4 Stars

[Nick44]

Has any BCS program gone longer than Syracuse without getting a LEGIT 4-5 star player. When I say legit, I mean the last legit 4 star would be Marcus Sales. I know Marquis Spruill was listed as a 4-star and deservedly so but that was as a prep player. Our usual competitors didn't even notice him due to the terrible high school team he was on.

I know, I know, stars don't matter and they aren't anything to dwell on. But I think other prospects take notice when a big time player commits to a school.

But seriously, who has gone longer. Maybe UConn? Washington State? Indiana just landed Gunner Kiel so they're out. Kansas?

 

[javadoc]

Who do you think was our last such player? Delone?

 

[Alsacs]

Damian Rhodes was the last legit 4-star recruit we got. Lavar Lobell and Marcus Sales were 4 stars as well maybe. Alex Smith was a 2 star recruit who became the 1st pick in the NFL draft. The Big East is without elite talent as a whole I would take good coaching rather than high talent.

 

[qdawgg]

I understand what your saying but you can't devise a comment about how we've gone so long without a 4-5 star commit because your not counting certain players as "legit". Nobody knows who is going to be legit or not, when they are recruited they are considered legit until saturdays show they're not.

 

[orangenirvana]

Definitely disconcerting.

Recruiting is going to have to improve, soon...

 

[OrangeCrush22]

McFarlane this year has a good chance of being bumped to 4 stars if he keep playing well.

Averin Collier
Marcus Sales
Romale Tucker
Jermaine Pierce
Doug Houge
Andrey Baskin
Delone Carter
LaVar Lobdell
Rick Krautman
Brendan Carney
Perry Patterson
Darryl Kennedy

Those are all the 4 star recruits Scout says Syracuse signed.

Most of them sucked. This shows stars mean nothing.

 

[billsin01]

No, I"m not surprised by this at all. In fact, I struggle to understand why people are continually amazed by this.

Setting aside the completely arbitrary value of stars for the moment (especially since I too would love it if the cuse started landing more 4 star kids), if you're 17 or 18 and you have your pick of the litter (high 4 and 5 star kids) how in the world do you take visits to FSU, ND, USC, Ohio State, SU and Texas and wind up at SU?

Take this quote from this kid, the no. 1 athlete in the country, who visited ND last weekend for the Air Force game (not exactly the prime time weekend):

“That is an area right there where I feel football is number on," (Nelson) Agholor said. "The fans, the people there, they back that program up 100% whether they win or they lose. They, right now I think they have a 3-2 record, but you would think they were undefeated with how all of the tickets are selling out. The history of the program is amazing. It has a legacy, people passing tickets down to their grandchildren, they keep the tradition going.”

Now I know people here hate ND and at least one poster suggested he thought the campus was dreary and uninspiring, but generally they're selling 80,000 tix and putting on a ridiculous game day atmosphere week in and week out. SEC schools, FSU, USC, etc., it's just a different ball game there.

Even if you're talking about kids down a tier, like a high 3 or low 4 star that have more regional offers, you're still talking about schools like penn state or Wisconsin or UNC or UMD that overwhelm the Cuse in terms of game-day participation and atmosphere.

And while we have venom for places like WVU, RU, UConn, BC, etc., there are still things that those schools have that make it a 50-50 shot (or worse) in many cases.

The parallel is -- how surprised would we have been if a guy we were legitimately after in hoops opted for RU or BC? The script is just flipped. It may happen occasionally, but not often.

 

[billsin01]

I would take good coaching rather than high talent.

I think I get your general point but I'm confused as to why people make this such an either/or discussion. You need both. Edsall didn't have pretty good success at UConn b/c he was a genius -- he was a good coach who took underrecruited athletes and turned them into very good football players (as UConn's draftees have proven the last few years).

I get that Ron Zook has had uneven results with good recruits at both florida and illinois, but ultimately you need recruiting, coaching and a bunch of other things to go right to have success.

 

[Scooch]

This shows stars mean nothing.

Not true at all.

The star rating system is not an absolute guarantee of any one kid having a successful college career.

But it's been shown many times over that there is a strong correlation between having top 25 recruiting classes (typically populated by 4+ star kids) and having top 25 on-field rankings.

 

[qdawgg]

No, I"m not surprised by this at all. In fact, I struggle to understand why people are continually amazed by this.

Setting aside the completely arbitrary value of stars for the moment (especially since I too would love it if the cuse started landing more 4 star kids), if you're 17 or 18 and you have your pick of the litter (high 4 and 5 star kids) how in the world do you take visits to FSU, ND, USC, Ohio State, SU and Texas and wind up at SU?

