Question about Rivals' point/ranking system?

[great2batidefan]

Great news about Barrett Jones commiting. I noticed that after Rivals updated their rankings Bama gained 122 points from 2003 to 2125. No other commitments were added to the mix. Pittsburgh has two OL commitments, one of them being a Five star and they have only 81 poiints credited for their OL. With Jones being ranked lower than Nix (Pitt 5 *), why did Bama's overall points jump by 122?

I am not complaining, just wondering how it works.:conf3:

Thanks for any insight, if there is any way of understanding the ranking systems?:biggrin2:

 

[AeroEngUA07]

I honestly don't believe there is any way to tell to be truthful. It has to do with where the athlete is ranked and all the other attributes and that jazz. No one really knows I think it is just arbitrary.

 

[runtheoption22]

Great news about Barrett Jones commiting. I noticed that after Rivals updated their rankings Bama gained 122 points from 2003 to 2125. No other commitments were added to the mix. Pittsburgh has two OL commitments, one of them being a Five star and they have only 81 poiints credited for their OL. With Jones being ranked lower than Nix (Pitt 5 *), why did Bama's overall points jump by 122?

I am not complaining, just wondering how it works.:conf3:

Thanks for any insight, if there is any way of understanding the ranking systems?:biggrin2:

The other Pitt OL is really low.

From Rivals.com:

Rivals.com Prospect Database
About Football Ratings

Rivals.com has assembled the top team of recruiting analysts in the nation with both national and regional experts based all throughout the country. With those strengths, players at a number of different positions will be ranked once a month from June until February.


The rankings are compiled after countless hours of film evaluation, personal observations and input from professional, college and high school coaches.


In the finished product, players are ranked a number of different ways but the most important ways are numerically by position, qualitatively by stars and a new ranking system that grades players on the expected impact they will make in college.


Players are ranked numerically on a national level at their positions. The numerical ranking at each position varies depending on the depth of the talent at the position.


Players are also ranked on their quality with a star ranking. A five-star prospect is considered to be one of the nation's top 25-30 players, four star is a top 250-300 or so player, three-stars is a top 750 level player, two stars means the player is a mid-major prospect and one star means the player is not ranked.


The ranking system ranks prospects on a numerical scale from 6.1-4.9.


* 6.1 Franchise Player; considered one of the elite prospects in the country, generally among the nation's top 25 players overall; deemed to have excellent pro potential; high-major prospect

* 6.0-5.8 All-American Candidate; high-major prospect; considered one of the nation's top 300 prospects; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team

* 5.7-5.5 All-Region Selection; considered among the region's top prospects and among the top 750 or so prospects in the country; high-to-mid-major prospect; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team

* 5.4-5.0 Division I prospect; considered a mid-major prospect; deemed to have limited pro potential but definite Division I prospect; may be more of a role player

* 4.9 Sleeper; no Rivals.com expert knew much, if anything, about this player; a prospect that only a college coach really knew about



Rivals.com is proud to present the most advanced database system ever created and the most advanced rating system around. If you have any questions about the database or rankings contact recruiting@rivals.com.

 

[Bama Torch in Pcola]

It's like credit scores, there was one guy at Rivals who knew how it was computed and he died several years ago.

 

[great2batidefan]

RTO that is the basis for my question?

Rivals has Nix rated higher than Jones and Pitt has only 81 pts for their OL which does include a 2* (probably only 3 points). Bama went up by 122 with the addition of Jones. I get the star ratings, etc. It just seems like once teams have a good recruiting class, (ie. Bama, UGA, ND) that the additional commitments have greater value in their point system.

Maybe it is supposed to be a mystery!:rolleye2:

 

[AeroEngUA07]

It depends on the ranking within the position. For example:

If you click under QB rating FSU is #1 and Notre -ame is #2

FSU is #1 because they have EJ Manuel who is the #1 Pro-Style QB
ND is #2 because the Crist kid is #2 at Pro-Style

So when you differentiate among the same position and same stars ranking at that position has a certain value. I'm assuming since FSU got 110 pts for Manuel that lineman count for more points, but I don't know that. There really seems to be almost no rhyme nor reason for it. What RTO mentioned has something to do with it but there is something else buried in their algorithm.

 

[rtr1973]

Pitt has 2 OL commits - Lucas Nix (a 5 star) and Ryan Turnley (a 2 star with a 5.4 Rivals Rating).

Turnley is ranked in neither the position nor overall rankings and thus earns no bonus points for Pitt. Nix is ranked as #7 OT and #27 overall, earning bonus points in both categories.

Bama has 3 OL commits (Love, Jones, and Boswell), all of which are in both the position ranks (#6, #9, and #25 respectively) and overall rankings (#21, #41, and #193 respectively) earning bonus points in both categories for all three.

That doesn't fully explain why Bama's OL points increased more (125) than Pitt's total OL points (81), but without knowing exactly how their points system works.....

