How rankings lie.

jambama1

All-American
Aug 1, 2005
2,830
2,650
187
Tuscaloosa
Sorry, I am not sure what this is about. :conf3:
sorry recovering from my 2nd ankle surgery. I'm showing how many of these 5 stars never become anything or way over rated, hence the rankings lie. Also, BIG what are you hearing about urban? I really don't think he survives
 

GA_Tide

1st Team
Aug 24, 2006
463
24
42
51
Canton, Ga
Would be interesting to compare delta of recruiting service rankings with draft order, school by school. I bet that ours players are drafted higher than expected out of high school because we evaluate and develop talent better than anyone.

Sorry if that didn't make sense. I'm also recovering from surgery and on pain meds.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
 

4Q Basket Case

FB|BB Moderator
Staff member
Nov 8, 2004
9,568
12,865
237
Tuscaloosa
At the individual level, there is variation of ranking vs. performance.

At the class level, it's much less so.

The academic illustration I like to use is this:

We all know kids who made 32+ on the ACT and washed out.

We also know kids who made 26 and ended up Phi Beta Kappa or Beta Gamma Sigma.

But give me a classroom full of 32s, and we'll run circles around a classroom of 26s.

Point being, class rankings matter a lot.
 

B1GTide

TideFans Legend
Apr 13, 2012
45,499
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sorry recovering from my 2nd ankle surgery. I'm showing how many of these 5 stars never become anything or way over rated, hence the rankings lie. Also, BIG what are you hearing about urban? I really don't think he survives
Thanks - these are very interesting when you look at them this way. But given Alabama's success developing these players I am not sure that the correct conclusion is that the rankings are wrong. It is entirely possible that other schools just don't know how to manage players like this. 5 stars have huge egos and the coaching staff really has to have a plan to manage these young men.

As for Meyer - I hope and expect to see him suspended for 3-6 games, but doubt that he will get fired.
 

Jkl0802

1st Team
Apr 9, 2015
461
143
67
Stuttgart, Germany
I don’t follow recruiting close enough to know for certain, but has there been an increase in the overall number of 5 and 4 star recruits across the nation? It used to be special for a kid to be rated a 4 star...now it seems that there are very many that are at least a 4 star. It seems the number of 5 stars has increased too? I’m not talking about CNS recruiting, but all the other schools (Miss St, Aubs, UTs) of the world.
 

Redwood Forrest

Hall of Fame
Sep 19, 2003
11,042
907
237
76
Boaz, AL USA
At the individual level, there is variation of ranking vs. performance.

At the class level, it's much less so.

The academic illustration I like to use is this:

We all know kids who made 32+ on the ACT and washed out.

We also know kids who made 26 and ended up Phi Beta Kappa or Beta Gamma Sigma.

But give me a classroom full of 32s, and we'll run circles around a classroom of 26s.

Point being, class rankings matter a lot.
I have seen 5 stars go to a bottom feeder (Cal, Indiana & etc.) and play on a team of 2 and 3 stars. It didn't make for a great career. I think that is also a factor.
 

BamaInBham

All-American
Feb 14, 2007
4,465
2,110
187
At the individual level, there is variation of ranking vs. performance.

At the class level, it's much less so.

The academic illustration I like to use is this:

We all know kids who made 32+ on the ACT and washed out.

We also know kids who made 26 and ended up Phi Beta Kappa or Beta Gamma Sigma.

But give me a classroom full of 32s, and we'll run circles around a classroom of 26s.

Point being, class rankings matter a lot.
There is some validity to your analogy, but there is IMO, one big difference: the ACT is a much more objective measurement of ability than relatively low paid "recruiting analysts'" rating and projection of a HS football talent. Their ratings or "ACT scores" are based some on objective data such as size and speed and stats, but much more on the "eye test" and reports. There are so many more human factors involved in evaluating a football player than a student. Even the highly paid professionals, P5 coaches, make many mistakes, how much more the lowly paid professionals. Even CNS, considered by some the best evaluator in all of football, misses on at least 30% or more. There is still a great deal of "art" as opposed to "science" involved in evaluating a prospect.

Nevertheless, even with all of the vagaries of evaluating and projecting HS football talent, it would be better to have 25 4 stars than 25 3 stars. But usually the choices are not that stark. At the top it's more like 4 5 stars, 16 4 stars and 5 3 stars, vs 2 5 stars, 20 4 stars and 3 stars. One might be number 1 the other number 5, what's the difference ? IMO, the team rankings give an "idea" of where you are relative to other programs, but to make too fine a point is a mistake. What's the difference between 257 and 246? Maybe 10 places in the rankings, but what is it really? In both cases you are likely to have a number of contributors to your program, but is it really distinguishable?

