FWIW: Article on Rivals today mentions Kenyon Frison as having picked up a 4th star in their latest rankings. Are we still interested or does that 4th star turn us off?
I know you are joking here, but this is what I was talking about with bias. "You suck, therefore your recruits suck" also translates as "You're good, therefore your recruits are good" Utah Verbal -> 3 star Gets interest from slew of good teams -> 4 star
No doubt if good teams, teams like OU, are interested in a player that has to affect the recruiting services, and sometimes the opposite is true where teams chase after players because of their high ranking in the services. Somewhat of a chicken and the egg scenario???
There is definitely some gamesmanship going on, both by the coaches and the recruiting services. Back when I was following recruiting, one of the guys we got that stuck in Mac's craw was Jimmy Wilkerson. We picked him up in late fall and I don't think he could believe how good the kid was or how they had missed him. The next year, there was some kid that was a Wilkerson clone that we picked up late in the process. Rivals immediately brands the guy a 4 star (from zero) even though it was Oct/Nov. 2 days later, Mac is after the kid and gets him to decommit and commit to Texas. That guy was pretty good as a freshman so Mack adopted a stance of let OU find the sleepers and I'll outrecruit them. That year they snagged 1 or 2 of our sleepers (I think Miksch and Robison). So in 2003, we decided to bait the guy by offering sleepers that we didn't even want. Guys like Scott Derry and Steve Hogan. Mack snatched them up in a heartbeat. We then went after our real sleepers like Gute.
He just visited ASU over the weekend, and has them as his #1, "with OU being very close". I'm hoping that his ranking has to do with him coming off of the visit (since that always seems to add some interest), and that in the next few days ASU will not seem so great. I know OU sent in the A-team for an in-home visit last night (Stoops, Bedenbaugh and Norvell), so we'll see. He's expected to commit prior to signing day, but the clock is ticking and I'm not sure we'll know until NSD.