 

[Crimson Surfer]

I have no idea how that discrepancy occurred. Maybe Pitt had a "de-commitment or some of their commits ranks lowered. That is all I can think of that would cause that situation.

 

[RedStar]

The more important question here is, how did Pitt get a 5-star OL to commit to them?!?

 

[great2batidefan]

Pitt has 2 OL commits - Lucas Nix (a 5 star) and Ryan Turnley (a 2 star with a 5.4 Rivals Rating).

Turnley is ranked in neither the position nor overall rankings and thus earns no bonus points for Pitt. Nix is ranked as #7 OT and #27 overall, earning bonus points in both categories.

Bama has 3 OL commits (Love, Jones, and Boswell), all of which are in both the position ranks (#6, #9, and #25 respectively) and overall rankings (#21, #41, and #193 respectively) earning bonus points in both categories for all three.

That doesn't fully explain why Bama's OL points increased more (125) than Pitt's total OL points (81), but without knowing exactly how their points system works.....

That makes some since. There must be "bonus" points for putting together multiple rated players in the same position.

It will be curious to watch and see how the points change if/when we get McClain or Glenn to commit.

 

[great2batidefan]

The more important question here is, how did Pitt get a 5-star OL to commit to them?!?

Must of been a life-long fan. Only reason I can come up with.

 

[AeroEngUA07]

Must of been a life-long fan. Only reason I can come up with.

Considering he lives in a suburb of Pittsburgh, I would say you are correct. Location may have played a factor.

 

[BamaFanOnBeach]

can't say much about the point system, but i had a guy who followed recruiting pretty well explain the starts to me as follows:

5 stars implied that the player should have an impact on the team for all 4 years - maybe not on the field, but would be talented enough to be competing for playing time early and could boost competition, etc....

4 starts implied having an impact 2nd year - for 3 years, 3 stars 3rd year and for 2 years, and 2 stars 4th year and for 1 year. 1 star meant he hasn't really be evaulated yet. It was also explained to me that the ranking system did not include redshirting and that having an extra year could "boost" a players potential in relation to having an impact - for example a 4 star pickup who could be redshirted may be just a good as pickup as a 5 star who could not....

It was explained to me that a 5 star didn't necessarily imply that a particular 5 star player would be a better player than a 4 star in their senior years - just that he may have an impact sooner.

Again, this is how it was explained to me - no links or further info available - seems to make sense to me though...

 

[CraigD]

The "bonus points" system is about all that makes sense here. You can look at the rankings of teams by position and get an idea of what range of points one player can be worth (find a team with one player committed at a position and their star rating, then look at how many points that team has in the list.

For example, Bama has 1 QB committed. If you look at the team rankings and then click the "QB" position, you'll see the team rankings by the QB position. Since Bama has only one - a 4-star - it's easy to determine how many points he is "worth" in their points system. That number is 30. Star Jackson is worth 30 points in their system.

One question (and it's curiousity only) is exactly how a four star OL is worth 122 points (Bama had 2,003 points before Barrett Jones committed and is currently has 2,125 - after his commitment) and a 4 star QB is worth only 30. The other question is how can a team with two OLs (one of which is ranked higher at the position than Barrett Jones) have 81 total OL points, while Barrett Jones himself appears to be worth 122.

About the only explanation is some kind of bonus points system for multiple commitments at a position.

 

[RedStar]

The points just don't match up. Because I remember when Star committed we jumped up over 100+ points in the total team rankings, however, like you mention, he isn't worth anywhere near that many points by himself.

 

[Bama1970]

I'm more concerned about how many points some of these guys are gonna put on the scoreboard and how few points some are gonna allow other teams to put on the scoreboard. :biggrin:

All joking aside though, it does look great for Bama to ranked so highly by Rivals. It shows just how good of a recruiting staff we have and it will help in the future as recruits later on will want to sign with a team that is constantly reloading with talent and is consistantly making championship runs.

 

[IH8Orange]

I believe that the Rivals point system was developed by a former Enron accountant.

 

[great2batidefan]

After the commitment of Hightower we gained 116 team points. On the LB page we get 30 points for him??? As discussed it has to be some kind of bonus structure or maybe something similar to Enron...Still fun seeing Bama near the top.

 

[JeffAtlanta]

You can look at the rankings of teams by position and get an idea of what range of points one player can be worth (find a team with one player committed at a position and their star rating, then look at how many points that team has in the list.

That was my idea as well, but I tried that a while back and it doesn't work.

My approach was to look at teams that only had one player committed so I could reverse engineer how much each 2, 3, 4, and 5 star player was worth. Quickly I discovered that it varies by position and not even all players with the same star rating at the same position were worth the same.

For example, a 3* QB was worth 9 points for one team but another 3* QB for another team was worth 19. To even make it more complex, rivals and scout seem to add "bonus points" like you mentioned.

I would have far more faith in the point systems if the services would list how many points each player is worth up front on his profile and then the point totals for each team could be simply totaled. If the recruiting services wanted to add some value, they could have a separate "bonus point" value for each team that we could ignore if we wanted to.