It's not so much that recruiting itself is overrated.  I think it's websites like Scouts and Rivals that are a little overrated.  They devise their own ranking system based on certain physical attributes of a 17 or 18 year old high school kid and then designate said player an X-star recruit.  Us Sunday morning QBs browse these sites and immediately wonder why we aren't going after this recruit or that recruit because we automatically assume it must be infallible information if it's on the internets.

These sites are merely an educated guess at how this kid, strong emphasis on kid, is going to develop over the next 4 years.  The 40 times, the bench press, etc are all great for getting a rough idea, but they don't tell you half the picture.  

We can't completely base our faith in the program on how well Rivals/Scouts says we did in the offseason.  To do so would be to accept their criteria as THE standard, whenever their job is to simply sell subscriptions.  We need to judge our recruiting classes on the Penn State standard, which does include the physical tangibles but a lot of the intangibles as well.

Remember, Rivals listed Poz and Tony Hunt as 3 star recruits and they turned out to be the rocks of our defense and offense before heading to the NFL.  Maybe we can defy Rivals again this year with DC (another 3 star).

I hope you are right Mike.  I am looking forward to 2008 as well because I think we are going to be pretty damn good.

Having said that, I think its insulated to dismiss the recruiting agencies ratings of players.  I don't recall hearing anyone upset when we landed Morelli or Williams or King...and I didn't hear anyone going apeshit when we landed Tony Hunt, Daryl Clark, or Poz.

I fit your profile of someone who dismisses recruiting rankings and roots for a team that isn't usually very high in them, I don't think my opinion of them would change if Penn State was routinely in the top ten.  

My distrust of recruiting rankings comes from reading "The Blind Side," a great book by the guy who wrote "Moneyball," and it includes a chapter about the guy who more or less invented independently evaluating high school talent.  I understand why those services are worthwhile, but, especially in light of the book, I understand why those ranking should be taken with a grain of salt.  

Speaking of books, I have a feeling that "How to Lie with Statistics" is sitting on the bookshelves of Eric's Atlanta home.

Nevertheless, I do think that a) recruiting is important and b) a trend of PA recruits going to OSU is troubling, regardless of where they're ranked by the websites.  I'm not ready to say that there's a trend yet, but it's starting.

I just can't put a lot of stock in those recruiting rankings. They seem to be heavily weighted toward the skill players. A lot of people agreed that Stankiewitch was probably the best center prospect in the country, but he was only a three star player according to those sites. Those rankings are also heavily based on the size of your class. When you only sign 15 kids you don't have a chance of being ranked in the top 25 on those sites.

A lot of times you see a guy listed as a three star player. Then he commits to USC and suddenly the recruiting service "re-evaluates" him and gives him another star. I swear some of these recruiting bozos who never played a down of football in their life will give a kid an extra star just because he gets an offer from USC or Florida. So forgive me if the recruiting ranking argument doesn't exactly impress me.