Recruiting Rankings

[crazy horse]

When is the last time a recruiting service upgraded a recruit after giving SMU a verbal? Its amazing that at least 2 players have been upgraded from 2 stars to 3 after announcing their intention to sign with SMU: Justin Boren and Jordan Newman.

With 17 commitments (assuming Ben Poynter is a walk-on), SMU has 7 players with 3 stars, all 7 in the top 60 at their position:

Justin Boren - #59 OG
Richuel Massey - #40 RB
Zach Hall - #50 ILB
Ricky Joe Meeks - #27 Pro QB
Chris Phillips - #28 Dual QB
Corey Muse - #36 OLB
Jordan Newman - #56 SSDE

With another month to go, this class just keeps getting better. It has been almost 20 years since I was this excited about a recruiting class.

Another question to ponder. Who is SMU hurting the most this year? My guess would be Arkansas. Although they already have a strong class, they were really high on Phillips, Massey and Moss. Any thoughts?

[SmuCommitt]

Often times these so called "experts" on recruiting couldn't tell you a thing about the work-ethic or the "heart" that these recruits have.Besides all these stars and rankings are for not when these guys strap it up and have that mustang on their helmet next year. Its all about the decsion they make to ethier be the best or ride the pine.Most of these guys we have verbals for have the talent to do so, they just have to decide

[PonyFan]

I agree - I've always had the opinion that these ratings are based on how tall or heavy or fast a guy is, and not necessarily how good a player he is. As SmuCommitt says, there's a lot more to it than raw numbers - there's heart, work ethic, etc. How highly were Chris Bordano and Luke Johnson coming out of high school? I bet they were 1-star guys, at best. But they turned out to be fine players, with Bordano even making the NFL. I can't wait to see how many of these great athletes become great players.

[Recruiting Guru]

You guys are right on in your comments about class rankings. Those of us who do this for a living spend countless hours watching games and videotapes, talking to players and coaches (including opposing coaches whose teams face all these recruits) and use a combination of those factors when determining our rankings. But part of what makes this such a fun job is that while we have access to more and more information, what we do is still largely guesswork. We get more and more accurate every year, as we are able to further break down data when analyzing players. But as SMUcommitt and PonyFan have said, it's impossible to measure a player's inner fire. For every Luke Johnson (who originally went to Air Force) and Chris Bordano - guys who arrive without much fanfare but go on to superb college careers - there are even more guys who arrive with the labels of "blue chip" or "savior" .... and are never heard from again, other than when people ask "whatever happened to so-and-so?"

A case in point: there was a 6'0", 195-pound WR from Irving, Texas, with good speed who signed with Texas A&M in 1997. He was viewed as a "can't-miss" prospect, a guy who suddenly would give the ground-based Aggie offense a viable aerial threat. Oops. Everyone in our industry -- including me, I admit -- had him pegged for stardom. Yet even the most avid Aggie fan will have a hard time recalling his college career. He graced the covers of A&M magazines and some regional recruiting magazines. He was supposed to be the man who got the A&M offense off the ground, literally. But he never panned out. He had size, he had speed, and all indications were that he had good hands and ran good routes. For some reason, he didn't put it all together.

There are cases like his at every school in the nation. Some falter because of a shaky work ethic, academic struggles, injuries, a loss of desire to excel or compete, or sometimes simply the recruiting analysts and coaches guess wrong.

So good call by SmuCommitt and PonyFan. The strength of this year's recruits won't be known with any accuracy for a few years.







[This message has been edited by Recruiting Guru (edited 12-27-2002).]

[Diehard Pony]

I agree that the ratings services aren't perfect, the only thing I know is that when we had consistently highly rated classes in the 80's, we had consistently outstanding teams. There are always exceptions (Chris Bordano, etc), but the majority of the great players have been identified and rated.

Our classes since the DP have been rated poorly, and we have been bad.

Enough said.