How much do recruit rankings really matter?

[BigRedMachine]

Good article analyzing the ballyhooed "rankings" and all the hype that surrounds them, and the overall value that they actually possess.

 

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SUNDAY FOCUS

Just wait till the recruits grow up

Experts and fans bubble with excitement when determining which college football teams signed the best high school players, but history teaches those rankings can be far off the mark.

 

By JEFF SHAIN

jshain@herald.com

Posted on Sun, Feb. 01, 2004

 

No sooner had the ink dried on the final letters-of-intent when talk surfaced about how Michigan's 1998 recruiting class could rival some of the best in history.

 

Following their first national title in 49 years, the Wolverines had scored with four of the nation's top 11 prospects -- running back Justin Fargas, quarterback Drew Henson and wideouts David Terrell and Marquise Walker.

 

Three years later, half of that quartet had left without distinction, illustrating the vagaries of dealing in pigskin futures.

 

Fargas, oft-injured and frustrated, went home and transferred to Southern California. Weeks later, Henson's tug-of-war between football and baseball was settled by George Steinbrenner's wallet.

 

Except for a road game at UCLA, the class never sniffed the Rose Bowl.

 

''It's a crapshoot,'' ESPN analyst Lee Corso said. ``No one knows how guys are going to develop over a period of time. But it sells newspapers. It sells Internet websites.''

 

And how. Come Wednesday -- national signing day -- chat rooms and sports-talk radio will crackle with who got the best infusion of fresh arms and legs.

 

Recruiting experts will crown a champion. And folks talk about a mythical national championship?

 

A review of the top signing classes during the past decade show just eight of 20 classes that ranked as the consensus No. 1 or 2 ever played for the real trophy. Two of those -- Ohio State in 2002 and Louisiana State this past season -- did so as true freshmen, with nominal impact.

 

Furthermore, just 14 percent (31 of 222) of the consensus All-Americans since 1995 were ranked among the top 50 prospects of their signing classes, as compiled by The Sporting News from various analysts.

 

More walk-ons, in fact -- three -- made the All-American list than consensus No. 1 prospects (Tim Couch).

 

''You could take the No. 15 [signing class] and make them No. 6 and take No. 6 and make them 15th and nobody would say they're wrong,'' said ABC analyst Terry Bowden, a former Auburn coach. ``That's how inexact this is.''

 

To the analysts' credit, most of the ''can't miss'' prospects don't. Scan the lists of the nation's top 10 recruits in the past decade, and nearly all were at least solid contributors.

 

Even the recruiting ''gurus'' themselves acknowledge there can be a sizable margin for error in their business.

 

''All it can be is a predictor of future success,'' said Bobby Burton, chief analyst and publisher at Rivals.com. ``It's not absolute. It's like the NFL draft in that respect.''

 

Look no further than tonight's Super Bowl quarterbacks. NFL teams employ roughly a dozen full-time scouts, who log upwards of 30,000 miles in the fall scouring college rosters. Yet the two players in Houston are sixth-round pick Tom Brady and undrafted Jake Delhomme.

 

'Everybody blames [ESPN draft expert] Mel Kiper for saying someone's a `reach pick,' '' said Larry Blustein of Floridakids.net. ``At the high-school level it's worse because there's less exposure.''

 

Not that it figures to do anything to slow modern fandom's demand for instant analysis.

 

''It's like reality shows, point/counterpoint, all that yelling and screaming on TV,'' Corso said. ``All that stuff provides instantaneous gratification. It's not really fair.''

 

GO-TO GUYS

 

Burton, Allen Wallace (SuperPrep, TheInsiders.com), Tom Lemming (Prep Football Report, ESPN.com) and Max Emfinger are the recruiting game's primary go-to guys.

 

Each keeps track of as many as 2,500 prospects, trying to predict how well a 17-year-old talent will blossom in four years.

 

''It's all about projection. That's the whole key,'' said Wallace, who is based in Laguna Beach, Calif. ``What's that person going to be like in a different coaching environment, taking on more speed, more weight.

 

``All these guys devastate the competition at the high school level, but the college environment is so different. A guy looks like he can't miss, then he gets to college and doesn't have what it takes.''

 

But a recruiting class is more than one player, ranging from 15 to 25 names a year. Rivals.com bases its rankings on a computer formula balancing player values to a team's needs. ''It takes out the bias of the moment,'' Burton said.

 

Wallace starts similarly, then factors in such things as whether a rival might have trumped them for a blue-chipper. He leaves the final judgment to the eye test. 'I look at one group of players against another group of players and ask myself, `Which one would I rather have?' '' he said.

 

What no one can factor on signing day is real life. Some will blossom and exceed expectations; others will run into problems.