Take this quote from this kid, the no. 1 athlete in the country, who visited ND last weekend for the Air Force game (not exactly the prime time weekend):

“That is an area right there where I feel football is number on," (Nelson) Agholor said. "The fans, the people there, they back that program up 100% whether they win or they lose. They, right now I think they have a 3-2 record, but you would think they were undefeated with how all of the tickets are selling out. The history of the program is amazing. It has a legacy, people passing tickets down to their grandchildren, they keep the tradition going.”

Now I know people here hate ND and at least one poster suggested he thought the campus was dreary and uninspiring, but generally they're selling 80,000 tix and putting on a ridiculous game day atmosphere week in and week out. SEC schools, FSU, USC, etc., it's just a different ball game there.

Even if you're talking about kids down a tier, like a high 3 or low 4 star that have more regional offers, you're still talking about schools like penn state or Wisconsin or UNC or UMD that overwhelm the Cuse in terms of game-day participation and atmosphere.

And while we have venom for places like WVU, RU, UConn, BC, etc., there are still things that those schools have that make it a 50-50 shot (or worse) in many cases.

The parallel is -- how surprised would we have been if a guy we were legitimately after in hoops opted for RU or BC? The script is just flipped. It may happen occasionally, but not often.

+1

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Most of them sucked. This shows stars mean nothing.

Somebody just busted out their jump to conclusions mat.

 

[cuseincincy]

Not true at all.

The star rating system is not an absolute guarantee of any one kid having a successful college career.

But it's been shown many times over that there is a strong correlation between having top 25 recruiting classes (typically populated by 4+ star kids) and having top 25 on-field rankings.

Yep. All you have to do is compare the top 25 recruiting programs with the top 25 rankings and see the similarity on annual basis..

 

[OttoinGrotto]

People that have classes short on players with high star rankings believe that the star system doesn't matter.

People that have classes with lots of players with high star rankings know better.

 

[Scooch]

Yep. All you have to do is compare the top 25 recruiting programs with the top 25 rankings and see the similarity on annual basis..

I went through a crude exercise in that over the summer, just cause I was curious. Basically in any given year about half the top 25 had a top 25 recruiting class 4 years prior. I'm sure if I tightened up the methodology it might have been even more correlated. There's always 2-3 non-BCS AQ teams that finish top 25 that never land top classes, but those teams also benefit from playing easier schedules. And of course there's always a handful of BCS teams that land in the top 25 that may have had classes in the 25-50 range, which I suspect would still mean being composed of mostly 3 and 4-star recruits.

I'm sympathetic to the notion that stars are not the be-all end-all. And they are definitely not on an individual basis. But put 20-25 kids together in a class over a series of years and there's clearly a connection.

 

[SoBristol]

McFarlane this year has a good chance of being bumped to 4 stars if he keep playing well.

Averin Collier
Marcus Sales
Romale Tucker
Jermaine Pierce
Doug Houge
Andrey Baskin
Delone Carter
LaVar Lobdell
Rick Krautman
Brendan Carney
Perry Patterson
Darryl Kennedy

Those are all the 4 star recruits Scout says Syracuse signed.

Most of them sucked. This shows stars mean nothing.

The idea that "stars mean nothing" is a tad overstated. People point to a 4 star who washed out, versus a 2 star who surprised or developed in the program, and leap to a conclusion that "stars mean nothing". It is false reasoning. The ratings aren't always perfect -- doesn't mean that they are usually wrong.
In the list above, forgetting about the kickers, most of the 4 stars who were recruited early by us (and a host of others) worked out just fine (Hogue, Carter, Sales), although some were good enough to start but didn't live up to all expectations (Patterson, Lobdell) and others washed out for non-football reasons (Collier, Pierce, Baskin).
You could work through a longer list of 2 stars -- some exceeded all expectations (Darrell Smith) but there were others who were average, and plenty of 2 stars who missed or became program guys.
Sometimes we get 4 stars who no one else truly wanted (Tucker?) -- tells you something about that particular player. Sometimes 2 stars go early (Dion Lewis to Pitt) because the talent and potential is obvious to the recruiters, the kid as a junior played behind D-1 talent and the stars haven't yet caught up.
By and large, Alabama, Penn St, Oklahoma etc. get a high percentage of the 4 star recruits that have measurables -- terrific size for their positions, quickness etc., plus character attributes. You want all the Carters, Hogues, Jarron Jones, Mike Harts, etc you can land. If you land several, you can let the MAC teams claim that their two stars recruits are just as good, they coach up" their white chip kids into blue chips, and "ratings mean nothing".

 

[billsin01]

People that have classes short on players with high star rankings believe that the star system doesn't matter.

People that have classes with lots of players with high star rankings know better.

I don't think it's that simple, and I say that as a fan of the Cuse and someone who follows ND pretty closely. I think you can win and win big without bringing in huge star ratings. But regardless of how many stars you bring in, you need air tight development and S&C programs, along with good schemes, to sustain any sort of meaningful success.

