Nearly Half of Top 50 NFL Draft Prospects were 3 star or lower rated

UNT Mean Green · January 23, 2017

Interesting.

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/hssports/2014/05/almost-half-of-top-50-nfl-draft-prospects-were-3-star-high-school-recruits-or-worse.html

UNT86 · January 23, 2017

Not a surprise.

Most prospects are rated on height, speed, and the size of the program they play in. Those rating sites have never seen them play.

Many if not most of the major programs simply look at the physical attributes of a player and not his actual ability to make plays. They figure they can coach him up and overcome his shortcomings.

I would much rather have players that will fit in and be successful in the scheme our coaches decide is best. Recruit players that want to be in your program and have the ability to contribute. Don't worry about anything else.

greenminer · January 23, 2017

Misleading. It fails to mention that there are only a handful of 4 and 5 star recruits, but hundreds (thousands?) of kids that are 3 or less.

When it comes to the law of averages, you still have better odds the better the kid rates.

Graddean · January 23, 2017

It does mention there are fewer 4-5 stars than three or below.

GreenFlag · January 23, 2017

Not this again.

p_phelps · January 23, 2017

Yes yes, this is why bama recruits goes after the 2 star guys. Being facetious, there are plenty of players that are overlooked in highschool that develop into amazing players are the further levels. That being said this seems like a justification of us getting 2 star players. Yes every 3-5 years we get a Cobb,Dunbar,Orr, but surrounded by less talented players we win 3-6 games. It's not by chance that Dodge's best class (the best we've had in a long time) took us to a heart of Dallas bowl win. Yes coaching has to go with it but recruiting the players is a major component of college football if not the biggest. Talent wins at this level. GET TALENT! If a new school in an ugly dome that is a commuter school has the best class in the conference then WTF is the problem. Why are we not getting the talented players? I'm tired of looking for the under the rock players. While we do hit on some that is not a winning strategy.

casual fan · January 23, 2017

After watching Aaron Rodgers pick apart the Cowboys, I looked up his history.

He received no scholarship offers coming out of high school and went to Butte Community College.

If you can fill your recruiting class with 4 and 5 star players, there is little doubt that success will follow.

Boise managed to build a powerhouse by finding overlooked talent. How hard was it to recruit to Idaho???

Littrell and company must find overlooked talent until UNT has a couple of breakout years.

Rudy · January 23, 2017

2 hours ago, UNT86 said:

Not a surprise.

Most prospects are rated on height, speed, and size

Many if not most of the major programs simply look at the physical attributes of a player

So it's kind of like dating?

GrandGreen · January 23, 2017

Stars are about probability not sure things. 247 per their announced intent is to name 50 5 star athletes and 250 4 stars. This is roughly 10% of recruited athletes. So anyone who uses data like this to promote the idea that stars don't matter is definitely not a math major or is just looking for ways to justify questionable recruiting classes.

It is a certainty that the lower 90% percent of the recruiting class is going to have many more great players than the deemed top 10%. It is also a sure thing that the percentage of the top 300 rated athletes that become stars in college or pros is going to be a lot greater than the percentage of the bottom 90%.

Frankly, this doesn't even apply to NT who has never got any four star player recruited directly from high school. NT has got some of that quality in the past but all before the star system.

UNT90 · January 23, 2017

10 hours ago, greenminer said:

Misleading. It fails to mention that there are only a handful of 4 and 5 star recruits, but hundreds (thousands?) of kids that are 3 or less.

When it comes to the law of averages, you still have better odds the better the kid rates.

This. Math is hard for some. This article actually validates the recruit ranking system.

I look forward to the January day when things like this aren't posted to justify poor recruiting.

Will it ever come?

9 hours ago, casual fan said:

After watching Aaron Rodgers pick apart the Cowboys, I looked up his history.

He received no scholarship offers coming out of high school and went to Butte Community College.

If you can fill your recruiting class with 4 and 5 star players, there is little doubt that success will follow.

Boise managed to build a powerhouse by finding overlooked talent. How hard was it to recruit to Idaho???

Littrell and company must find overlooked talent until UNT has a couple of breakout years.

I see you have never been to Boise.

If i had to live anywhere else, Boise would be a top choice.

