After watching the comments the last few weeks here i have noticed shall we say, Tension, among some of the commitments and how players are ranked. I just wanted to share a few thoughts.
First of all we all know this Rivals star rating system is not perfect. It's obvious that it usually gets the 5 star players correctly, as well as the kids that don't rate a star. But then many of us here could do that. In my opinion where the system gets gray and less data based on figuring out the 2-3 star guys. most 4 star guys usually pan out at a reasonably high rate but even some of them wash out for various reasons.
I have mentioned here in the last few weeks that i think this upcoming year will be the most difficult year for recognizing talent in many years if not the last decade. There will be no combine camps to see kids and get hard data on physical attributes. There are no campus visits to really get to know kids. there are no visits to high schools since no one is in school. No spring track meets to see how kids run. May not even be high school football in the fall. So coaches are having to rely on previous times, camps some kids might have attended (think about the kids that didn't attend camps or couldn't afford them in earlier years) when they were younger and not fully developed, word of mouth (rumors) and data from high school coaches, and most importantly, past years film. And while the film doesn't lie, you can't always tell about the competition.
In summary, i feel very strong that this will be a difficult year to evaluate talent. I predict more 4 star guys that wash out and more 2 star guys that get drafted one day. It's gong to come down to how good coaching staffs are at evaluating talent as well as then how good are they at developing that talent. As an example look at the WR that hit everyone's radar in the last week in the Raleigh area. No one had ever heard of him and all of a sudden he gets several Power 5 offers. No previous camp info on him, not much history, and then BOOM, one school finds him and the sharks start circling. Same thing with the Lber Kaci Stegars who committed to Texas A&M. Only a 2 star but the kid can run very well, is 6'2" and a good frame, big hands and feet. he projects very well. yet he is only a 2 star, though i predict he ends up at about 5.6-5.7 which is a high 3 star. I think there will be a lot of situations like this.
Speaking of the value of camps. Boykin from Ragsdale only ran about a mid 4.7 at the NCSU camp just before his junior year. he was small, 5'9", 160 and average speed. he goes out and trains his ass off, adds a little weight, grew an inch and came to the NC State camp before his senior season and runs 4.4-4.45 at 5'10-11, 175 lbs. All of a sudden we want him bad. This year many kids will not get the chance to do these camps due to the virus. So i predict a lot of kids don't get found or get found late. there will be some studs that don't get found until mid high school season this fall, if we even have a season. If we don't imagine how many slip through the cracks. You will see some big time kids fall to Group of 5 conference schools and maybe even the FCS level.
Point being in all this, if there was ever a year to not get hung up on the Rivals Star rating system, this is it. Every fan base is going to have to trust that their coaches are better at identifying and developing talent than other schools. It's back to old school methods so to speak, back before camps were the things. Methods that worked 20 years ago. I would encourage everyone to be a little patient with the coaches as well as each other.
There is no use ripping everyone's head off, telling each other that someone is stupid when none of us really know the details of what is going on. Some people here know a little more about football than others but lets just be patient with each other, as well as the coaches. Otherwise people are going to get pissed off at each other, say things we later regret, and then add in the tension of the virus and the economy, this place will get more volatile than usual. Let's try to be a little open minded and think through some of this.
First of all we all know this Rivals star rating system is not perfect. It's obvious that it usually gets the 5 star players correctly, as well as the kids that don't rate a star. But then many of us here could do that. In my opinion where the system gets gray and less data based on figuring out the 2-3 star guys. most 4 star guys usually pan out at a reasonably high rate but even some of them wash out for various reasons.
I have mentioned here in the last few weeks that i think this upcoming year will be the most difficult year for recognizing talent in many years if not the last decade. There will be no combine camps to see kids and get hard data on physical attributes. There are no campus visits to really get to know kids. there are no visits to high schools since no one is in school. No spring track meets to see how kids run. May not even be high school football in the fall. So coaches are having to rely on previous times, camps some kids might have attended (think about the kids that didn't attend camps or couldn't afford them in earlier years) when they were younger and not fully developed, word of mouth (rumors) and data from high school coaches, and most importantly, past years film. And while the film doesn't lie, you can't always tell about the competition.
In summary, i feel very strong that this will be a difficult year to evaluate talent. I predict more 4 star guys that wash out and more 2 star guys that get drafted one day. It's gong to come down to how good coaching staffs are at evaluating talent as well as then how good are they at developing that talent. As an example look at the WR that hit everyone's radar in the last week in the Raleigh area. No one had ever heard of him and all of a sudden he gets several Power 5 offers. No previous camp info on him, not much history, and then BOOM, one school finds him and the sharks start circling. Same thing with the Lber Kaci Stegars who committed to Texas A&M. Only a 2 star but the kid can run very well, is 6'2" and a good frame, big hands and feet. he projects very well. yet he is only a 2 star, though i predict he ends up at about 5.6-5.7 which is a high 3 star. I think there will be a lot of situations like this.
Speaking of the value of camps. Boykin from Ragsdale only ran about a mid 4.7 at the NCSU camp just before his junior year. he was small, 5'9", 160 and average speed. he goes out and trains his ass off, adds a little weight, grew an inch and came to the NC State camp before his senior season and runs 4.4-4.45 at 5'10-11, 175 lbs. All of a sudden we want him bad. This year many kids will not get the chance to do these camps due to the virus. So i predict a lot of kids don't get found or get found late. there will be some studs that don't get found until mid high school season this fall, if we even have a season. If we don't imagine how many slip through the cracks. You will see some big time kids fall to Group of 5 conference schools and maybe even the FCS level.
Point being in all this, if there was ever a year to not get hung up on the Rivals Star rating system, this is it. Every fan base is going to have to trust that their coaches are better at identifying and developing talent than other schools. It's back to old school methods so to speak, back before camps were the things. Methods that worked 20 years ago. I would encourage everyone to be a little patient with the coaches as well as each other.
There is no use ripping everyone's head off, telling each other that someone is stupid when none of us really know the details of what is going on. Some people here know a little more about football than others but lets just be patient with each other, as well as the coaches. Otherwise people are going to get pissed off at each other, say things we later regret, and then add in the tension of the virus and the economy, this place will get more volatile than usual. Let's try to be a little open minded and think through some of this.
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