How Recruit Rankings are established by the 4 major services: ESPN-Scout-Rivals-247
- The biggest factor, according to the experts, is a prospect's game film.
Scout: Brandon Huffman, At Scout.com, the recruits game film is far and away the biggest priority.The different Scout.com recruiting analysts all have varying levels of football experience and try for a consensus rating. Huffman hasn't ever coached professionally, though he did play HS football.
247-Sports: JC Shurburtt, a national recruiting analyst for the network, estimates that game film equates to 60% of a prospect's total grade. Shuburtt is the only one that figures in the coaches offers, and he only gives 10% to coaches offers. 247 does have the most frequent updates as things change.
Rivals.com Mike Farrell puts the most emphasis on camps and combines out of the four major recruiting services. It's not hard to see why given the company has made
a major $$$ investment in developing its Rivals camp series and Rivals Five-Star Challenge.
You either pay for your camps (stars), or you mostly do without, getting their base 2-3 star rating instead. "We go based on feel and experience." (iG - do you feel me?)
Contrary
(surprise-surprise) to what
Suc-Nole claims about BSPN...
ESPN reviews the game film and then breaks it down to a "hit tape," which according to national recruiting director
Tom Luginbill, culls from three to four games and is "comprised of really good plays, really poor plays and mediocre plays." Luginbill then use that information to put together
the most comprehensive evaluation for each recruit out of the major services. And Luginbill says. "We don't have any writers, bloggers or journalists making assessments on football players, only former coaches."
-- Scout has the most five-stars in its current rankings (37), while ESPN takes a much more conservative route with only 20. Rivals and 247 fall in between.
"You are making a projection like every college coach in America," Luginbill says. "What you are trying to do is make a projection based on the information you have, the expertise at your disposal and the knowledge. I say this all the time to our staff
Don't be afraid to be wrong because you're going to be."
instaGATOR: I use the coaches offer list by the best coaches as my largest factor, backed up by also watching their game film for myself. I trust the coaches and my own observations, before the paid services, because I just concentrate on the Gator recruits. I don't bother with those thousands that are going elsewhere, to much clutter to wade through.
And mostly, I'm just using a 1 or 2 scale (I'm happy
or Not happy
) with the recruit.
Is he a good student/athlete and citizen, and will his skill set blend in with and fit our coaches system? Is he eligible and
will he stay eligible?
I don't need to try to compare the Gator to the same position on some other team, except for raggin' and fun of course. i.e.
Spurrier's Johnson is bigger than Bowden's Winkie....
Once they are playing, then I can make general compoarisons on how our guy is doing in our system (stats), to how someone else is doing in their system.
~ Stats are fun-facts for the winners, stars are for the losers like the stuck in the mud dog-pokers of the world....
The best coaches offer ships on years worth of evaluations, not on weekend underwear camps or someone else's 'paid for' stars.... And even then, they won't know for sure until they've been with the recruit as a player for 2-3 years.
The service dweebs claim that all ship offers are not equal, but then they try to ignore that all stars are also not equal between the various services, which is why 247 posts a 'composite' average rating in an attempt to at least stay in the ball park on a rating..
Rivals 2 stars + Scout 4 stars = 247 3 stars (and none of them can be trusted imo)
Finally, it's all just a crap-shoot, no matter who you are or which way you choose to go.
iG did what all writers do most of the time. I read a long article on this subject, and then I patched in my own opinions and comments into some of what several others have said.
