Star rankings

[8timechamps]

With OU's recent acquisition of some 2 star guys, I started looking back at recent classes and some individual star rankings. Thought this would be interesting to some of you.

If you were recruiting, which of these two would you rather have:

3 star
Offers: Cincinnati, Tennessee, Oklahoma

4 star
Offers: BYU, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa State, Kansas, Kentucky, South Florida, Texas Tech, Utah, Oklahoma

I suspect most would pick #2. In fact, the Sooners recruited both, and landed both. The first player (3 star with 3 offers) is Eric Striker. The second player (4 star with 10 offers) is Kass Everett. What is interesting is how these two have panned out. Striker's performance speaks for itself, and he is the perfect example of how coaches see something in a player that others don't, or a kid simply gets overlooked. Everett, on the other hand, had plenty of offers and a high rating...plus he had played two years of JUCO (and won a national title), yet he has struggled to earn playing time, and struggled at times when he did see the field.

Here are two more:

3 star
Offers: Arkansas, ULM, Utah State, Oklahoma

4 star
Offers: Colorado State, SMU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma

This is a little different, because the 4 star recruit didn't have many offers. The first player is Dominique Alexander, and clearly he's played well for the Sooners. The second is DT Kerrick Huggins, who never made it to campus because of grades. The point of these two are, again, to show that stars don't always tell the story, and perhaps more importantly, Mike Stoops knows what he is looking for in a player and stars mean little (or nothing) to him.

When a service gives a kid 2 stars or below, it's either because they haven't really evaluated a kid (Lane Johnson), or they have seen him play and don't really know how to rate him (Juaquin Igelsias). What is doesn't mean is that the kid can't play.

Don't get me wrong, eventually the star rankings do a pretty good job of overall evaluation, and I wouldn't want a class full of NR or 2 star players. However, adding a few NR or 2 star kids to a class that otherwise has 3 and 4 star players...that, I have no problem with at all.

[SoonerorLater]

With OU's recent acquisition of some 2 star guys, I started looking back at recent classes and some individual star rankings. Thought this would be interesting to some of you.

If you were recruiting, which of these two would you rather have:

3 star
Offers: Cincinnati, Tennessee, Oklahoma

4 star
Offers: BYU, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa State, Kansas, Kentucky, South Florida, Texas Tech, Utah, Oklahoma

I suspect most would pick #2. In fact, the Sooners recruited both, and landed both. The first player (3 star with 3 offers) is Eric Striker. The second player (4 star with 10 offers) is Kass Everett. What is interesting is how these two have panned out. Striker's performance speaks for itself, and he is the perfect example of how coaches see something in a player that others don't, or a kid simply gets overlooked. Everett, on the other hand, had plenty of offers and a high rating...plus he had played two years of JUCO (and won a national title), yet he has struggled to earn playing time, and struggled at times when he did see the field.

Here are two more:

3 star
Offers: Arkansas, ULM, Utah State, Oklahoma

4 star
Offers: Colorado State, SMU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma

This is a little different, because the 4 star recruit didn't have many offers. The first player is Dominique Alexander, and clearly he's played well for the Sooners. The second is DT Kerrick Huggins, who never made it to campus because of grades. The point of these two are, again, to show that stars don't always tell the story, and perhaps more importantly, Mike Stoops knows what he is looking for in a player and stars mean little (or nothing) to him.

When a service gives a kid 2 stars or below, it's either because they haven't really evaluated a kid (Lane Johnson), or they have seen him play and don't really know how to rate him (Juaquin Igelsias). What is doesn't mean is that the kid can't play.

Don't get me wrong, eventually the star rankings do a pretty good job of overall evaluation, and I wouldn't want a class full of NR or 2 star players. However, adding a few NR or 2 star kids to a class that otherwise has 3 and 4 star players...that, I have no problem with at all.

Actually Striker was a 4 star by Rivals

http://sports.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/player-Eric-Striker-115840;_ylt=Amvy31qd_SRpme7WxFyUY__wOrF_

And Dominique Alexander was a 5.7 3 star (not just the stars but the number beside them) so he was butting up against that 4 star rating as it was.

As to Huggins, Rivals ratings do not take into account academic standing. They don't claim to. They just evaluate players through their network of experts.

[lexsooner]

Here are two more:

Don't get me wrong, eventually the star rankings do a pretty good job of overall evaluation, and I wouldn't want a class full of NR or 2 star players. However, adding a few NR or 2 star kids to a class that otherwise has 3 and 4 star players...that, I have no problem with at all.

