Star Power

Busy day today at Vatican Smoke with not one but two posts in one day. Recruiting rankings are a tenuous topic among many old school and new school college fans. This article in the Wall Street Journal was not surprising to me, although it might be to some.

I have always contended that recruiting rankings on a micro level - for one player - are certainly not perfect projections of that player's potential. However, Rivals and other sites have shown that the chances of making the NFL are higher for 5 stars than 3 stars - significantly in fact. From the 2010 NFL draft's first round, only 1 player was not a 3 star or higher coming out of high school; and since there are only 20 to 25 5 stars nationally per year, the 5 star still had the highest % chance of being drafted in the 1st round.

While there are numerous 5 star busts and 3 star players that make the NFL, the recruiting ranking that really matters is the class ranking for a program - over time. In the Wall Street Journal article from the top, the average star rating for starters is compared for the top schools. Not surprisingly, USC and Florida top the list, followed by Texas, Alabama, LSU, and the rest of the SEC. Yet interestingly enough, the Irish are 3rd. The anti-recruiting ranking folks will point to a potential Irish bias in recruiting rankings - getting higher marks than they deserve. The pro-recruiting folks - myself included - point to the lack of development and good enough coaching. Brian Kelly has developed talent everywhere he has coached, which means the pro-recruiting contingent now has a chance to see whether the Irish recruiting rankings were accurate and Weis did not develop them, or that Irish players get too generous a bump when they commit (which I contend is the opposite of what happens). I hope we see the former validated.