Rivals versus Scout?

[JeffAtlanta]

What baffled me was that he was ranking us according to his judgement of what Bama needed rather than just looking at the atheletes we have commited and judging their talent.

I agree - only the talent should be considered, not the "needs". The same goes for NFL drafts. Even if a team really needs a defensive lineman, if a Peyton Manning type QB is available you go with him and find your lineman through some other means.

It also brings up problems for players that can play multiple positions. For example, a team might get it's rating docked because they didn't address their "need" at linebacker, but signed a WR or safety that will be playing LB.

The recruiting services would be more reliable and objective if they just tallied the points and left the "need" assessments to the fans to discuss.

 

[JeffAtlanta]

I mean I really do hope that Rivals is better, but is there an objective reason why we should believe one recruiting service over the other?

There probably is, but it is hard to know who to believe.

I think the best way to look at the rankings would be a BCS type approach - take the average of the Rivals, Scout and ESPN rankings. Preferably, a normalized score from each service should be used rather than just a simple averaging of the ranking positions.

Maybe that would make a good project for the board and we could update it each week.

 

[tuck]

If an analyst does his homework he can tell what positions a team has the most "need" and it should be a consideration in ranking the team's recruiting class. If a team brings in a slew of 5 star recruits at certain positions that are not at a place of need it is really not gonna be a lot of help to the TEAM. Still, the rating would be subjective since the coaches for a team that needs a stud DT may have a high rated DE that is just what they want to convert into a DT.
When certain teams recruits are constantly rated higher by a certain source, you can bet there is a little bias involved.
While it is great, for us fans, to have a top rated recruiting class, the coaches evaluations is what really counts.

I guess thats my point with luginbill. He has no idea what Saban plans to do with the D lineman he has and is presupposing that he knows better than Saban as to what players will go to which position so how can he accurately rank them? It's like he's saying he knows more about recruiting talent than
Saban does and therefore, he is going to lower his ranking. The subjectivity of recruiting is what's hard to get around when evaluating players. It will never be a perfect system its just that you would think that the rankings would be a bit closer together between different services. The services are close together for most of the top ten except for one glaring exception....Alabama. Why is this?

 

[IH8Orange]

I don't have a subscription, but Rivals seems to have better info and their website has a nicer look and feel to it.

I also listened to Rivals radio for a while when I had the Sirius subscription and that was a fairly informative show.

It also seems that there is some bias in Scout's rankings against recruits that favor Alabama. It should be natural that in some years Rivals would rank Alabama's class higher than Scout and in other years less than Scout. However, Scout has never, AFAIK, had Alabama's class ranked higher than Rivals. That almost certainly infers some unnatural influence, because it is improbable.

Fans of other schools might attribute the difference as Rivals boosting recruits that favor Alabama, but as a fan of Alabama, I prefer my theory.

 

[tuck]

If you're a Bama fan - BamaMag.com until the end of time . If you're a fan of false and/or misleading info - rivals . Recent example - which site flooded you with T.Pryor stories(rivals) ? Which site new there was a 0% chance with TP and didn't write up false headlines trying to pull you in wallet first(BamaMag) . A few months back , Rivals also pumped a player as a being ready to announce for the Tide - we were a very distant 3rd choice at the time but , the headline and false story surely pulled in some new member$ .

I spent a ton of years in the recruiting game and still do my best to avoid rivals at each & every opportunity I get . I'd rather get "the word" an hour later on Scout than get 3-4 fake stories every 7-10 days on rivals . Rivals is about saturation and cash while BamaMag is for Bama fans .

JOMO . It's up to you as to how you allow your trust to be earned and what you consider to be honest and/or ethical .

thanks for your opinion. Im begining to believe this is what is going on at rivals. I mean seriously, there isnt a bama fan alive that doesnt like to read positive information about our program and by god, we'll pay for it. So Im sitting here wondering if they are blowing smoke up our *** just to make us subscribe because they know how obsessed we are about our program.

To be honest, I would much rather wrong about rivals. I really do want us to have the number 3 class in the country. But who knows? I guess in about 3 or 4 years we'll find out wont we? .

 

[M2J]

I guess thats my point with luginbill. He has no idea what Saban plans to do with the D lineman he has and is presupposing that he knows better than Saban as to what players will go to which position so how can he accurately rank them? It's like he's saying he knows more about recruiting talent than
Saban does and therefore, he is going to lower his ranking. The subjectivity of recruiting is what's hard to get around when evaluating players. It will never be a perfect system its just that you would think that the rankings would be a bit closer together between different services. The services are close together for most of the top ten except for one glaring exception....Alabama. Why is this?

I like that Luginbill and his ESPN rankings take into account whether or not teams are filling needs, and not just looking at the rankings of players, although he does take that into account. He has us at 10 right now, Im gonna watch the recruiting show @ 530 to see if that's improved with Jones. But fact is we don't exactly have our stud DT now, and none of those DE can come in and fill the hole we sorta have there. Not saying we don't have one on the roster now as I think Luther Davis possibly next year could be fine there, but we don't count Kerry Murphy yet and Im not sure ESPN will count him again. But technically we do need help there, and we don't exactly have our LB and definitely not safeties that we need. I know we'll fill the LB needs, but no question safety is a bit iffy.

I certainly respect his and ESPN's rankings more than Scout. Rivals is the best though as far as evaluating talent.

 

[tuck]

I like that Luginbill and his ESPN rankings take into account whether or not teams are filling needs, and not just looking at the rankings of players, although he does take that into account. He has us at 10 right now, Im gonna watch the recruiting show @ 530 to see if that's improved with Jones. But fact is we don't exactly have our stud DT now, and none of those DE can come in and fill the hole we sorta have there. Not saying we don't have one on the roster now as I think Luther Davis possibly next year could be fine there, but we don't count Kerry Murphy yet and Im not sure ESPN will count him again. But technically we do need help there, and we don't exactly have our LB and definitely not safeties that we need. I know we'll fill the LB needs, but no question safety is a bit iffy.

I certainly respect his and ESPN's rankings more than Scout. Rivals is the best though as far as evaluating talent.

If only Fluker could graduate this year.....I think he could fill that hole nicely.

 

[M2J]

If only Fluker could graduate this year.....I think he could fill that hole nicely.

yeah, he could start next year :wink: