Don't Listen To 'Alternative Facts': Recruiting Rankings Matter

Recruiting evaluations – and consequently, the rankings they produce – are certainly an imperfect science.

Even the best, most consistent coaches in the country seek different traits in prospects and can disagree with each other on recruiting evaluations. There is no “money-back guarantee” - no perfect methodology to watching a 17-year-old kid’s film and projecting precisely what they will produce by age 20 (unless you’re watching Derrick Henry simultaneously run over and away from any would-be defenders.)

Rankings, however, do hold tremendous predictive powers – and thus, dismissing them as irrelevant is often a desperate use of “alternative facts.”

There is a lot of misinformation out there about recruiting rankings.

Maybe it’s a rare two-star recruit who developed into a NFL player, and thus, that athlete is used as the shining example to show ALL two-star recruits that rankings mean absolutely nothing. Or on a larger scale, maybe it’s a program that underperformed (or overperformed) its recent recruiting class rankings in a season.

Here are the real facts:

SBNation wrote this great analysis of the 2014 NFL Draft, in which we learn how ratings correlate to NFL Draft chances.

In the 2014 Draft, a NFL team selected 16-of-27 (59 percent) of five-star recruits from the high school class of 2010.

The numbers scale down as you take away each star. 77-of-395 four-stars (19 percent) were chosen, 92-of-1644 three-stars (5.6 percent) were picked, and 71-of-2434 two-stars (2.9 percent) were picked.

That is a massive, massive gap from the fives to the fours, and then to the threes and twos.

That list also shows how you come upon common misconceptions from people who like to compare the raw numbers of prospects instead of looking at rates.

Obviously, more three-stars and two-stars overall are selected each year – that’s by default, based solely on sheer totals.

In that 2010 cycle, there were thousands of three-star and two-star prospects. There were only 27 five-stars, and ultimately there are 256 draft picks.

If you don’t care about NFL potential and want to know just about individual production at the college level, the same concept applies.

It’s important to acknowledge the obvious: There are always exceptions.

Some prospects fly under-the-radar for a number of reasons. There are players that get burned out on the sport and maybe don’t work hard enough to live up to expectations. There are variables that can’t be controlled for like injuries, or recruits that go through an unexpected late growth spurt.

Nevertheless, the math is crystal clear. And on an individual level, it’s vital college football players understand the truth about their professional chances upfront.

We would never look at an underwhelming high school student and tell them they can definitely get into Harvard, and anyone who says otherwise is a “hater”.

So don’t do the same disservice to athletes. If a two-star is bound and determined to make the NFL, they have every right to go for it - just know the odds up front.

FootballStudyHall.com put together an amazing breakdown of head-to-head contest results based on nothing but recruiting rankings.

Not accounting for injuries. Not accounting for other attrition. Not account for returning production or how players developed. Not even accounting for coaching.

This looks just at prior recruiting rankings of every major conference team for the 2013 season, divided them into subjective "star" tiers based on their rankings, and seeing what the results were.

So, want to look smart to your friends when predicting the outcome of a football game? The only research you have to do is look at the recent recruiting rankings – not accounting for literally any other variables – and you could guess roughly two-thirds of your games correctly.

There are always exceptions. There are some programs where the coaches are better recruiters than x’s and o’s guys, and so the team seems to underperform. There are also programs with tremendous on-the-field coaches that may struggle in recruiting, and they seem to overperform their rankings.

But in general, the math is indisputable. On average, the better recruiting classes you sign, the more your team wins.

This brings us to the Hoosiers.

Indiana’s class checks in at 13th in the 14-team Big Ten, according to the Rivals rankings. They tied with Minnesota for 12th in average star rating, ahead of only Purdue in both categories.

IU did not sign any five or four-star prospects this cycle, but they did sign several highly-regarded threes based on Rivals Ratings, including the following:

· Janesville (Wisc.) Parker defensive tackle Juan Harris - 5.7 RR

· Avon (Ind.) High defensive back Bryant Fitzgerald - 5.6 RR

· Carmel (Ind.) High defensive end Britt Beery - 5.6 RR

· Manvel (Texas.) High defensive end Lance Bryant -5.6 RR

· Tampa (Fla.) Plant defensive back Juwan Burgess - 5.6 RR

· Pickerington (Ohio) Central running back Morgan Ellison – 5.6 RR

Hoosier fans are quick to point out discrepancies from the earlier-mentioned math in recent classes.

For example, Indiana officially hired former Indiana head coach Kevin Wilson on Dec. 7, 2010, giving him a late start for the 2011 cycle.

His first full recruiting class, the 2012 group, was the lowest-ranked nationally from his tenure at 71st in the country. Yet, that crew ended up one of the most productive in Bloomington, including producing future NFL players in former three-star Tevin Coleman (5.7 RR), three-star quarterback Nate Sudfeld (5.6 RR) and three-star Jason Spriggs (5.5 RR)

Former three-star Dan Feeney (5.6 RR) also projects as a NFL pick from that group in this upcoming draft.

Still, all in all, Wilson signed classes anywhere from as low as that 71st group to as high as 39th in 2014. That 2014 class was his best effort in the league, checking in at 7th in the Big Ten rankings.

Which means that 2014 group was the only one of Wilson’s tenure to finish in the top half of the conference, just barely making that cutoff. And in six years, he finished a combined 12-37 in the Big Ten.

Throw out his 0-8 rookie season, and you’ve still got a 12-29 league record.

That’s not to minimize the progress Indiana made during Wilson’s tenure. He improved the program from 1-11 in 2011 to 6-6 campaigns and bowl bids in 2015 and 2016.

That is certainly significant, and given how the defense made huge strides under new-head coach Tom Allen last year, optimism is abound around the program – and for good reason.

Still, if we’re going to dissect and pick apart recruiting rankings, we at least have to be honest with ourselves and not use “alternative facts”.

Recruiting rankings do matter, even if they are an imperfect science.

Think of them as the weather. If a weather reporter tells you there is an 80 percent chance of rain tomorrow, that does mean a one-in-five chance it doesn’t shower.

But you’d be unwise not to at least pack an umbrella.

Perhaps Allen and his staff prove to be such an outstanding group they don’t need loaded recruiting classes to vault Indiana to winning regular season records and beyond.

Maybe the recruiting analysts missed on a number of guys in this class and they overperform expectations. Maybe there is more than one Marcelino Ball in this group.

But let’s at least get our analysis straight: You can even project a team’s season looking strictly at prior recruiting rankings without considering any other factors, and perform nearly just as well as the AP preseason poll.

More often than not, recruiting rankings are accurate.

Don’t let “alternative facts” tell you otherwise.