I wish the recruiting "experts" had been more accurate with their ratings of our current players on offense. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't our starting offense made up of mostly 4 and 5 star players? I seem to recall Bell, Clay, and Irwin were 5 star players, and Thompson, Williams, Shead, Millard were 4 star players. Our defense, which is much stronger than our offensive, is made up of mostly 3 star players. It seems when you go above two stars, it is really hard to predict a player's future performance. The superstars like AD are easy to rate, but it seems blurry with the other prospects.

[SoonerorLater]

I wish the recruiting "experts" had been more accurate with their ratings of our current players on offense. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't our starting offense made up of mostly 4 and 5 star players? I seem to recall Bell, Clay, and Irwin were 5 star players, and Thompson, Williams, Shead, Millard were 4 star players. Our defense, which is much stronger than our offensive, is made up of mostly 3 star players. It seems when you go above two stars, it is really hard to predict a player's future performance. The superstars like AD are easy to rate, but it seems blurry with the other prospects.

All of the players you named with the exception Shead were 4 stars. Shead was a 3 star. I think for the most part Rivals was pretty spot on with these guys with the exception of Bell who clearly doesn't fit the 4 star mold. Also I think they were wrong on Millard who within the confines of his position could have been a 5 star player.

Clay has to be the Rodney Dangerfield of all time in OU football. He is definitely a 4 star type guy. He's averaged over 5 yards per carry over his career, the best blocking RB we have and is a good receiver. I'm not sure what more he has to do before the fans consider him a very good RB.

[8timechamps]

I wish the recruiting "experts" had been more accurate with their ratings of our current players on offense. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't our starting offense made up of mostly 4 and 5 star players? I seem to recall Bell, Clay, and Irwin were 5 star players, and Thompson, Williams, Shead, Millard were 4 star players. Our defense, which is much stronger than our offensive, is made up of mostly 3 star players. It seems when you go above two stars, it is really hard to predict a player's future performance. The superstars like AD are easy to rate, but it seems blurry with the other prospects.

I think offensive line rankings are the worst for the "experts". It's almost always based on size.

All of our O-linemen were 4 star players. Millard was actually a 3 star player. Brennan Clay was a 5 star and a very interesting case. He was considered the #3 RB in his class, and as of this year, he's the only one still playing. While he didn't do much until this year, it's amazing to think that the other two never made it this far.

Anway, back to the O-line...it's so hard to evaluate them out of high school. Most of the top recruits dominated at the high school level on size alone. I think that's why so many fail to pan out at the college level, especially when they are playing high end competition.

[8timechamps]

All of the players you named with the exception Shead were 4 stars. Shead was a 3 star. I think for the most part Rivals was pretty spot on with these guys with the exception of Bell who clearly doesn't fit the 4 star mold. Also I think they were wrong on Millard who within the confines of his position could have been a 5 star player.

Clay has to be the Rodney Dangerfield of all time in OU football. He is definitely a 4 star type guy. He's averaged over 5 yards per carry over his career, the best blocking RB we have and is a good receiver. I'm not sure what more he has to do before the fans consider him a very good RB.

Scout ranked Clay as a 5 star, and I personally think he's been that kind of back when he's gotten his chance. Not an AD type of guy, but very solid and better than most. I don't know for sure, but I think he is the fastest RB in our stable. Williams and Finch both have speed, but I've seen Clay pull away more on his long runs.

Anyway, Millard is one of the biggest misses in recruiting services history (almost on the level of Bradford). I remember he was a 2 star recruit until OU offered, then he jumped to a 3 star (on Scout). It once again proves how hard it is to evaluate high school players.

[SicEmBaylor]

Our roster is full of 3-stars. There's absolutely nothing wrong with finding a good quality 3-star recruit. With the right coaching and the right placement, they can be every bit as good as a 5-star.

[8timechamps]

Actually Striker was a 4 star by Rivals

http://sports.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/player-Eric-Striker-115840;_ylt=Amvy31qd_SRpme7WxFyUY__wOrF_

And Dominique Alexander was a 5.7 3 star (not just the stars but the number beside them) so he was butting up against that 4 star rating as it was.

As to Huggins, Rivals ratings do not take into account academic standing. They don't claim to. They just evaluate players through their network of experts.

My ratings come from Scouts, Inc., not Rivals.

I don't care how the services do/don't account for academic standing, the point is still the same: Just because a team gets a commit from a 4 star player doesn't mean anything, especially when the kid doesn't make it to school.

