Dylan McCaffrey loses fifth star

how people can discount a player's superb productivity on the field in favor of something cosmetic (supposedly). Or overrate a player on aesthetics and measurables and ignore the lack of translation to football productivity. 

Such is the business, I guess. 

EDIT: here, the first minute of this scene from Moneyball pretty much sums it up for me.

Coaches at UM will fix whatever they saw. No big deal.

I say puzzling because they indicated he struggled somewhat trhough the drills, but as soon as his team mates took the field and it was game action, "He came alive, looking like a different player and had the presences of a professional signal caller. He was in command, knew where everyone one, and always made the proper decision." Now it doesn't get much better than that, going from, as you say, meaningless to where it actually matters and that's why it's puzzling. 

However, there could have been some performances by borderline  4/5 players just too consistent in every aspect, drills, live action, etc., basically having the perfect camp thereby making it all but impossible to not move them up to five star group, and it's fluid as we know so that could go back and forth a few more times. 

I recall one time, about a decade ago, when the state of Alabama just had a huge number of players that deserved 5 stars. And directly from the mouth of a Rivals employee, "but due to geographical concerns, these rating sites have customers in all parts of the country, it's important to reflect that. If we gave a fifth star to everyone deserving in Alabama this season, we would lose interest in other parts of the country." They don't usually get that honest. 

Also, and this is a big one that we are all aware of is those that are considered hard commits are going to be dropped much quicker than the one who has yet to make up his mind and, ideally, he'll have a number of schools representing all regions of the country, thus maintaining the interest of recruiting fans from the e. coast to the w. coast. These are the type of players that influence subscription sales.  

And then sometimes, they stray about as far away from the honesty shown above to doing things that make little sense and they are aware, unless they choose, they don't need to offer an explanation. I recall when Ron Jonhson from Muskegon was the overall  no. 1 rated player and cb in the nation his jr. year. He was injured and the decision was made that although he would play both spots his senior year in h.s., he was going to be a receiver in college. Lo and behold when the first rankings were released, prior to the start of the season, there he was still no. 1 overall, but this time as a receiver. 

So not much to fret here. 

This.  His offseason camp performances have been lauded.  But it is a very slow time for college football websites.

Death by soon soon!

thought we needed a bit of levity. I get your point and it is valid, sir. Good post.