The Football Brainiacs

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For those of you who are regular visitors to our site you have heard us refer to the “corporate evaluation websites” many times. Our references to those sites are usually not particularly complimentary and we have considered writing a note to you all in order to further explain our position on those websites and their “star” ratings. We received a note about a tweet that sportscaster and former Sooner QB, Dean Blevins, sent out that compelled us to respond. Here is the tweet:

We will say at the outset that we have nothing but respect for Dean Blevins and in truth his tweet really only created the impetus to write this piece. The response is really meant for all the “stargazers” out there – the folks who believe wholeheartedly in the star rating system by corporate evaluation websites like Rivals, Scout and 247.

The argument posed by Mr. Blevins is a fallacious one in that the issue we, and we suspect others, have with the star rating system isn’t so much the “stars”, rather it is the process by which those “stars” are given. We believe that the process is not a legitimate evaluation process and it is in fact, in large part, disingenuous and even, in some cases, unconscionable.

We speak to a lot of people in the football world and one thing we want to make very clear to the reader is that these star ratings absolutely affect the way a high school athlete is perceived by many colleges. And this, in fact, is one of the many reasons we chose to start this small website and why we are even concerned with the issue at all. We aren’t journalists by trade. We are former athletes who are business owners, NFL players, managers, musicians and lawyers. We don’t charge money for our website and we have no intention to ever charge money. We started this website because we love college football and we wanted to create an alternative voice in the public sphere to counter the corporate voice that tells people what a kid is and isn’t with a few yellow stars. We spent multiple posts on this website talking about Oklahoma commit Dwayne Orso because a) we believe in his talent even if the corporate sites say he is a 2-star and b) we wanted so ardently for the Oklahoma fan base to appreciate the evaluation job of our coaches and appreciate this young man’s commitment to our university. How disappointing it is to see people online say things like “oh he’s only a 2 star” in such a disparaging way. As if those star ratings define the value of that young man to our program.

We are not saying that the corporate sites are wrong all the time and we aren’t saying that we will be right all the time. What we are saying is that the process by which those stars are given isn’t, in our estimation, an earnest evaluation. It is our belief that what those sites primarily do is catalog a recruits offers and then bump their rating based on that offer. An Alabama offer gives you a bigger bump than say, a Michigan State offer. A USC offer gives you more star credibility than a Nebraska offer. So even when those sites claim some kind of statistical accuracy based on NFL numbers that accuracy isn’t based on anything unique to them – your grandmother could catalog the offers and allocate star ratings based on those offers and she’d manage to make a good statistical case for herself come draft day. That isn’t evaluation.

And to be honest we don’t expect them to be great evaluators. They don’t employ a majority of former athletes or coaches. They are made up primarily of journalists. Being a journalist in itself doesn’t preclude you from being a good evaluator but they seem to discover quite a few good football evaluating journalists. And at this point let us pause for a moment and be very clear on something. When we criticize the corporate websites we are not criticizing their local affiliates. Guys like Josh McCuistion at Rivals’s SoonerScoop and Bob Pbrzybylo at Scout do a fantastic job. They are real journalists who do a great job bringing Sooner fans news and recruiting information and we encourage our readers to purchase subscriptions to those sites because they offer information that we do not provide. And we actually respect their football opinions.

We obviously disagree on things with them at times but so what? We disagree with one another at times. Recruit evaluation is not an exact science and no one is always wrong or right. But what we do offer and what people like Josh offer are actual thoughts on a recruit based on what we see irrespective of “hype”, offers or anything else. Unfortunately though Rivals does not allow their local affiliates like Josh to determine those “star” ratings. Need proof? Here is Josh’s most recent Oklahoma HS rankings:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/oklahoma/football/recruiting/rankings/rank-3201;_ylt=Au.o2bDp7uDfKXLv0DGjpX3wOrF_

You’ll notice that in some cases there are 3-star players rated above 4-star players and 2-star players rated above 3-star players. That is why we are taking time out to credit guys like Josh and Bob. They do a good job and they are genuine about what they see and that is something we completely respect.

Again our issue is with the national corporate evaluation sites. The problem is when you base your evaluation system primarily on “hype” or offers you are a) not doing what you claim to be doing and b) you are basing your process on a very flawed system. What many fans don’t realize is that the college recruiting process is extremely flawed. And there are many factors that make it that way. In order to keep this write-up within a reasonable length we won’t go into too many details but we’ll mention a few things.