The fact that the rankings can be all over the board, depending who you look at, just emphasizes how hard it is to predict what a kid will do after high school.

[Widescreen]

Brennan Clay was a 5 star and a very interesting case. He was considered the #3 RB in his class, and as of this year, he's the only one still playing.

Finch still plays. Just not as much as a lot of people would like.

[8timechamps]

Finch still plays. Just not as much as a lot of people would like.

No, I meant nationally. There were two guys ranked ahead of him (I can't remember their names) that ended up dropping out of their respective schools. One went to USC and I can't remember where the other went.

[Widescreen]

Gotcha.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

As to Huggins, Rivals ratings do not take into account academic standing. They don't claim to. They just evaluate players through their network of experts.[/QUOTE]

Rivals not only takes into account academics (which was why derrick strait was a 2 star) but they also take into account any runins with the law they have.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

]And Dominique Alexander was a 5.7 3 star (not just the stars but the number beside them) so he was butting up against that 4 star rating as it was.


You keep saying this, but it isn't always true. Rivals stack ranks guys within those categories and they had Alexander at 256 out of 338. In other words, he was roughly number #552 in the nation last year.

For example, this year there are:

23 6.1
51 6.0
79 5.9
194 5.8
248 5.7
357 5.6
479 5.5

1431 players ranked 3*s or above on rivals. There are approximately 2500 scholarships given out every year so roughly 60% of them. heh.

In looking through the rankings, I think they have figured out what I said about them 5 years ago. They are much better at ranking some positions than others (especially ones that rely on raw athleticism versus size). More than 1/2 of their 4/5*s are WR/DB/RB.

And for some humor, I looked at this and had to wonder. http://rivals.yahoo.com/oklahoma/football/recruiting/rankings/rank-3201;_ylt=AqofywReUB0FCWntudV2FtvwOrF_ You'd think 2 stars wouldn't be ranked over 4 stars if that were the case.

[SoonerorLater]

As to Huggins, Rivals ratings do not take into account academic standing. They don't claim to. They just evaluate players through their network of experts.

Rivals not only takes into account academics (which was why derrick strait was a 2 star) but they also take into account any runins with the law they have.[/QUOTE]

News to me. I can't find anything that says Rivals uses scholastic scores when rating athletes

http://www.rivals.com/aboutrankings.asp?Sport=1

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

Rivals not only takes into account academics (which was why derrick strait was a 2 star) but they also take into account any runins with the law they have.

News to me. I can't find anything that says Rivals uses scholastic scores when rating athletes

http://www.rivals.com/aboutrankings.asp?Sport=1[/QUOTE]

http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1219342

Geez, talk about a cluster. Some take it into account and others don't.

[Soonerwake]

Just for fun I took a quick look at one of the recruiting ranking services and reviewed their team rankings since 2010, which would account for a good portion of the starters for most teams this year. Of course, Bama has dominated in recruiting and on the field, as has Ohio State, LSU, and FSU. But interestingly enough, several teams who were dominate in recruiting rankings like UT, Florida, ND, USC, and Michigan have been average over the past couple of years (with NDs run at a title exception last year). Conversely, some teams that are near the top of the polls right now have been average to bad in recruiting rankings, such as Baylor, OSU, Oregon, Mizzou, etc...
I know a slew of other factors come into play like injuries, suspensions, and NCAA sanctions, but I'm more and more convinced that recruiting rankings and stars are spotty at best. I think we all need to relax and have some faith that our coaches are bringing in talent, and will coach them up. Just my opinion....

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

Just for fun I took a quick look at one of the recruiting ranking services and reviewed their team rankings since 2010, which would account for a good portion of the starters for most teams this year. Of course, Bama has dominated in recruiting and on the field, as has Ohio State, LSU, and FSU. But interestingly enough, several teams who were dominate in recruiting rankings like UT, Florida, ND, USC, and Michigan have been average over the past couple of years (with NDs run at a title exception last year). Conversely, some teams that are near the top of the polls right now have been average to bad in recruiting rankings, such as Baylor, OSU, Oregon, Mizzou, etc...
I know a slew of other factors come into play like injuries, suspensions, and NCAA sanctions, but I'm more and more convinced that recruiting rankings and stars are spotty at best. I think we all need to relax and have some faith that our coaches are bringing in talent, and will coach them up. Just my opinion....

