Football Talent is Not All in the ‘Stars’
@MattSchonvisky
College football recruiting season is heating up and with it comes the analysis of which school will come out on top, who has the most five star, blue-chip recruits and which conference will receive the most talent?
A case can be made however, that all of the stars handed out and the rankings that go along with it, have turned into nothing but a show. No longer, if ever, has it been about how talented a potential player is, what their ceiling will be, what kind of character they possess, how intelligent they are or what kind of commitment they have to the game of football.
With recruiting sites like Scout, Rivals, 247Sports, Hudl and ESPN controlling the message and ranking high school talent on a star rating system, it’s hard to believe what is fact and what is fiction. Do these websites actually rank the athletes based on the skill they’ve seen in person, or is it just a glorified popularity contest based on which schools have shown interest in which players? It’s interesting to note that high school athletes really don’t get the four and five star rating until some of the powers in the ‘Power 5 Conferences’ have shown interest. That alone, should be a signal that skill is not indicative of stars.
Taking a look at each of those sites, some of the most popular are run by Fox (Scout), CBS (247Sports) and ESPN, which just so happen to be the three main networks that carry the majority of college football telecasts. The fact that each network has also partnered with various conferences, for example CBS and ESPN with the SEC, ESPN with the ACC, Fox with the Big XII and Pac XII and NBC with Notre Dame, it raises some questions if the rankings are ‘fudged’ to give their ‘home’ schools an edge, over the rest.
If we’ve learned anything over the last several years in conference realignment, it is television networks will do whatever it takes to make an extra dollar and it should be noted, they have every right to do so. However, relentlessly promoting a message that a particular league and the schools that make up that league are the best in the country and every other team and conference is inferior, is really a distraction from reality.
Take ESPN for instance, who were singled out in the University of Maryland lawsuit against the ACC, where it is stated that they openly campaigned for certain schools to leave various conferences to join the ACC. This is the same network that played an integral role in the original ACC raid of the Big East. That raid ultimately destroyed the Big East conference, which was built on basketball, yes, but was also the backbone of the ‘worldwide leader’ for a couple of decades.
So, how in the world are we expected to believe that these ‘rankings’ are the end all, be all?
Here at UCONN, new head coach Bob Diaco has brought in eleven players as part of his first full recruiting class. Of them, Scout only has ratings posted for four of them, as Nazir Williams is the only player to receive three stars. Rivals, on the other hand, has seven of the recruits rated, with Aaron Garland as the only three star player. With that, has come some skepticism from the fans who are looking solely at the stars associated with each player, than with the entire product the Huskies program is receiving.
Through the analysis of each recruit brought in thus far by Coach Diaco and his staff, it is clear that they are drilling home the following traits, in no particular order; character, intelligence, size and skill.
Kevin Murphy, rated a two-star on both Rivals and Scout, was recently named the number one defensive tackle in the recruiting hotbed state of Pennsylvania. If Murphy had committed to Penn State or Michigan, his star rating would have easily jumped to four. Why is that?
For one, the writers on each site are the ones doing the ranking.
When I put together an assessment of the UCONN athletic department and most notably the football program back in April, UCONN ranked 33rd in the country with nineteen (19) former players currently on NFL rosters; that number has since jumped to twenty-one (21) since the draft, with Yawin Smallwood and Shamar Stephen being drafted.
When you assess UCONN’s recruiting classes between 2002-10 (later classes are still enrolled in school), the program comes in with an average class ranking of seventy-three (73).
So in reality, the Huskies real recruiting classes over that nine-year stretch were really forty (40) places higher.
Better yet, if you want to take into account all professional football leagues, the Huskies have performed even better. Here is a list of the previous recruiting classes that have come through Storrs, the players who have gone on to play with or received a camp invite to the NFL, CFL, the now defunct NFL Europe and Arena Football Leagues, with the star ranking they received (the national class ranking is noted in parentheses).
2001 (Not Available):
DE Uyi Osunde
DT Sean Mulcahy
DT Tyler King
WR Keron Henry
QB Dan Orlovsky
2002 (100):
FB Deon Anderson – 3 stars
RB Terry Caulley – 2 stars
RB Cornell Brockington – 2 stars
Shawn Mayne – 2 stars
Craig Berry – 2 stars
2003 (82):
RB Matt Lawrence – 2 stars
LB Danny Lansanah – 2 stars
S Marvin Taylor – 2 stars
2004 (79):
RB Larry Taylor – 2 stars
OL Keith Gray – 2 stars
S Dahna Deleston – 2 stars
CB Darius Butler – 2 stars
CB Tyvon Branch -2 stars
OL William Beatty – 2 stars
TE Steve Brouse – 2 stars
DT Dan Davis – 2 stars
2005 (59):
DE Cody Brown – 2 stars
RB Donald Brown – 2 stars
RB Andre Dixon – 2 stars
2006 (66):
DE Lindsey Witten – 2 stars
LB Lawrence Wilson – 2 stars
CB Robert McClain – 2 stars
OL Zach Hurd – 2 stars
WR Terence Jeffers – 3 stars
LB Scott Lutrus – 2 stars
S Robert Vaughn – 3 stars
TE Martin Bedard – 2 stars
2007 (53):
LB Greg Lloyd – 2 stars
C Moe Petrus – 2 stars
QB Tyler Lorenzen – 4 stars
DT Twyon Martin – 2 stars
DT Kendall Reyes – 2 stars
OL Mike Ryan – 3 stars
WR Kashif Moore – 2 stars
FB Anthony Sherman – 2 stars
2008 (70):
TE Ryan Griffin – 2 stars
TE John Delahunt – 2 stars
WR Michael Smith – 2 stars
RB Jordan Todman – 2 stars
CB Blidi Wreh-Wilson – 2 stars
LB Sio Moore – 2 stars
CB Dwayne Gratz – 3 stars
2009 (75):
WR Nick Williams – 2 stars
OL Kevin Friend – 2 stars
DE Jesse Joseph – 2 stars
DE Trevardo Williams – 2 stars
DT Shamar Stephen – 2 stars
LB Yawin Smallwood – 2 stars
Now back to the this specific recruiting class and what Coach Diaco and his staff are doing. In talking with each and every high school coach of the recruits being brought in, the one trend that is communicated is, ‘UCONN is here the most.’
Translation – UCONN is doing their due diligence, learning more about a potential recruit than their competitors. The coaches are going door-to-door, gaining information not only about the players talents, but who they are as a person, what drives them and how they perform in the classroom.
If we’ve learned anything from the last decade of UCONN football and previous recruiting classes, it is clear that the ‘stars’ just don’t add up.
While we are on recruiting classes, here is a video tribute to the 2010 recruiting class, in perhaps the greatest season in UCONN football history, with a special segment for the late Jasper Howard at the end – video courtesy of the UCONN Athletic Department:
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