BillySee58 · January 23, 2017

About 90% of incoming FBS signees (scholarship) are 3-star or lower. And that doesn't include FCS or any lower division players, or walkons.

When you factor in FCS signees and look at all D1 signees, you're looking at about 5-6% being 4 and 5 star guys. So those 5-6% account for over 50% of the NFL's top 50 prospects. That does help validate the rankings.

MeanGreenTexan · January 23, 2017

34 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

About 90% of incoming FBS signees (scholarship) are 3-star or lower. And that doesn't include FCS or any lower division players, or walkons.

When you factor in FCS signees and look at all D1 signees, you're looking at about 5-6% being 4 and 5 star guys. So those 5-6% account for over 50% of the NFL's top 50 prospects. That does help validate the rankings.

Knew Billy would set things straight here.

UNT Mean Green · January 23, 2017

1 hour ago, BillySee58 said:

About 90% of incoming FBS signees (scholarship) are 3-star or lower. And that doesn't include FCS or any lower division players, or walkons.

When you factor in FCS signees and look at all D1 signees, you're looking at about 5-6% being 4 and 5 star guys. So those 5-6% account for over 50% of the NFL's top 50 prospects. That does help validate the rankings.

Well put @BillySee58. Would you suspect that the high majority of 5-6% referenced are the "once in a lifetime or can't miss" talents coming out of high school?

Cerebus · January 23, 2017

9 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

Frankly, this doesn't even apply to NT who has never got any four star player recruited directly from high school.

When Jamario was recruited the big scouting sites were rivals and scout. He was a 4* on one, and a 3* on the other, I don't recall which was which.

We beat out offers from Colorado, Texas Tech, Arizona St, Arkansas and some other P5 (then BCS AQ) schools. This is downplayed because it goes against the "Dickey only recruited one class" narrative.

6 minutes ago, UNT Mean Green said:

Well put @BillySee58. Would you suspect that the high majority of 5-6% referenced are the "once in a lifetime or can't miss" talents coming out of high school?

The 5-6% he is referencing would be the 4* and 5* guys, not sure fire can't misses but big signings even at P5 schools. CUSA averages about one of these guys, for the entire conference, each year.

Army of Dad · January 23, 2017

1 hour ago, BillySee58 said:

About 90% of incoming FBS signees (scholarship) are 3-star or lower. And that doesn't include FCS or any lower division players, or walkons.

When you factor in FCS signees and look at all D1 signees, you're looking at about 5-6% being 4 and 5 star guys. So those 5-6% account for over 50% of the NFL's top 50 prospects. That does help validate the rankings.

And that doesn't account for the 4 & 5 star guys who had to quit playing because of injury or illness.

UNT Mean Green · January 23, 2017

19 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

When Jamario was recruited the big scouting sites were rivals and scout. He was a 4* on one, and a 3* on the other, I don't recall which was which.

We beat out offers from Colorado, Texas Tech, Arizona St, Arkansas and some other P5 (then BCS AQ) schools. This is downplayed because it goes against the "Dickey only recruited one class" narrative.

The 5-6% he is referencing would be the 4* and 5* guys, not sure fire can't misses but big signings even at P5 schools. CUSA averages about one of these guys, for the entire conference, each year.

Jamario was definitely a rare occurrence in our recruiting history.

Exactly. Those are the rare breed kids who are "freaks" per se, and if developed in college have a much higher likelihood of being rated highly when entering the NFL Draft.

CUSA doesn't deal in those kids in recruiting. We deal in a larger pond with more fish for the 3 star and down kids. How much real time do these "recruiting expert websites" put into "evaluating" this lower level of player, and formulating a ranking system that coincides with productive success at the collegiate level?

Edited January 23, 2017 by UNT Mean Green

Cerebus · January 23, 2017

11 minutes ago, UNT Mean Green said:

CUSA doesn't deal in those kids in recruiting. We deal in a larger pond with more fish for the 3 star and down kids. How much real time do these "recruiting expert websites" put into "evaluating" this lower level of player, and formulating a ranking system that coincides with productive success at the collegiate level?

That is why so many people like a offer based system like @BillySee58's for G5 level recruits.

If you have two lowly rated recruits, but one of them have 4 G5 offers, and one of them only has 1 offer, then it's safe to assume the one with more offers is a "better" quality recruit.

