To me the takeaways from the article are this:
1. It's important to include a disclaimer that this is a one-year data point, not necessarily a statistically significant study of top 100s. I randomly selected the class of 2011 according to two four seven (purely at random, first service that came up). Nine of the top 10 were drafted by at least the fifth round and Anthony Johnson, the one player who wasn't, was still a starter at LSU as a junior so not really a disappointment. They also accurately tabbed Clowney no. 1 in the class and had Sammy Watkins at 9. They also had Melvin Gordon, DeVonta Freeman and Odell Beckham in the top 55. So, while I'm not a big fan of recruiting services to say the least, it's at least fair to point out that the 2007 class could be mostly an outlier in terms of how many misses they had.
2. 'Character' counts -- I put character in quotes b/c some of these kids come from crappy backgrounds and/or are dealing with real issues like depression or anxiety, learning disabilities, substance abuse, etc. So I don't want to speak about it in preachy terms but rather in terms of trying to make good decisions regarding kids' attitudes. Kids who are committed and focused and driven are important. Doesn't have to be everyone and sometimes you'll get it wrong, but finding kids that come in and work is extremely important.
3. Signing day is fun, but ultimately meaningless. This is the point I'd guess more people would disagree with but programs like Syracuse are faced with two pretty stark realities: 1. for a variety of reasons, it's unlikely that we are ever pulling in 8-10 4-stars in a class; and 2. Because of this, our S&C and player development needs to be extremely strong. We need to get kids with work ethic and upside, get them on campus (underrated), keep them on campus (even more underrated) and develop whatever potential they have. The bottom line is regardless of where our classes rank, we haven't really done a good enough job in any of those areas the past 15+ years.
