pretty much the definition of a player who would remain in his current ranking.
Despite his size and arm strength, he's proven he's already better than a lot of QBs ranked in front of him, so I don't think his ranking makes much sense
I honestly don't care about how players are ranked after they commit. The recruiting sites are just looking for attention-whoring after that by requiring kids to keep camping to increase their meaningless scores at that point.
This is my issue with people that complain Michigan just signed a generic 3* kid. The sky is falling because recruiting rankings matter. They matter, but at the end of the cycle (which is usually 6+ months and a senior season after the kid commits). Kids (especially QBs and Defensive players) that commit to Michigan usually get "re-evaluated" (read: bumped) or the kid decides to go camping and see what happens (also leads to a bump).
Honest question. Do people actually subscribe to the "VIP" portions of recruiting sites/forums?
I wish he had been consistent in using either the first name or the last name when placing them in alphabetical order.
Stock...UP!!!