HS students create fake recruit, 247 and Rivals rank him as a 3-star (Via Reddit)
Via Reddit (CFB*) comes this:
"Blake Carrienger, 6'6, 315 lb offensive tackle out of Grace Christian Academy is created out of thin air by some HS students. He tweets out that he has an offer from Alabama, and both 247 and Rivals put him in their database and rank him as a 3-star. Basically, both sites were catfished.
https://twitter.com/RudeDawgRules/status/1095853675233325056
Rivals ranked him as a 5.5 3-star based on the Bama offer alone. No video available, no film, nothing to evaluate on, just numbers and an alleged offer.
Now consider that some recruits are ranked lower than that...."
*Thanks crazy Risk game that pulled me into the CFB subreddit
February 14th, 2019 at 5:39 PM ^
It's disingenuous to base an assertion that the current Michigan program doesn't develop talent better than average based on draft picks when Harbaugh's first full class hasn't been eligible to be drafted yet. You need a few years to build anything close to a large enough sample size to determine that.
February 14th, 2019 at 8:25 PM ^
No, it's not. Harbaugh's been here for 4 years, it's fair to start making judgements. It's ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
February 14th, 2019 at 9:42 PM ^
How can you possibly judge if Harbaugh is good at identifying 3-star players as potential NFL players when only one of his classes is eligible to leave, and those players are only just finished their junior or redshirt sophomore seasons?
February 14th, 2019 at 6:58 PM ^
So recruiting rankings are wrong about 5*s, even getting drafted, 35% of the time?
Of their 30 best guesses they can't get a C grade?
But we should trust their evaluation of the next 2000 since they .......... get it right /s?
Basically your stats show 27 5*s get drafted and 24 2*s, rather than trusting that "data" I'll trust coaches who actually evaluate REAL players.
February 14th, 2019 at 8:30 PM ^
Basically your stats show 27 5*s get drafted and 24 2*s, rather than trusting that "data" I'll trust coaches who actually evaluate REAL players.
Hey dumbass, there are ~30 five stars every year and thousands of two stars. The fact that you can't understand basic sample size distributions is astounding, even for you. Meanwhile, lets see how well Michigan coaches are developing those 3 star gems. Oh look, not too well at all.
February 14th, 2019 at 9:41 PM ^
Cute.
Thinking sample size distribution is relevant when your population is 2,000/million, the distribution is static and undefined plus now you can't even be sure the recruit really exists!
The one simple fact that makes the stars system nonsense is there are always "about 30" 5 *'s, "about 330" 4 *s, etc. If the data was truly relevant it would have a larger variance each cycle.
So it still comes down to actual QUALIFIED evaluations. I'm trusting the coaches.
But you keep reaching for your estrellas Dora.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:52 PM ^
Holy fucking delusion.
February 14th, 2019 at 11:07 PM ^
5* response
February 14th, 2019 at 9:59 AM ^
Not only did both ranking sites get catfished, Alabama immediately wired the fake kid a $500 initial bonus upon hearing they had offered him!
February 14th, 2019 at 10:25 AM ^
24/7 didn't get catfished, Rivals ranking the fake kid a 3* just showed up in their composite rankings, likely due to data sharing.
Rivals is the one to be ashamed, and even more so if they wrote a real (faked) scouting report on the ghost player...probably including "needs to work on pad level".
February 14th, 2019 at 10:36 AM ^
Of course he "needs to work on pad level", he's very raw.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^
I just found a great way to supplement my income!
February 14th, 2019 at 10:03 AM ^
This will give "stars don't matter" people something to trumpet, but the truth is it would have been discovered over time. This is why you wait until final rankings before you ballyhoo.
Pegging him at a 3* based on very little is probably a dubious practice, but I'd bet history would say if the Alabama offer were real that's a valid starting point. Before the next round of re-ranks this would have been discovered, they would have looked for film, talked to people, tried to contact/scout him, etc. This is a 2020 recruit.
