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Message: [QUOTE="leftytg, post: 1165506, member: 2651"] This whole line of thinking is just so incredibly flawed. I live in Texas. All around me are kids who put up incredible high school stats and won't sniff D-1 football, just like every year there are college players who put up insane numbers and don't sniff the NFL. Conversely, there are future D-1 players who put up excellent numbers, but due to either inadequacies in the talent around them or the consistently high level of talent in their conference, don't put up the kind of eye popping numbers a kid in, say, a place like CT would put up. Put some of these kids in a place where the talent pool is lower, and their stats would be insane. Recruiting is about identifying and projecting talent. It is not about making decisions based on high school stats. Sure, top D-1 bound athletes are bound to put up great numbers in high school. But the stats, alone, are not sufficient to identify a future high performing player. Put another way: Every walnut is a nut. Not every nut is a walnut. Every D-1 bound football player will put up great high school stats. Not every player who puts up great high school stats will be a D-1 player. Phillips simply was not highly pursued as a high school player. If memory serves, his offer list was Syracuse and Temple. Now, I'm glad he's at Syracuse and think highly of him. I'm glad our coaches were successful in spotting his talent and convincing him to come to Syracuse. But he simply was not one of our top 2 recruits. Being 6 games into a freshman season is not enough time to suddenly pronounce him as the second best recruit. Heck, one of the knocks on him is his slight stature. We don't even know if his body will stand up to the rigors of the physicality of football at this level. He may very well max out as a guy who is good for 6 touches a game and is a threat to take it to the house. That's useful and valuable, but not "second best player in the class" worth. I hope he turns out better, but this early into his career we simply don't know. [/QUOTE]

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