And then individual players: in general you would rather have a Rivals 5.9 4 star vs a 5.8 4 star but to act like you got the better player if you have the 5.9 is ludicrous. Who knows? The "analysts" work at it and do a decent job, but to act like their evaluations are cast in stone is something at which even they would laugh. There's also politics involved and coaching deceit.

IMO, team rankings give you an "idea" of where your class stands in relation to others but it's not precise. Team/class ranking over 4 years give you a better idea. So, overall, the higher the class the better, but being real specific per individual is useless, even per class, though not as much so. I.e., the broader the sample the more meaningful rank.

None of this has considered the most important factor: attrition.

A few notes:
- some may disagree with some of my assessments regarding contributors.
- I think I'm fairly close on the number of signees but don't claim to be perfect. Same with some of the other numbers.
- sometimes contributors are forced on a program, i.e., somebody's got to fill a specific role. At Alabama it usually means you're pretty good.

2008: 13 of 31 signees made meaningful playing contributions (starter or ST or meaningful backup)
2009: 14 of 30
2010: 14 of 23
2011: 11 of 24
2012: 15 of 25
2013: 13 of 25

The following are current classes, thus the numbers of contributors can, and in some cases will, increase.

2014 (Bama's current RS Sr class): 15 of 25 (3 still in the program, 13 to the NFL, 2 early)
2015: 10 of 24 (8 still in the program, 4 to the NFL) (very good class as far as high quality players but massive attrition)
2016: 11 of 24 (17 still in the program)
2017: 11 of 30 (this is a fabulous class, probably the best ever in both quality and quantity, and the 11 number may double to 22 this year) (28 still in the program)
2018: 21 signed (20 still left) this class will probably surprise a little on the positive side
 

CoolBreeze

Hall of Fame
Sep 18, 2002
8,596
7,749
287
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Hoover
Nice thread. We've all heard the axiom "you can't measure heart." But what that really means is 99% of all of us is how we think in our brain. All of these recruiting services making evaluations based on film get it all wrong. How does the guy think? What are his mores and how intense is his drive? This is where Saban excels head and shoulders above the rest. He does not get it right all the time but more so than most. Good talent evaluators have to measure the person inside and out and we're lucky to have a coach that understands that.
 

NoNC4Tubs

Hall of Fame
Nov 13, 2010
8,142
3,853
187
sorry recovering from my 2nd ankle surgery. I'm showing how many of these 5 stars never become anything or way over rated, hence the rankings lie. Also, BIG what are you hearing about urban? I really don't think he survives
I wouldn't call it a lie. I would call it a missed projection...
 

day-day

Hall of Fame
Jan 2, 2005
9,937
1,659
187
Bartlett, TN (Memphis area)
I don't know enough about the individual players listed in the first couple of posts. Basically, all I see is a list of names with no measure of their performance in college. Maybe I should be on meds?
 

Padreruf

Hall of Fame
Feb 12, 2001
8,687
12,227
287
73
Charleston, South Carolina
What Jam is pointing out is the "subjective" nature of the rankings...along with the reality that no one really knows how committed and focused another person is when it comes to playing the game with peers. Lots of players are good when they can out-athlete any one else on the field. The question is how they react/perform when they are not the best athlete there???

I think I'll trust CNS' opinion over any recruiting guru...ever!
 

jambama1

All-American
Aug 1, 2005
2,830
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Tuscaloosa
What Jam is pointing out is the "subjective" nature of the rankings...along with the reality that no one really knows how committed and focused another person is when it comes to playing the game with peers. Lots of players are good when they can out-athlete any one else on the field. The question is how they react/perform when they are not the best athlete there???

I think I'll trust CNS' opinion over any recruiting guru...ever!
This also you can click the name to see the production. If you don’t know the name likely they haven’t done much. People get so wrapped up in the rankings of players is why I pointed this out. Also a ton of these rankings have to do with how many camps kids came to of a recruiting site etc. the perfect example is j. Williams for us didn’t do camps nor was invited to any all American games as a result but was the best tackle in his class. The services had him at sixth best. Eddie Jackson was unheard of as was Jacobs.
 
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NoNC4Tubs

Hall of Fame
Nov 13, 2010
8,142
3,853
187
This also you can click the name to see the production. If you don’t know the name likely they haven’t done much. People get so wrapped up in the rankings of players is why I pointed this out. Also a ton of these rankings have to do with how many camps kids came to of a recruiting site etc. the perfect example is j. Williams for us didn’t do camps nor was invited to any all American games as a result but was the best tackle in his class. The services had him at sixth best. Eddie Jackson was unheard of as was Jacobs.
I don't see where it is a lie...
 

RTR91

Super Moderator
Nov 23, 2007
39,407
6
0
Prattville
These rankings are a group of analysts’ opinions. Are preseason rankings a lie if a team doesn’t meet expectations?


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