February 14th, 2019 at 11:04 AM ^
The stars don't matter people are the biggest idiots on the internet. Literally every piece of data shows they overwhelming do matter both in the macro and micro.
February 14th, 2019 at 1:18 PM ^
This. All you need to do is look at the rosters of the teams that made the national title game over the last 5-6 years. All of those teams (Alabama, Clemson, OSU, Georgia, Oregon, FSU) were stacked with 4-5 star talent. Maybe Oregon was on the lighter side, but they still had a ton of studs left over from Chip Kelly.
I will concede that in individual player situations, rankings are not the end-all, be-all. Sometimes guys get overlooked or just blow up when they get to college. Like JJ Watt. A guy that no one recruited, and now he's one of the best NFL D-Linemen of the last 10-20 years. It's not often, but sometimes guys do outplay their ranking.
But on the whole, you need a slew of 4-5 star guys to be able to win a national championship. That's why MSU got slaughtered by Alabama in the playoff. MSU may have been extremely well-coached, but so was Alabama. And Alabama had far more physically gifted players at every position on the field. Faster, stronger, bigger, everything.
February 14th, 2019 at 4:07 PM ^
Maybe someone should tell Nick Saban stars don't matter so he'll stop signing the #1 recruiting class every year and playing for national championships.
February 14th, 2019 at 8:08 PM ^
Maybe, but definitely people who don't understand statistics but think they do, finish #2 - #millions.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:04 AM ^
Should have named him "Siluri Formes“ for fun
February 14th, 2019 at 10:06 AM ^
Should totally retire and advertise that I'm a "handler" for fake recruits. Profit.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:11 AM ^
Am I the only one who immediately thought of Benjamin St Juste?
February 14th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
I immediately thought of Kevin Hart.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:58 AM ^
I was going to link to this story as well. The best part was the Nevada coaches wondering how the hell they missed on the kid when they first heard the story and then reviewed the camp files and figured something had to be up.
I still wonder how that guy thought anything about this would end well.
February 14th, 2019 at 11:58 AM ^
This was my first thought, also. Thanks for posting this. I couldn't remember his name, but knew he was from Nevada. What a crazy story that was. Talk about a lie spun out of control.
February 14th, 2019 at 12:06 PM ^
I feel bad for that dude. A certain subset of CFB fandom will never forget that and I'm sure it's the most embarrassing / humiliating moment of his life. I'm thankful none of the stupid things I did as a teenager had the same visibility
February 15th, 2019 at 6:39 PM ^
I don't know..... a lot of effort went into maintaining that lie and in lying to a whole bunch of people. There's a certain multiplication principle involved on this.
Honestly, I remembered the story and not the name and I am sure thats the way it is for 99.9999999% of the country.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:14 AM ^
And now he has entered the transfer portal
February 14th, 2019 at 10:14 AM ^
Not all heroes wear capes.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:20 AM ^
I've been telling people for years that the stars rankings are nothing more than a scam and bullshit. I coached high school football for 25 years in Georgia, SC, NC and Mississippi and I have seen parents purchase stars for their kids trying to push them into playing at a level they are not capable of playing at. The super athlete that goes on to be ranked as a so called 5 star is rare and they may or may not come along. Trevor Lawrence is such an athlete. Moved to Georgia out of East Tennessee in 7th grade into a super robust program at Cartersville High School in Georgia. He was coached so well in his high school system that he runs now at Clemson that he will do nothing but get better at Clemson. Many of the super athletes that play at UM/OSU/Bama and so on simply never develop into impact players at he Div I level for a variety of reasons. Either they were poorly coached in high school or simply can't juggle the academics/football pressure and academics at Michigan are rigorous. Parental pressure is ridiculous today and aggravated even more through technology and marketing. Sadly, many parents try to re live their childhoods through their children. There is nothing wrong with playing football at the DII/DII level as long as a kid is using it to pay for their educational path. A kid has to have the body size, speed and knowledge of the game to make an impact at the DI level enough to play pro ball and it is truly rare.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
What exactly is “purchasing stars?”