The key is noticing the teams that are at the top and how big their fanbases are. Remember that Rivals is a pay service and it just doesn't make good fiscal sense to not have the biggest fanbases in competition at the top. This coupled with the fact that the top "evaluators" are also owners of these sites casts a huge pall on the numbers. Ketchum is one of the main ones responsible for ranking the state of Texas with his LoneStar 100. Do you really think he isn't going to give a little bump to those who Texas is looking at?

Now, his rankings weren't terrible around 2002ish. He'd miss some low tier guys but for the most part he was decent with it. Since everyone was a late commit, it allowed a lot of diamonds to float to the top. Then Mack Brown screwed the pooch for him and started getting verbals from Juniors. Because of this, it has become almost impossible to have any kind of flow upward because then his fanbase will rant about the drop (and they are by far the largest rivals site). So this has caused a serious issue in Texas with the highest rated guys sucking donkey balls. This normally wouldn't have effected us, but we had 2-3 coaches who were just letting rivals pick their targets for them. Thus we ended up getting highly rated guys that sucked as well.

[8timechamps]

Just for fun I took a quick look at one of the recruiting ranking services and reviewed their team rankings since 2010, which would account for a good portion of the starters for most teams this year. Of course, Bama has dominated in recruiting and on the field, as has Ohio State, LSU, and FSU. But interestingly enough, several teams who were dominate in recruiting rankings like UT, Florida, ND, USC, and Michigan have been average over the past couple of years (with NDs run at a title exception last year). Conversely, some teams that are near the top of the polls right now have been average to bad in recruiting rankings, such as Baylor, OSU, Oregon, Mizzou, etc...
I know a slew of other factors come into play like injuries, suspensions, and NCAA sanctions, but I'm more and more convinced that recruiting rankings and stars are spotty at best. I think we all need to relax and have some faith that our coaches are bringing in talent, and will coach them up. Just my opinion....

That's kind of my point. There's also the occurrence of a player getting better rankings after he gets an offer from one of the big schools. It happens every year, and it's already happened to one of our own (Tito Windham), he started out as a unrated, then went to a two star. Shortly after OU's offer, he was bumped to a 3 star.

[8timechamps]

The key is noticing the teams that are at the top and how big their fanbases are. Remember that Rivals is a pay service and it just doesn't make good fiscal sense to not have the biggest fanbases in competition at the top. This coupled with the fact that the top "evaluators" are also owners of these sites casts a huge pall on the numbers. Ketchum is one of the main ones responsible for ranking the state of Texas with his LoneStar 100. Do you really think he isn't going to give a little bump to those who Texas is looking at?

Now, his rankings weren't terrible around 2002ish. He'd miss some low tier guys but for the most part he was decent with it. Since everyone was a late commit, it allowed a lot of diamonds to float to the top. Then Mack Brown screwed the pooch for him and started getting verbals from Juniors. Because of this, it has become almost impossible to have any kind of flow upward because then his fanbase will rant about the drop (and they are by far the largest rivals site). So this has caused a serious issue in Texas with the highest rated guys sucking donkey balls. This normally wouldn't have effected us, but we had 2-3 coaches who were just letting rivals pick their targets for them. Thus we ended up getting highly rated guys that sucked as well.

I couldn't possibly agree more.

[SoonerorLater]

This normally wouldn't have effected us, but we had 2-3 coaches who were just letting rivals pick their targets for them. Thus we ended up getting highly rated guys that sucked as well.


----------------

Yes but is that because of a poor evaluation of the talent or because of poor coaching? My take is that a lot of these guys never lived up to what a lot of us believed was their true potential.

Looking at the 2010 class I would say the talent (based on stars rating) was pretty good. There are some who have fared better than the numbers would suggest (ie.Colvin) and others not as well (ie. James Haynes) but in preponderance the best players had the highest star value Millard, Jefferson, Stills, Clay, Nelson, Finch (yes Finch).

Most people felt like Stills never quite lived up to what we thought, Jefferson too off and on but as it turns out both of these guys are now on NFL rosters and to this point performing pretty well. Was Rivals wrong about these guys or was our coaching staff just unable to get these guys prepared to perform? IMO it's the latter.

[8timechamps]

This normally wouldn't have effected us, but we had 2-3 coaches who were just letting rivals pick their targets for them. Thus we ended up getting highly rated guys that sucked as well.


----------------

Yes but is that because of a poor evaluation of the talent or because of poor coaching? My take is that a lot of these guys never lived up to what a lot of us believed was their true potential.