 

''You don't know which ones will get into trouble, which ones will academically [mess] up, which ones will go pro early,'' Corso said.

 

Take Florida State's quarterback situation. Facing Chris Weinke's impending departure, the Seminoles brought in Fabian Walker in 1999, Chris Rix in 2000 and Joe Mauer and Adrian McPherson in 2001.

 

Walker had academic deficiencies and detoured to junior college, by which time Rix had seized the job. Mauer was the No. 1 pick in baseball's draft. Gambling and related charges led to McPherson's dismissal.

 

With Rix and Walker playing out their eligibility in 2004, the quarterback spot looms large for FSU. They have commitments from two -- Xavier Lee from Daytona Beach and Drew Weatherford from Land O'Lakes.

 

''That's the one guy who gets his hands on the ball every snap,'' Wallace said. ``Your whole team can go from great to mediocre if you don't have a guy there that can do what you need.''

 

UNDER THE RADAR

 

The recruiting trail, in fact, is littered with classes dragged down by lack of a quality quarterback. Penn State was No. 2 in both 1996 and '97, but Rashard Casey never developed. Ditto for Ohio State and Steve Bellisari.

 

''People have to recognize that a lot of factors go into it,'' said Burton, who works out of Houston. ``It's how you develop your talent. It's how you motivate your talent. Injuries are involved.''

 

And there are hidden gems a coaching staff can unearth -- or luck into.

 

Miami coach Larry Coker enjoys telling one story from his days as an Oklahoma State assistant in the 1980s. Left with one scholarship when a high-profile recruit backed out, coaches mulled their options before settling on a smallish running back from Wichita.

 

The runt: Barry Sanders, named to the NFL Hall of Fame on Saturday.

 

''There will always be guys so far under the radar,'' Bowden said. ``There's always going to be players who moved into a different area or picked up football late or played out of position and have no stats.''

 

Robert Gallery, the Outland Trophy winner, arrived at Iowa five years ago as a tight end before moving to tackle. A couple of years earlier, the Hawkeyes struck gold with Dallas Clark, a walk-on quarterback who became an All-American tight end.

 

Hard as it is to believe these days, Miami was the only school to offer a scholarship to Ray Lewis, now the NFL's premier linebacker. Russell Maryland weighed offers from UM and Illinois State.

 

The Hurricanes have seemed to specialize in turning over gems. A 1997 class featuring NFL standouts Dan Morgan -- who is playing in today's Super Bowl for Carolina -- Santana Moss and Ed Reed got little notice from the gurus. Only Burton gave a top 10 grade to the 1999 class that produced Ken Dorsey, Bryant McKinnie, Andre Johnson and Clinton Portis.

 

The two classes formed the bulk of a Hurricanes storm that finished No. 2 in 2000, won it all in 2001 and lost the title game a year later.

 

''They were great college prospects, but not necessarily great high school stars,'' Corso said. ``I'll bet Dorsey wasn't the top quarterback prospect in California that year. Too skinny.''

 

Kyle Boller, in fact, was the state's top recruit in 1999. He signed with California and didn't blossom until his senior year.

 

WEIGHING IT

 

How much does Corso pay attention to recruiting rankings? ''Zippo. Nada. Nothing,'' he said. ``I wait until I see them start to play.''

 

Bowden keeps the class lists filed away, but only to look back once the recruits have moved through.

 

''[A recruiting class] should be verified in two ways -- by the won-loss record the next four years and by the number of kids going to the NFL,'' Bowden said.

 

'In the NFL, it's all about how talented you are. You might wind up saying, `Boy, with all those players drafted, he didn't do a very good job of coaching.' ''

 

It's a tag that has started to emerge as fans compare highly ranked classes with middling results. Texas coach Mack Brown, who has produced two No. 1 classes and no BCS bowls since 1999, tops the list.

 

''Talk about something that kills coaches,'' Corso said. ``It's a detriment to them because it automatically produces unrealistic expectations.''

 

Wallace said it's folly to forecast a national champion based on one top-notch class. ''That's fool's gold,'' he said. ``You need to compile three classes together and see how they look. That'll tell you.''

 

The next set of markings comes Wednesday, with USC and LSU getting most of the attention. The Trojans, in fact, are generating some serious ''all-time'' buzz by getting commitments from eight of Rivals.com's top 26 prospects.

 

''That's a number that's never been reached before,'' Burton said.

 

Proceed with caution, though.

 

''It's a gamble, like anything in life,'' Wallace said. ``You can't pick the top 100 graduates from any college in the United States and figure out how successful they'll be.

 

``You can have access to all the transcripts, talk to all their teachers. If you can figure out who's going to be successful on Wall Street, I'd like to talk to you.''