PonyFans.com

I am debating a subscription right now. Please convince me one way or the other.

Nope, although it's better than scout.com. They do a decent job, I suppose, covering the bigger names, but it's not hard to find information about how great Matt Stafford or Sergio Kindle is. But the fact that guys like Taylor Bon or Adarius Medford or Anthony Sowe or Pete Fleps doesn't have a story written about him doesn't mean he can't play. Maybe they can, maybe they can't -- we'll see. I suppose rivals is worth it if your a fan of Texas or LSU or Miami or USC. Otherwise .... not really.

I disagree. I think it is worth it because you can actually see who we have taken as first and second choices, and make some conclusions.

For instance, yesterday, A&M loses a CB, so they put the pressure on Tarrant (recruited at CB, NOT RB), he chooses them over SMU, who then goes and gets Medford.

You can also see some other things, like on the OL, where we were after some really highly regarded players, who chose BCS schools early in the process, so we took Gonzales, who we obviously had rated highly and wanted to take right after some of the huge (3-4 star guys) went elsewhere. Some other guys we offered early on chose BCS schools AFTER we brought in Gonzales, and if we don't go out and grab another HS OL before it is all said and done, it means we actually probably pulled offers after the Gonzoles committment.

Sure, they don't give you a whole lot of information about some of our recruits. But part of that is the level of the recruits you are looking at. Medford, with his size, is obviously a sleeper pick, as are Sowe and Bon.

It also helps because you can see from the offer pattern what positions we are chasing this year. I was surprised to see how heavily we have been going after WR, and how relatively light we have gone after LB and K/P.

I think it is pretty good as long as you take what is said, and especially the silly ratings, with a large grain of salt. I agree with what Grapevine Mustang said is that they really track the great ones that everyone knows about, somewhat track the remainder of the kids. It is impossible for them to track everyone like the do the great ones. I am sure that ol' stallion will disagree.

Pony Fan wrote:I think it is pretty good as long as you take what is said, and especially the silly ratings, with a large grain of salt. I agree with what Grapevine Mustang said is that they really track the great ones that everyone knows about, somewhat track the remainder of the kids. It is impossible for them to track everyone like the do the great ones. I am sure that ol' stallion will disagree.

Actually, I think that Rivals does a good job. They can't track every single player in the state. It is pretty rare that a player comes out of nowhere with multiple offers like that DE we picked up, which says something.

I think that the fact that we get kids in that are unknown to rivals who end up doing a good job is more of a testament to Bennett's player evaluation skills than to Rivals deficiencies.

these people that say they only cover the top players are totally full of [deleted]. There are plenty of players who didn't make the Top 100 who have 8-10 stories on them. There are probably over 700 Texas players in the Database. These no-name SMU recruits are sleepers because NOBODY else recruited them. Players that go to camps, are offered visits, strongly recruited or given offers almost always make Rivals sooner or later. You recruit players nobody else wanted and they may not.

Stallion wrote:these people that say they only cover the top players are totally full of [deleted]. There are plenty of players who didn't make the Top 100 who have 8-10 stories on them. There are probably over 700 Texas players in the Database. These no-name SMU recruits are sleepers because NOBODY else recruited them. Players that go to camps, are offered visits, strongly recruited or given offers almost always make Rivals sooner or later. You recruit players nobody else wanted and they may not.

I won't use the words you did but you are totally incorrect. Ask Rivals for yourself.

If you look at recruiting a lot it is worth it, there are a lot more things that you can do. You not only can look at just one site, you can look at everything in the Rivals database it is worth it.

McClown27 wrote:I am debating a subscription right now. Please convince me one way or the other.

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I guess my question is why join now?

As Recruiting yr '07 comes out, only UT & A&M will get the early commits & that'll just pi$$ ya off.

Wait for Rivals 2-for-1 firesale this summer!

SWC2010 wrote:

McClown27 wrote:I am debating a subscription right now. Please convince me one way or the other.

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I guess my question is why join now?

As Recruiting yr '07 comes out, only UT & A&M will get the early commits & that'll just pi$$ ya off.

Wait for Rivals 2-for-1 firesale this summer!

I think that is what I will do. It seems to late in the recruiting year.

Last year I signed up right at the end of recruiting, watched for a few months and tried to cancel around May 1st. I say tried, because the rep got on the phone and gave me a free subscription until september when the recruiting picked up again.