One other thing that's often left off as well is attrition/guys who don't make it to campus. The closer teams are to operating at full 85-schollie capacity with a good distribution of classes (frosh, sophs, jrs, seniors, r-seniors), the more often they are sustaining success. People overlook academic casualties, drop outs, injuries and disciplinary issues far too often.

 

[bnoro]

Star ratings are based on the program a kid commits to. Remember Onyeali? 3 star player, got interest from USC and immediately got bumped to a 4. Star ratings go up based on how many subscribers the recruiting sites get. People will pay more money if every kid linked with their program is a 3,4,5 star kid. No one pays for scout/rivals from Syracuse, so why would they bother evaluating with Orange glasses on?

 

[Scooch]

I don't think it's that simple, and I say that as a fan of the Cuse and someone who follows ND pretty closely. I think you can win and win big without bringing in huge star ratings. But regardless of how many stars you bring in, you need air tight development and S&C programs, along with good schemes, to sustain any sort of meaningful success.

One other thing that's often left off as well is attrition/guys who don't make it to campus. The closer teams are to operating at full 85-schollie capacity with a good distribution of classes (frosh, sophs, jrs, seniors, r-seniors), the more often they are sustaining success. People overlook academic casualties, drop outs, injuries and disciplinary issues far too often.

I use the MLB big market/small market analogy. SU is a small market team, so to speak. It's not that those teams can't succeed, but they have a MUCH smaller margin for error. Alabama can bring in 10-15 four star kids every class and if 4-5 wash out it's no big deal. If we bring in 1-2 per class and on of them flops we take a much bigger hit.

 

[Scooch]

Star ratings are based on the program a kid commits to. Remember Onyeali? 3 star player, got interest from USC and immediately got bumped to a 4. Star ratings go up based on how many subscribers the recruiting sites get. People will pay more money if every kid linked with their program is a 3,4,5 star kid. No one pays for scout/rivals from Syracuse, so why would they bother evaluating with Orange glasses on?

Maybe, but that doesn't explain the correlation to highly rated recruiting classes and top 25 finishes.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

People that have classes short on players with high star rankings believe that the star system doesn't matter.

People that have classes with lots of players with high star rankings know better.

I don't think it's that simple, and I say that as a fan of the Cuse and someone who follows ND pretty closely. I think you can win and win big without bringing in huge star ratings. But regardless of how many stars you bring in, you need air tight development and S&C programs, along with good schemes, to sustain any sort of meaningful success.

I think both of our statements are true actually. My statement is more a commentary on what I think fans have to say about stars than their actual correlation to winning.

 

[Millhouse]

People that have classes short on players with high star rankings believe that the star system doesn't matter.

People that have classes with lots of players with high star rankings know better.

see the nancy cantor thread.

for me, the turnaround time is so fast that I don't get bent out of shape about stars - we'll know for sure whether there is enough talent in a couple years and at that point it doesn't matter to me what their stars were.

 

[bnoro]

Maybe, but that doesn't explain the correlation to highly rated recruiting classes and top 25 finishes.

It kind of does, because the best programs have the biggest and most rabid fan bases. Obviously there are always outliers.

 

[Millhouse]

Maybe, but that doesn't explain the correlation to highly rated recruiting classes and top 25 finishes.

the more direct correlation might be between subscribers and top 25 finishes. i don't think we need stars to know who the best programs are. if there are examples of teams that came out of nowhere to be good for a while and the rankings were on top of it, i'll change my tune.

i wonder about the correlation between rankings and bottom 25 finishes. do ranking plummets precede actual plummets?

not that i expect you to know that, just thinking out loud

 

[rrlbees]

McFarlane this year has a good chance of being bumped to 4 stars if he keep playing well.

Averin Collier
Marcus Sales
Romale Tucker
Jermaine Pierce
Doug Houge
Andrey Baskin
Delone Carter
LaVar Lobdell
Rick Krautman
Brendan Carney
Perry Patterson
Darryl Kennedy

Those are all the 4 star recruits Scout says Syracuse signed.

Most of them sucked. This shows stars mean nothing.

I wouldn't say most of them sucked. I would say the only ones who "performed" below a 4 star type kid was Kennedy, Patterson, Lobdell and Tucker. Others never made it here for one reason or another (Pierce, Baskin), or screwed up (Collier/Sales). I would say Hogue, Carter and Carney all lived up to it. So IMO, 3 did it, 4 didn't and the others we will never know.

 

[billsin01]

I think both of our statements are true actually. My statement is more a commentary on what I think fans have to say about stars than their actual correlation to winning.

Yeah, I agree with that. No question. I guess my thought was more that you "can" win without too many stars and you can "lose" often with a lot of stars (as evidenced by ND in several seasons since the mid-90s). But yeah, fans spin things to favor themselves in every way.