Recruiting ratings: How many stars the Superbowl starters had in high school

[NUance]

How each Super Bowl 2015 starter was rated as a high school recruit

By Bud Elliott and Peter Berkes on Jan 21 2015, 10:51a

 

The recruiting profile of both teams is similar. Seattle's starting lineup had an average star rating of 2.4 as high school prospects, and New England's had 2.3. (Full ratings below, via the 247Sports Composite.)

Neither team boasts a former five-star recruit in its two-deep, and both have four former four-stars. Seattle has 11 former three-stars, while New England has nine. This isn't that surprising, as five-stars make up less than 1 percent of all FBS/FCS recruits, four-stars less than 10 percent, and three-stars roughly 37 percent. About 55 percent are rated two-stars or unrated.

LINK

 

Interesting that of the 48 players listed (24 for each team), there were more 2* recruits than 4* recruits. Nine 2* versus eight 4* recruits. (The rest were 3* recruits or unrated.) Just to set the record straight, I'm not one of those who says we should ignore the Rivals and Scout stars when considering talent coming out of high school. But I do think that star ratings are an imperfect tool when it comes to predicting future performance. I guess that's why all the major FBS teams run high school football camps each summer.

[BigRedBuster]

That is really fascinating to me. I actually find the lack of 5 star recruits probably the most interesting.

 

Like you, to me, this doesn't mean the stars are meaningless. But, it does mean that players at what ever star ranking can be extremely successful.

 

I wonder if, more times than not, the 5* players have hit their ceiling while the 2 and 3 star players still have major room to improve. They do that improvement with better coaching at the college and then at the pro level. If you think, these guys are at least 4 to maybe 10 years removed from those star rankings. They have had major influence on them from probably some very good coaches.

[BigRedBuster]

Actually, this probably shows more how coaches need to evaluate the player and not buy into whatever hype they have around them. Fans get all worked up about stars. However, a lot of that star ranking is based on who is recruiting that kid. So, if Alabama, LSU, USC, OSU and Oregon are all hot after a kid, then he is probably going to get bumped up.

Meanwhile, there are kids who might not play in what is considered major talent areas that, with good coaching, can compete with those hot recruits everyone drools over.

[Red Five]

Using some maths, less than 1% of HS players are 5 stars, so it is really surprising that none make the super bowl?

[Mavric]

I'm not a big stars guy either but that's a pretty circular argument. The bigger schools recruiting them get them more stars. But the reason the bigger schools are recruiting them is because they are (generally) the better players. Pretty tough to separate out fact from fiction.

 

My biggest issue is I think people get the impression that the rankings are linear. That is, the #1 guy is as much better than the #100 guy as the #100 guy is better than the #200 guy. I think the Top 10-20 each year are your elite athletes and that's about all that are five stars. But then it starts to flatten out pretty quickly. There isn't a lot of difference between, say, the #100 and #400 guy and with such varying exposures to coaching, programs, camps, etc. - not to mean being spread between a dozen or so different positions they can play on the field - it's impossible to say for sure who is better than who. And then the same is true for the #500 guy to the #1000 guy.

 

Taking it one step farther, probably the top five classes each year are pretty loaded with talent. But to say that the #10 class is significantly better than the #20 class is pretty tough. Or that the #20 class is significantly better than the #50 class.

 

They do a good job overall but there is so much room for variance that looking at any individual comparison is tough.

[DrunkOffPunch]

I think a lot of player rankings have to do with how 'college ready' a kid is. I'd bet many of these NFL guys that got overlooked by colleges was due to size. A lot of these kids aren't done growing when they're seniors in high school.

[Mavric]

Using some maths, less than 1% of HS players are 5 stars, so it is really surprising that none make the super bowl?

 

That's not the math that is important. There are about 25 five stars each year. I think I saw awhile ago that 50% of five stars get drafted which to me shows that even picking the best of the best is no better than a coin flip but that's for a different discussion. If you figure a career length of five years - which isn't average but the best should have the longest careers, right? - there "should" be around 60 five stars in the NFL all the time which would average about two per team. So it would be somewhat improbably that the best two teams wouldn't have any.

[NUance]

 

Using some maths, less than 1% of HS players are 5 stars, so it is really surprising that none make the super bowl?

 

That's not the math that is important. There are about 25 five stars each year. I think I saw awhile ago that 50% of five stars get drafted which to me shows that even picking the best of the best is no better than a coin flip but that's for a different discussion. If you figure a career length of five years - which isn't average but the best should have the longest careers, right? - there "should" be around 60 five stars in the NFL all the time which would average about two per team. So it would be somewhat improbably that the best two teams wouldn't have any.

 

 

Yeah, that and another factor is how much development potential a 5* recruit has at the time he goes to college. And how much of that potential he actually realizes in his college years. Not many 5* recruits are good enough to play NFL ball when they're 18 years old. So they still need to improve a bit either mentally (e.g., learning schemes, techniques, etc.) or physically (e.g., speed, strength, weight, toughness). A player might be a 5* recruit coming out of high school, but might not be a 5* recruit for the NFL, depending upon how much or little he develops in college. By the same token a guy might be a legitimate 2* or 3* recruit coming out of high school, but might eventually develop into a 5* NFL recruit. (That is, if NFL scouts used a star rating like Rivals/Scout.)

[theknife]

Of course it's more likey 4 stars and below ended up on the Superbowl Rosters than 5 stars. 25 vs 2000+ other kids? The odds greatly favor the field of those ranked < 5 stars.

[HUSKERherc]

I think this also shows the difference between recruiting and drafting. So many times schools just try to recruit talent. In the NFL, while talent is obviously important, they also look more at whether or not the individual fits in their system.

[Landlord]

If there is one 5 star player and 3,000 2 star players, basic math tells you more 2 stars are going to make it.

[theknife]

 

In 2012, there were 608 undrafted players who appeared on active rosters for at least one game, or nearly 30 percent of all players, according to Elias Sports Bureau. Last year, the number was even greater -- 638, or 31.4 percent of the league's 2,026 total players.

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/steelers/2014/09/07/400-players-on-NFL-rosters-never-heard-their-name-called-in-the-draft/stories/201409070235

Regardless of the college or pro evaluation, it seems that there is no perfect metric to guage physical attributes and how they wil manifest themselves towards a team based sport.

[SouthLincoln Husker]

I believe that 2 star represents players that have not been evaluated. So a lot of special team and small HS players are normally in this rating. It is funny to see a 2 or 3 star player go up at the end of the cycle because Power5 teams are trying to fill spots and they are the best players available.

[Hedley Lamarr]

I believe that 2 star represents players that have not been evaluated. So a lot of special team and small HS players are normally in this rating. It is funny to see a 2 or 3 star player go up at the end of the cycle because Power5 teams are trying to fill spots and they are the best players available.

When I was on rivals I had a 0 star ranking. Never sent them film or attended their camps

[Husker_Power]

I've seen this kind of report time and time again. Super Bowl teams have a majority of 3* or less on their teams. I understand there would be less 4-5 * as the sites aren't just giving those out, but to me that speaks of development & motivation.

 

It is fun getting 5* players, but that doesn't always translate on the field. I get the "star watching" aspect, but I never thought our recruiting classes lives or dies by the stars and rankings. I hope more people learn to realize that stars aren't everything when it comes to recruiting.