We can agree to disagree about who is the best , but I don't think there is any debate about who is the worst (Scout), unless, of course, you throw maxpreps into the equation. Maxpreps is painfully bad. As an example, they ranked Gunner Kiel #2, Zeke Pike #50 and Eddie Williams #83 overall.
I'm probably the only one, but I put the most stock in ESPN's player rankings (although the difference isn't that notable).
If you look back over the last few years, all the other services tend to move their initial rankings closer to what ESPN had from the beginning. Just this year, for example, ESPN started Zeke Pike as a 3-star at a time when every other service had him as a borderline 5-star player (below is ESPN's statement about Zeke Pike when they first released their rankings). By the end of the year, his ranking plummeted on the other sites, and they were saying the same things that ESPN had said 6+ months earlier. Another player that started much lower on ESPN was Brent Calloway. By the end of the year, the rest of the services had dropped him closer to where ESPN had him (though he was still pretty high on all the services).
Finally, if you look at Brandon Greene and Adrian Hubbard, ESPN had them highly rated very early in the process, while they were not even on the radar of the other services until much later.
With all of that said, I look at ESPN, 247 and Rivals collectively and don't believe any one of those is inherently better than the others. However, I would like to see the size of their staffs and their budgets to know who is doing the most due diligence.
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Tom Luginbill in response to a question about Zeke Pike being a 3-star: "Watch Pike on tape and watch him in person which I have done in person on 3 separate occasions. I feel very confident we got this one right. Also, if you want to compare for yourself. Go to Youtube, watch QB Nate Sudfeld on tape and his workout video and do the same with Pike and makethe decision for yourself. One guy claims to have 30 offers, the other has 3 and I can tell you which one is better."
Corey Long on the same issue: "I saw Zeke at the Columbus Elite 11 and I thought he struggled. He threw the ball a little better at the NFTC that next day, which showed me the kid's ability to bounce back a little, but overall he did not look like a top-flight quarterback to me."