The first is one we mentioned in our Trey Carter post a week or two ago. Namely that many college coaches have the same insecurities that folks in other fields of employment have. Trey Carter camped at Arkansas and OSU over the summer. He is a 2-star player according to Rivals. OSU and Arkansas are not exactly known as defensive juggernauts. Neither school offered Trey. Trey camped at TCU. Coach Gary Patterson saw him workout and the offer came shortly thereafter. Coach Jerry Montgomery saw him one time and offered. Shortly thereafter guess who offered? Arkansas and OSU. Sure, people will tell you that OSU and Arkansas wanted more time to evaluate the kid. But this kind of thing happens all the time and the high school coaches will be the first to tell you. And let’s be serious – what possible drastic change in Trey Carter’s game occurred in the past 2-3 months? And what possible 5-star commits did either school reasonably believe they were going to land that would cause them to hesitate on their offer to Trey? The fact is Trey could play then. And he can play now. Oklahoma saw it. TCU saw it. And then everyone else magically saw it. He never was a 2-star except in a database on Rivals.com. And now that he has all these offers I suspect he won’t be a 2-star for too much longer. In fact we were told by someone very close to Trey that Rivals has told them they will bump him up to a high 3-star. Perhaps they won’t now just to spite us. (Post note: Rivals has bumped Carter to a high 3 star and went from being unranked to the 19th best DE in the country)

The fact is kids play out of position in high school, they have varying levels of exposure to colleges, and varying levels of development. You must make a genuine attempt to evaluate these young men if for no other reason than to be true to your word – when you say you are “evaluating” then evaluate! Coach Mike Stoops saw three plays of OU commit Tito Windham and offered. Three plays! And sadly, because Rivals claims he is a 2-star Tito won’t get his due from some fans. Last time I checked the Rival’s “evaluators” hadn’t coached  a single All-American defensive back. Unfortunately, in the Rivals world an Oklahoma offer just doesn’t mean as much anymore so it has yet to affect his star rating. On the flip side Alabama’s DT commit, OJ Smith, was a 2-star defensive tackle in the summer. He committed to Alabama. And by the end of the summer he was a high 3-star and rated as a top 30 defensive tackle in the nation! As far as we know he did not attend a number of camps in the summer. So exactly what was this sudden bump based on?

So in addition to Mr. Blevins argument being the wrong argument entirely he likely doesn’t take into account the fact that Coach Nick Saban actually does his own evaluations and Rivals follows his movements closely. Fortunately our coaches do their own evaluations as well. We’ve been told directly by high school coaches that the Oklahoma coaches have told them, and we’re paraphrasing, we do not care about star ratings or hype – if a kid can play he can play. That is not the case with many other colleges and high school coaches will tell you that as well. Let us offer one final example before we attempt to end this overly wordy piece. With all due respect to Florida LB Greg Miclisse, in our opinion, he is a border line BCS player if at all. I don’t know what scale Rivals is using to rate him as a 3-star while an incredibly talented and refined DB like Trai Mosley is a 2-star but it’s not accurate. Ok, we’re lying…we do know what scale they are using…offers. If you check Rivals site it would appear that Greg has numerous offers from all around the country including Oklahoma. But he doesn’t. We won’t speculate on how the error was made but he does not have an offer from Oklahoma – at least not a committable one.

In the end there are a number of kids who are obviously 4 and 5 “star” kids. It doesn’t take a football savant to figure that out. There are some kids that every college coach wants because the kid is special. It doesn’t take a good eye to see that. So it works great for the corporate sites because you simply make a very small grouping of kids called “4-stars” and you throw all the other kids into a huge “3-star” or “2-star” category and then tell everyone that a higher percentage of 4-star and 5-stars as related to the total number of 4 and 5-star kids get drafted. Sorry but that doesn’t demonstrate any real knowledge of football though it is a very convenient business model. And then of course you add to it the fact that they “update” their rankings throughout the year to account for the new offers and play it off like these are actual “re-evaluations” and it only strengthens their fallacious statistical argument. You want to prove you’re a great evaluator then evaluate. If we believe that’s actually what the corporate sites we’re doing we would not be saying a word. In fact we probably would not have started this website at all.

And let us lastly say that the timing of Mr. Blevins tweet could not be worse. Oklahoma coaches have recruited more 2 and 3-star kids this year than we have in a long time. Perhaps the tweet was directed at our coaches. But the timing also isn’t great when a Florida team that is literally loaded with 4 and 5 star talent (there isn’t a 3-star player on their defensive depth chart) lost to lowly Georgia Southern. Or when an Auburn team with a similar roster as last year and couldn’t beat anyone, now has only one loss. His tweet is, however, convenient in that FSU is doing quite well but we pounded them twice in a row despite the fact that they’ve had plenty of talent throughout the years. And of course Alabama remains Alabama. But the fact is there are a lot of good ball players out there. And when the right player with the right attitude meets the right coach and the right scheme then, stars be damned, he’s going to have success and so will that team. Fortunately for Oklahoma fans Oklahoma coaches don’t give two flips about what Alabama or Florida State or anyone else think of a recruit. They do their own homework and despite the suggestion to the contrary by Mr. Blevins, so do we.