GrandGreen · January 23, 2017

22 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

When Jamario was recruited the big scouting sites were rivals and scout. He was a 4* on one, and a 3* on the other, I don't recall which was which.

We beat out offers from Colorado, Texas Tech, Arizona St, Arkansas and some other P5 (then BCS AQ) schools. This is downplayed because it goes against the "Dickey only recruited one class" narrative.

The 5-6% he is referencing would be the 4* and 5* guys, not sure fire can't misses but big signings even at P5 schools. CUSA averages about one of these guys, for the entire conference, each year.

As much as you like to promote DD as a great recruiter. He had one very good class, which he parlayed into some good individual signings while they were winning. After that, he was a very poor recruiter.

Jamario was a great signing whether 3 or 4 starts, but you are aware that he was not highly recruited because of his dyslexia. I give DD a lot of credit for that signing. I just looked up and both 247 and rivals had him rated at 3 stars, could not find any scout rating. Thomas, only had one offer NT for a long time, and then late in recruiting there were some P5 coming in late to fill their class and he stuck with his commitment to NT.

Back to DD's recruiting, he once made a statement before his recruiting got really bad. That statement was that he had never lost a recruit that he offered a ship to at NT. Think about that. I doubt it is completely true, but I think it illustrated what kind of recruiter DD was. DD did not go after players early, I assume his staff did some homework, but recruiting for him really didn't start till most of the bigs had almost completely filled their quota. He came in late on some players that missed their targets and make some very good signings. However, this didn't last long, as other lower tier teams started doing the same and were much better at it.

Cerebus, we have argued DD ability to recruit many times and it is obvious that we don't agree and neither is going to change their view. DD was probably the last coach that I did talk to many times. He was not without charm and played the good ole boy very well. He also had some very big issues much of the time he served at NT and was basically self-destructive. He played the us versus the world gambit well, and may have won some games with that strategy. The problem however was he created an environment that was harmful for the program long term. I think he personally killed any chance he had for getting his dream job.

I think DD was a very poor recruiter and I still wonder how that 2001 class happened. On the only side, I think DD was underrated as a coach. His string of Belt victories was a great accomplishment and I get tired of fans who discount that achievement.

Cerebus · January 23, 2017

Grand,

I just don't agree that Dickey had "one great class that he lucked into", as so many people have claimed. He had 12 DaMN State Top 100s. Yes, about half of them signed in one class. But that means half didn't.

Either half of those 12 are better than any other coach has done. Again Dodge only had his son, and Mac only had Terian Goree. So in other words, even if you disregard every recruit in that great class, Dickey was still the best recruiter we have had since our return to 1A/FBS.

7 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

The problem however was he created an environment that was harmful for the program long term.

I don't see how anyone could have that opinion after reading the consultants report released this year. The person who created the harmful environment was the former AD.

The real problem was that Dickey got fired in Monroe, then that decision was over ridden, and then the team turned it around and won five straight and got to the first NO Bowl. He couldn't be fired after that, and that setup a terrible working relationship that got to the point that they couldn't stand to be in the same room with each other.

Not sure how anyone manages to keep a healthy mindset under those conditions.

Aldo · January 23, 2017

17 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

He had 12 DaMN State Top 100s.

Again Dodge only had his son, and Mac only had Terian Goree.

casual fan · January 23, 2017

4 hours ago, UNT90 said:

I see you have never been to Boise.

If i had to live anywhere else, Boise would be a top choice.

I've been to Idaho and it's great in the summertime. Winter is another deal.

Even after all Boise's success, you can count all their 4 star recruits for the last 3 decades on one hand.

It should be easier to recruit to Denton than Boise.

GrandGreen · January 23, 2017

51 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

Grand,

I just don't agree that Dickey had "one great class that he lucked into", as so many people have claimed. He had 12 DaMN State Top 100s. Yes, about half of them signed in one class. But that means half didn't.

Either half of those 12 are better than any other coach has done. Again Dodge only had his son, and Mac only had Terian Goree. So in other words, even if you disregard every recruit in that great class, Dickey was still the best recruiter we have had since our return to 1A/FBS.

I don't see how anyone could have that opinion after reading the consultants report released this year. The person who created the harmful environment was the former AD.