Looking at the 2010 class I would say the talent (based on stars rating) was pretty good. There are some who have fared better than the numbers would suggest (ie.Colvin) and others not as well (ie. James Haynes) but in preponderance the best players had the highest star value Millard, Jefferson, Stills, Clay, Nelson, Finch (yes Finch).

Most people felt like Stills never quite lived up to what we thought, Jefferson too off and on but as it turns out both of these guys are now on NFL rosters and to this point performing pretty well. Was Rivals wrong about these guys or was our coaching staff just unable to get these guys prepared to perform? IMO it's the latter.

I think where the majority of the 'poor evaluation' showed up with along the lines. It's hard enough to gauge talent at those positions coming out of high school, but when you phone it in and let the stars dictate the recruiting, you're going to end up with a lot of attrition and players that never quite lived up to the hype.

That's another reason why I'm interested to see how some of these 2 and 3 star recruits end up. I think both Montgomery and Bedenbaugh are being extremely studious in their evaluations, and if they are as good as their reputations, we should end up with a very good core group in the next few years.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

Yes but is that because of a poor evaluation of the talent or because of poor coaching? My take is that a lot of these guys never lived up to what a lot of us believed was their true potential

This has been my whole point. Since 2002 when I first saw that "awesome" 2001 class on the field I have had an issue with us taking a lot of the higher rated kids that we did. The reason is that these kids need so much coaching to get to be a good D1 player. It was just not possible for us to give it to them with the limitation on practice time that got handed down that year. That is why in recruiting, I'm more for taking the best football player and not necessarily the best athlete. Give me Wes Welker (UR) over BJ Johnson (#1 WR in the nation) any day.




Looking at the 2010 class I would say the talent (based on stars rating) was pretty good. There are some who have fared better than the numbers would suggest (ie.Colvin) and others not as well (ie. James Haynes) but in preponderance the best players had the highest star value Millard, Jefferson, Stills, Clay, Nelson, Finch (yes Finch).

A couple of things, Rivals tends to be more accurate on "athletic" positions than "growth" positions. So guys like Finch/Clay/Stills tend to be easier for them to get right. Lets look at the others:

1. Jefferson -> listed at a 4.5 40 but ran a 4.85 at the combine. Jefferson as a freshman was a good football and good athlete. Unfortunately Jefferson's frame was horrid for adding weight. He got slower and less athletic every year he was here making him a linebacker/safety tweener.

2. Milard was only a 4* because he was rated as a TE. Had he been rated as a FB, he'd have been guaranteed as a 3*. Don't believe me? http://rivals.yahoo.com/oklahoma/football/recruiting/rankings/rank-2392;_ylt=Agc1xmIOP8XeFgy5UB9vcanwOrF_ (to show the bias on rankings, look at the schools on the 4*s). He was also rated 8 places behind Austin Haywood.

3. Corey Nelson -> It has taken Nelson 4 years to become a good football player. He had zero instincts and was constantly standing flat footed trying to diagnose a play when a guard just slammed into him. Even when he diagnosed it correctly, he would chicken fight with the OL instead of getting clear and making a play. Alexander as a TR FR is as good of a football player as Nelson is as a SR, but he isn't as good of an athlete and is a step slow (at this point). Which goes back to my original point -> Is it better to have a position over a 3 year span be Weak, Weak, Very Strong or have it be Strong, Strong, Strong?

Some other notables ->
Hayes (3 star) -> Very good against the run, not good against the pass (specialist)
Julian Wilson (3 Star) -> He is a better cover guy than the opponents 3rd receiver. He can't handle anything better (specialist)
Geneo Grissom (4 Star) -> A little more flexible than Ndulae (3 star), but doesn't have as much upside in a growth position because he is a small framed dude. Ndulae could probably hold 300 lbs and still be a decent DE, Grissom though has Zach Latimer syndrome.

For the record, Saban would have ran off like 80% of this class.


Most people felt like Stills never quite lived up to what we thought, Jefferson too off and on but as it turns out both of these guys are now on NFL rosters and to this point performing pretty well. Was Rivals wrong about these guys or was our coaching staff just unable to get these guys prepared to perform? IMO it's the latter.

Something that you need to consider is that these guys left a year early. As a coaching staff, you want to avoid early entrants if at all possible. It is better to have a slightly less talented guy out there who you can depend on for another year than to lose a player and have to replace him with someone who isn't ready. Since Bob Stoops has been here, we've had 3 5* early entrants, 8 4* early entrants, and 2 3* early entrants (3 if you count TGRW). Most of our good 3*s have stayed for their senior years even when they didn't have too (Calmus, etc).