February 14th, 2019 at 11:28 AM ^
I’d assume it means that you pay money to someone who ranks players to rank your kid a bit higher. People do it with Amazon reviews, why not do it with athletic rankings?
February 14th, 2019 at 11:33 AM ^
People do it with Amazon reviews, why not do it with athletic rankings?
Because it's dishonest, but sadly honesty has little currency in college football recruiting.
February 14th, 2019 at 12:33 PM ^
I've been telling people for years that the stars rankings are nothing more than a scam and bullshit.
And for years people who understand data have been rolling their eyes at you.
February 14th, 2019 at 12:50 PM ^
Understand Data? Let's all roll their eyes at that one
February 14th, 2019 at 6:16 PM ^
And for years people who understand data (but little else) have been rolling their eyes at you.
Fixed that.
February 14th, 2019 at 1:35 PM ^
Problem is that "playing at a level they are not capable of playing at" is not so black and white. I would guess that most "analysts" would've said Jordan Kovacs could never play at the D1 level.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:23 AM ^
‘Blake the Fake’
He at least deserves a preferred walk on offer for that ingenuity. This guy is a five star Prankster.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:26 AM ^
This is a bad look for 247 and Rivals but it’s no secret that offers are the biggest thing they use to rank guys.
February 14th, 2019 at 10:30 AM ^
Offers and body size (height weight), then any performance (five fakes okay) benchmarks. Would hate to actually scout the guy.
February 14th, 2019 at 11:13 AM ^
Body size is so overblown. Go check a recruit. Let's say an offensive tackle. Any one you want. Go to the Top 247 list and pick one out. Guarantee he's basically 6'6", 300 pounds.
Pick a cornerback. I'll bet he's 6'0", 175.
Nobody checks this stuff. Just guess the prototypical height/weight for that position and that's what these kids are going to list.
(https://247sports.com/Season/2020-Football/CompositeRecruitRankings/)
February 14th, 2019 at 10:27 AM ^
247 and rivals have some explaining to do
February 14th, 2019 at 10:47 AM ^
Bob Knight did the same thing with Ivan Renko out of Yugoslavia.
February 14th, 2019 at 11:02 AM ^
Somebody jin up a twitter profile for:
Max Plank. 6-8 289 lb DT out of Jenkins High School in Savanna, GA. In his second year playing football, Junior Max Plank, originally from Vienna, Austria, started in the final 6 games of the season. In 8 games played, Plank combined for 23 TFL 8 sacks, and 35 QB hurries. Plank is an honor roll student and plans to study physics in college. Jenkins High school coach Jason Cameron boasts that Plank has one of the biggest motors he has ever seen, with deceptive speed and agility, and that Plank loves making contact at high speeds. He currently has offers from Michigan State, Alabama, and Ohio State, but has not expressed serious interest in any of these offers as he believes that a good physics program is important.
February 14th, 2019 at 11:20 AM ^
Bohr-ing.
February 14th, 2019 at 2:54 PM ^
"Plank's constant effort and energy directly correlated to the frequency that Jenkins High was able to stop its opponents"
February 14th, 2019 at 11:08 AM ^
Not surprising
February 14th, 2019 at 11:18 AM ^
4- and 5-stars matter. They're extensively scouted, so while the process isn't perfect, it's better to have more of them than not.
What this shows is kind of a nothingburger, but it's nice to have proof: 3-star ratings are basically blank slates. The sites toss those around like confetti to make it look like they're doing work. Having a 3-star rating is nothing more than proof you exist.
. . . actually, strike that last part.
February 14th, 2019 at 12:37 PM ^
Yup, if anything it's a dagger in the heart for people who get excited when guys like Quintel Kent and Joey Velazquez get rated as "three stars."
February 14th, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
This is fantastic
February 14th, 2019 at 11:47 AM ^
In aggregate yes.
Better question is could you intentionally forgo ALL 4 & 5 stars, but have uncontested access to ALL the available 3 & lower stars and build a championship team? Current NFL rosters say yes. You could probably build 3 championship teams.