Rating the recruits has become a big, but inexact, business

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Here is an article from today's stltoday.com (St. Louis Post Dispatch) that discusses Rival's recruiting process and quotes Bobby Burton:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports ... enDocument

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Rating the recruits has become a big, but inexact, business
By Graham Watson
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
02/07/2007
MISSOURI This year's class will be in the middle of the pack in the Big 12, between 35 and 40 nationally.

ILLINOIS The class is ranked No. 16 overall by Rivals.com, third in the Big Ten.

By late this afternoon, most of the paperwork will have been collected. Faxed into admissions offices across the country, the letters of intent will include signatures of high school seniors and junior college players from Florida to California, Texas to St. Louis.

Coaches will have discussed their latest recruiting classes, dissecting them for football fans who wish to glimpse into the future.
The guesswork will include commentary from experts, namely the football recruiting websites that have become a big business. Outfits including Rivals.com, ESPN.com and Scout.com will affix grades to each prospect, each school, complete with conference and national rankings.

Illinois, which has two five-star recruits in receiver Arrelious Benn and defensive end Martez Wilson, is ranked No. 16 overall by Rivals.com entering national signing day, third in the Big Ten.

Missouri will be middle of the pack in the Big 12, between 35 and 40 nationally, thanks to four "four-star" recruits, the most it has signed in the past three years.

But coach Gary Pinkel's streak of never having landed a five-star recruit — the highest ranking — will continue.

It's too early to say if Pinkel's Class of 2007 will be a success story, or if Ron Zook's surprising class is as good as experts think it is. Longtime Missouri football fans will remember that Pro Football Hall of Famer Roger Wehrli was a last-minute, unrecruited signing; Hall of Famer Kellen Winslow was a raw talent who had played only one year of high school football at East St. Louis; and Brad Smith was a mid-level recruit who accompanied Pinkel when he left the University of Toledo.

They blossomed into three of the better players in Mizzou history.

Compiling the ratings

Rivals.com editor in chief Bobby Burton says recruiting rankings are an independent measure of the talent level of each recruit, and that they don't necessarily include the same set of criteria that college coaches use to evaluate talent. And he doesn't think player rankings have much impact on which recruits get the most attention.

"No matter how I rank a player, Pete Carroll, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, Charlie Weis, they're not going to give a kid a scholarship on that alone. They're going to make their own decisions," Burton said. "They could care less whether he has a two-star or a three-star (rating) next to his name. If they like him, they're going to offer him a scholarship.

"At the same time, what we offer is what we feel is an unbiased view of where those players rank across the nation. So, the Notre Dame fan can feel like the team had a good recruiting class — or not — as opposed to just believing what the press release from the school may say on signing day."

That's not to say rankings from recruiting services should be dismissed. Rivals.com, for instance, employs more than 25 experts, including Burton, who spend thousands of hours watching film, attending camps and practices, and seeing recruits play at their high schools and in postseason all-star events.

Each player is then given a star ranking. According to Rivals.com, there are 25-30 five-star rankings in any given year (29 this year). The next 125-175 are four-star talent, and another 300 or more are grouped into the three-star category. Two-star players are mid-major prospects, and a one-star designation is given to a player that is not ranked.

Rivals.com has a pretty good track record with its rankings. The top two Heisman Trophy vote-getters in 2005, Reggie Bush and Vince Young, were five-star recruits. Last season's winner, Troy Smith, was a four-star player, and the less-than-perfect ranking seems accurate in that Smith is not considered a high-round NFL draft pick.

But every once in a while, players are overlooked — or develop late. In 2002, Rivals.com ranked Helix (Calif.) High School quarterback Alex Smith a two-star recruit. It wasn't like he was hard to spot either; he shared the backfield with Bush. But Bush's presence limited Smith's need to throw often and display the talent that made him the No. 1 draft pick in 2005 by the San Francisco 49ers.

'Our best guess'

"I think we have a lot of confidence in what we do, but that doesn't mean we're perfect," Burton said. "You look at the NFL draft and see that year in and year out. ... We can't account for character in many instances. We can't account for the heart it takes to be a great player. We can do our best guess of it, but how do we know if a young man is going to be able to overcome adversity that he's definitely going to see in his life?"

Maurice Clarett was a five-star talent and the top recruit in the country, but character issues kept him from reaching his potential at Ohio State. In 2003, receiver Whitney Lewis was the No. 3 recruit in the nation, going to USC. He gained 38 yards as freshman, was academically ineligible in 2004, didn't have a catch in 2005, then transferred to Northern Iowa, where he played seven games last season, with 50 yards receiving.

And teams can succeed if they find lesser-ranked players who fit their system. Last season's only undefeated NCAA Division I team, Boise State, hasn't been ranked above 64th in recruiting classes in the past five seasons.

Conversely, Arizona has had recruiting classes ranked in the top 25 in three of the past five years, yet hasn't managed to finish better than seventh in the Pacific 10 (2006).

"What our team rankings are about isn't based on predicting where a team will finish in the future," Burton said. "It's predicting the general talent level of the team. ... Any knowledgeable football fan will tell you that Oklahoma was twice as talented as Boise State.

"However, Boise State played a great game, executed better than any team in any bowl game this year and did so at key times (and won). Football's not all about talent. It's teamwork. It's execution."

CAMERON HOLLWAY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.