Why the Drake will be our next QB

by millzners on Dec 11, 2008 12:36 PM EST

I think I can make my case with the following top offense recruits of the last 7 years. I started with 2006 since we haven't seen much of the 2007 or 2008 classes yet. These are the top 4 and 5 star offfensive players by year.

2006:

Pos	Nat'l Rank	Nat'l Rating	Name School, Hometown	Video	HT/ WT/ 40	Commit Date	Signed LOI?	Commit School
WR	5		Chris Bell (Granby HS) Norfolk, VA		6-3/205/4.50	10/17/2005		Penn State
OL	5		Antonio Logan-El (Forestville HS) Forestville, MD		6-6/310/5.20	01/24/2006		Penn State
QB	4		Pat Devlin (Downingtown West HS) Downingtown, PA		6-4/200/4.70	01/23/2006		Penn State

2004

Anthony Morelli
(Penn Hills SHS)
Pittsburgh, PA

6-4/216/4.70

02/04/2004

Penn State

2003

Austin Scott
(Parkland SHS)
Allentown, PA

6-1/195/4.40

09/11/2002

Penn State

I left out very special person, from one very special recruiting class, whose contributions to this team are immeasurable. He was the only 4 or 5 star offesive player recruited that year. But my point is pretty simple: we do best with 2 star recruits like Clark and (possibly) the Drake.

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Comments

That is like a dream team!!!

by The JuggerNitt on Dec 11, 2008 5:54 PM EST reply actions

Recruiting fallacy

I have meant to work on something longer on this, but I am increasingly of the belief that recruiting ratings are a complete fallacy. Why is fatso in south bend still getting a break? Because of these “top rated” recruiting classes. Bullshit. Even poorly coached players that are as good as alleged would beat syracuse, Navy, etc.

There is just as much publicity about the professional football player acquisition process (draft) as there is in college (recruiting). However, when an NFL team drafts a player highly, and the player does not succeed, it’s the player’s fault. In college, when a highly rated player fails, it gets blamed on the coach.

Bell, Scott, Logan El are head cases, Devlin could be good, Morelli, no. Part of what makes players good is having their head on straight. Bell, Scott, Logan El’s problems are not PSU’s fault. Who is a better player – a “2 star” who’s a productive player, or a “5 star” who doesn’t want to play football? the “5 star” player was never better in the first place, but was rated higher. All bullshit. The sooner we stop taking these ratings so seriously, the better

by InScoresOfOtherGames on Dec 11, 2008 5:58 PM EST reply actions

I think people generally have realized that the recruiting rankings are a guide, at best

but a very incomplete guide at that. It isn’t like the websites have guys going to all the HS’s and camps and evaluating all the players. They don’t have the manpower or the time. What they do is let the big programs do the work for them, and then compile information on what programs are interested in what players. If big programs like a player, then he must be good. BAM there’s your 5 stars. But if a kid is poor and/or didn’t have the fortune to play for some big football high school, then they get completely overlooked except by the coaches of the local universities who actually know the HS coaches and have a decent chance of evaluating the players that way.

The best is when they rank the schools based on their recruiting classes…but those recruiting class scores came about because of the schools initially, so there is a huge bias for schools like USC, ND, Michigan, OSU, etc to get these “top recruits” just because THEY recruited them. I’d put money down that if the same exact kids that went to USC instead only got recruited by say San Diego State, the recruiting class rank would plummet, and vice versa.

by The JuggerNitt on Dec 11, 2008 6:06 PM EST up reply actions