Top 150 Rivals DL......

[westexSMU]

# 143 Marvin Wells of Houston Westbury is still only showing SMU as school of interest. Rivals calls Wells, 5.1 rating, " talented " in article last summer. They are still showing him at 6' 0" 250 but I think that was from last summer also. Hopefully he has grown some and might be a good prospect for us. Does any one know if we have offered this guy etc. ?

[Stallion]

Hmmm you got a cite to that rating because Rivals wouldn't have a kid rated 5.1 ranked in anything, they don't rank 143 Defensive Line in a Top 150 nor do they have a Texas Top 150. Rivals says he iis hearing from Sam Houston St, SMU, Utah and Houston. No offers-no mention of visits.

[westexSMU]

Stallion, Go to Rivals.com, database, defensive line, then DTs. You will see they have ranked 150 National high school DTs ( 5 pages of 30/page ) from 5 star to 2 star and then the list continues with several more no star potential prospects NR personal ratings after that. The 5 star personal ratings start at 6.1 and go down to 2 star 5.0 ratings.

[Stallion]

I thought I did but I'll check again.

[Stallion]

See I'm only getting the Top 60 Defensive Lineman(updated 11/16/06). Can you give me a link by link description of where you found this-I'd like to see an expanded list if there is one.

[Stallion]

Okay are you talking about on the Database page where you can hit links for each position. They aren't numbered though and at each rating(for example 5.1) they list them in alphabetical order/ I guess that would give you the approximate rating of the kid. The actual ranking is on a Player Rankings tab and they only go through 60. But for perpective there are 390 or so players in Texas alone who are rated 5.1 or above which is about 50 more than actually get Division 1A offers so really 5.1 is a pretty marginal recruit. This was what the ratings mean according to Rivals:

6.1 Franchise Player; considered one of the elite prospects in the country, generally among the nation's top 25 players overall; deemed to have excellent pro potential; high-major prospect

6.0-5.8 All-American Candidate; high-major prospect; considered one of the nation's top 200 prospects; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team

5.7-5.5 All-Region Selection; considered among the region's top prospects and among the top 500 or so prospects in the country; high-to-mid-major prospect; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team

5.4-5.0 Division I prospect; considered a mid-major prospect; deemed to have limited pro potential but definite Division I prospect; may be more of a role player

4.9 Sleeper; no Rivals.com expert knew much, if anything, about this player; a prospect that only a college coach really knew about.

Of course, Rivals is ranking players who will play in Conferences ranging from the BCS conferences to the Sun Belt-so understandably there is some variations on their projections depending which conference he chooses. For example, a 5.4 player at UT would definitely project to a "role player" but at SMU might be a multiple year starter. Recruiting is relative to your competition.

I find that rating of 5.4-5.0 interesting in that they say such a player has limited pro potential considering how about 90% or so of SMU's players were ranked in that category and we have had so few pro players. Pretty good track record for a recruiting service that doesn't know what it is talking about and is projecting 4-5 years into the future.

[westexSMU]

You are right about 5.1 being marginal. I was just looking at the fact that Wells was one in about 20 DLs listed at 5.1 in the top 150 Rivals Database DL list. It is amazing to me, that with all the guys we have coming back at other positions, we can't apparently get a couple of 3 star JUCO or High School DLs to commit. I think with some depth on the DL, we could have one of our best teams in years.

[Stallion]

Defensive Linemen are the hardest position in football to recruit-that's why so many develope TEs, DEs and tall LBs into Lineman. Many of the players who actually play DLM in high school are too slow to play the position in college.

[westexSMU]

No question we are better off getting guys at other positions who are fast and can grow versus a slow guy who can't play. I guess I am just hoping for another Haywood.