Analysts do their research

[Ohio Pete]

Analysts do their research

 

By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star

Sunday, Feb 22, 2009 - 12:17:32 am CST

 

There were surely some who thought Allen Wallace had gone mad in 1985 when he quit his job as a lawyer to become a talent evaluator of prep athletes with college football ambitions.

 

But 24 years later, it might be said that Wallace was simply ahead of the curve.

 

Now the national recruiting editor for Scout.com, his SuperPrep Magazine isn’t lacking in interested readers, as might be expected since recruiting talk seems to intrigue some fans almost as much as the games themselves.

 

Web sites such as Rivals.com and Scout.com have proven that recruiting news can be big business – Yahoo paid roughly $100 million to purchase Rivals in 2007. And certainly the title of “recruiting analyst” doesn’t sound near as foreign as it did in 1985.

 

“There are a lot of watchdogs now,” Wallace said. “Before, coaches recruited in silence. If a coach lost a player, it didn’t matter because only a few people knew.”

 

Now, a lot of people know if a program has gained or lost a recruit within hours — occasionally minutes — after it’s happened.

 

And as the public’s appetite for recruiting news has grown, Wallace has noticed that so too has the criticism for the analysts who rate the players.

 

“Now it sometimes seems like the public is the big watchdog of the recruiting people,” Wallace said. “It’s interesting how the public has become our antagonist.”

 

Much of the passion stems from the star ratings — those two or three or four or five stars that Rivals and Scout distribute to players based on their talent evaluations.

 

Husker coach Bo Pelini — whose 2009 recruiting class was ranked 28th nationally by Rivals and 33rd by Scout — has been clear he’s not concerned with the star rankings, nor is he a fan of the hype given to teenagers who haven’t even had their first dorm meal yet.

 

But Wallace points out there are coaches who relish high star rankings — naming Florida’s Urban Meyer and USC’s Pete Carroll as examples. “They want rankings,” Wallace said. “It’s fun to be ranked in the top five and 10 classes.”

 

But how exactly are these stars given?

 

Bobby Burton, editor-in-chief of Rivals, said his company’s evaluations start with the work of seven analysts located throughout the country.

 

“Their job is nothing but rating kids,” Burton said. “They go from place to place, whether it’s a combine, a football game or whatever. We’re trying to find out whatever information that helps us rate players. Last year, we went to 70 combines across the country, countless games … and then on top of that, we have probably the largest film library of anybody.”

 

Any player can send in film, Burton said, though that doesn’t guarantee it will go up on the Rivals site.

 

“Everybody kind of has guys they think belong and they start talking about it,” Burton said of the Rivals analysts. “We break them down position by position and rank them from there. It’s an ongoing process.”

 

Do recruits call Rivals trying to get more stars? “Oh, yeah, absolutely,” Burton said. “We have to be pretty upfront about it and say that’s not what we do.”

 

Ultimately, Burton said the final say on how many stars a player gets is up to Barry Every. Burton hired Every two years ago, taking him away from the football operations job at Georgia. Burton said Every is involved in the evaluation process from the start.

 

“If we do get criticism, it’s not that some of it is not well-deserved. I don’t think we’re perfect,” Burton said. “At the same time, I don’t think it’s proper for anyone to sit here thinking we’re sitting here doing something without purpose. We’re out here trying to do this the right way.”

 

Evaluating all those prospects can be draining work, Wallace said. He noted that after national signing day, “you just want to sleep for a week.”

 

Wallace recently examined what schools had the highest-ranked classes over the past 14 years according to his data. He found that Michigan was No. 1, followed by Florida, Florida State and USC. Notre Dame was 11th. Nebraska was 17th.

 

He believes there is a strong correlation between the recruiting rankings and how teams do on the field, “but there is always going to be exceptions, always going to be teams that don’t pan out.”

 

Given all the attention to recruiting, you better know your stuff.

 

“How many sources do you have? How much homework do you do? You’re always trying to be fair,” Wallace said. “I can’t have subscribers and I can’t respect myself if I’m not being fair.”

[hack]

in mother russia, research do analysts!

[HuskerJen]

Do recruits call Rivals trying to get more stars?

Oh, yeah, absolutely...We have to be pretty upfront about it and say that’s not what we do.

 

Unless the recruit offers to pay you a "reconsideration fee" then a is suddenly a .

 

[huskertim]

Or sign with USC and waive the "recosideration fee".

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

They are just one measuring stick.