The real problem was that Dickey got fired in Monroe, then that decision was over ridden, and then the team turned it around and won five straight and got to the first NO Bowl. He couldn't be fired after that, and that setup a terrible working relationship that got to the point that they couldn't stand to be in the same room with each other.

Not sure how anyone manages to keep a healthy mindset under those conditions.

We will never agree on Dickey, but at least we do on RV.

UNT Mean Green · January 23, 2017

2 hours ago, Cerebus said:

That is why so many people like a offer based system like @BillySee58's for G5 level recruits.

If you have two lowly rated recruits, but one of them have 4 G5 offers, and one of them only has 1 offer, then it's safe to assume the one with more offers is a "better" quality recruit.

Absolutely agree with this concept.

There are also plenty of exceptions, where a kid may qualify late, be recovering from an injury, etc. that turn off the P5 guys and they choose to move on. Kids who hold or held notable offers and fall into a criteria based off of circumstances above can certainly be difference makers at a place like UNT.

1 hour ago, GrandGreen said:

As much as you like to promote DD as a great recruiter. He had one very good class, which he parlayed into some good individual signings while they were winning. After that, he was a very poor recruiter.

Jamario was a great signing whether 3 or 4 starts, but you are aware that he was not highly recruited because of his dyslexia. I give DD a lot of credit for that signing. I just looked up and both 247 and rivals had him rated at 3 stars, could not find any scout rating. Thomas, only had one offer NT for a long time, and then late in recruiting there were some P5 coming in late to fill their class and he stuck with his commitment to NT.

Back to DD's recruiting, he once made a statement before his recruiting got really bad. That statement was that he had never lost a recruit that he offered a ship to at NT. Think about that. I doubt it is completely true, but I think it illustrated what kind of recruiter DD was. DD did not go after players early, I assume his staff did some homework, but recruiting for him really didn't start till most of the bigs had almost completely filled their quota. He came in late on some players that missed their targets and make some very good signings. However, this didn't last long, as other lower tier teams started doing the same and were much better at it.

Cerebus, we have argued DD ability to recruit many times and it is obvious that we don't agree and neither is going to change their view. DD was probably the last coach that I did talk to many times. He was not without charm and played the good ole boy very well. He also had some very big issues much of the time he served at NT and was basically self-destructive. He played the us versus the world gambit well, and may have won some games with that strategy. The problem however was he created an environment that was harmful for the program long term. I think he personally killed any chance he had for getting his dream job.

I think DD was a very poor recruiter and I still wonder how that 2001 class happened.   On the only side, I think DD was underrated as a coach. His string of Belt victories was a great accomplishment and I get tired of fans who discount that achievement.

Wasn't there some sort of "academic exception" the UNT administration was offering that was a loophole to land several of these players (named 'Prop' something)? Eventually this went away, but I am fairly certain that there was.

greenminer · January 23, 2017

1 hour ago, UNT Mean Green said:

Wasn't there some sort of "academic exception" the UNT administration was offering that was a loophole to land several of these players (named 'Prop' something)? Eventually this went away, but I am fairly certain that there was.

Never heard this. I did hear that our program that assists dyslexia helped land Jamario.

MeanGreenMailbox aka TFLF · January 23, 2017

Not sure what the point is. The rating system is used for gauging how talented a kid is supposed to be according to his measurables and high school career, not whether or not they'll play in the NFL.

Given that Alabama recruits a sh*t ton of 5- and 4-star recruits and generally end up playing for the national title, I'd say there is some credence to the system. Bama, Ohio State, OU, etc aren't succeeding year after year with classes full of 2-star recruits.

The NFL is a different beast. A kid can throw for miles of yards and not even make the League: SEE any QB who ever started for Mike Leach.

The NFL is now more of a passing league, so a guy who piles up a bunch of rushing yards in college may or may not even be drafted on the first or second day.

The college period scrapes off all of those (regardless of star rating) who get injured, are head cases/quitters/multiple transfers, flunkies, criminals...or, who simply never adjust to collegiate competition and, therefore, don't ever play..

I think star ratings are relevant from high school to college recruiting, but mean nothing to the NFL. The NFL teams are drafting those who did well in college and/or who have good measurables...and, who fit their philosophy, regardless of measurables: SEE Tom Landry and Bill Belichick

Edited January 23, 2017 by MeanGreenMailbox