Quarterback Recruiting Rankings

GOFFIf you look at the 2013 Rivals quarterback rankings, Jared Goff was the No. 8-ranked pro-style QB. Carson Wentz isn’t even listed among the 30 quarterbacks his class (2011). Neither is Paxton Lynch, the other first-round draft choice, for the Class of 2012 rankings.

When I mentioned this a couple years ago because Blake Bortles was ranked the 44th-best QB by Rivals but the No. 3 pick in the NFL draft, the recruiting-service shills said the rankings do not project NFL potential or success.

So let’s look closer at the Class of 2013 rankings: Max Browne was No. 1 and is probably going to start next season, so we can judge him later. The No. 2 QB, Christian Hackenberg, was a second-round pick, so not bad. The No. 3 QB, Hayden Rettig, could not even win the starting job at Rutgers last season and that’s his second school after starting out at LSU. The No. 4 QB, Shane Morris, has two starts at Michigan and redshirted last season because he had no chance of starting for Jim Harbaugh.

The No. 5 QB, Jeremy Johnson, got benched last season at Auburn and is trying to win back the job next season. The No. 6 QB, Ryan Burns, is trying to win the QB job at Stanford after sitting behind Kevin Hogan for 3 years. The No. 7 QB, Cody Thomas, quit football at Oklahoma in January to focus on baseball. He had three career starts. Goff was No. 8.

So what is my point? Recruiting rankings mean little. And getting a top 10 ranking is meaningless. Max Wittek was the No. 3-ranked pro-style QB in 2011. And he did not get drafted.

24 thoughts on “Quarterback Recruiting Rankings

  1. So what is my point? – another possible new name for this blog

  2. I agree with the blogger on this, recruiting rankings are worthless because you have no idea what kind of competition the kid is playing against. And the nerds doing these rankings never played any sport

    • Like John, I agree with Scott on this as well. I never put much into high school rankings since I was recruited, seeing classmates and people I played against that were too high,too low ect. The number 1 player in my class was Germane Gray who earned the nick name “Alice” @ SC and never once saw the field.

      Joe McKnight comes to mind as well as another top ranked recruit that was unworthy of that ranking. And obviously Goff was under rated.

      You just never really know till the “bullets start flying” as they say. Let’s just hope that these “experts” are right about Max. Al ways remember though they are paid to sell magazines and fill air time on one of SecESPN pointless shows. Not to be right about their predictions.

      • Rob, here’s a stat for you:

        Among 2010 recruits, there were 4500 HS players awarded 2-to-5 stars by Rivals. Only 27 were 5-stars. Of those 27, 4 became 1st-round picks (14.8% of the 27) and 16 were drafted (59.3% of the 27).

        Of 395 4-stars, 13 became 1st-round picks (8.8%) and 19.5% got drafted.

        1644 3-stars: 0.7% and 5.6%;

        2434 2-stars: 0.1% and 2.9%.

        If there were six 5-star QBs (there aren’t in any one year), only about one would end up a 1st-round draft choice. Hardly a sure thing. Still, on average, it would take about twelve 4-star QBs to yield one 1st rounder, it would take 140 3-stars to yield one 1st-rounder, and it would take about 1,000 2-stars to yield one 1st rounder. That’s quite a disparity.

        Scott likes to generalize from a couple of anecdotal observations. That’s not sound methodology, do you think?

        Don’t fall for it.

        • That’s good info Ben,and I thank you for the stat. Also I enjoy reading your posts, and think that you give good insight and good football knowledge. To answer your question, you are right Scott loves to generalise and find the exception and spin it as a general fact.

          I don’t get as butt hurt by his comments as most do. That’s Scott’s Schick and I’m okay with it for the most part. I look at it like this. There are 5 news papers that have SC beat writers, and they all can’t write the same thing. So Scott tends to be more negative than the other writers to attract more readers to his articles and his blog.

          • He prefers the provocateur role to a little investigation.

            I think he’s often correct, and I much prefer him to the apologists.

            Also, I think he does have some friends/sources inside the Athletic Department.

            Plus, blogging is tough, because you have to write too often.

            If he ever decides to work hard, he’ll be scary.

          • Good point Ben. I prefer him as to the apologiests as well. You would think it is 2003 by most of their columns, And all is right with SC football.

            I have no problem with somebody saying that it ain’t like that right now.

  3. Obviously…. then again, you’ll make the opposite argument next February when a few teams top SC in the Rivals Top 10 signing day. And we’ll forgive you… again.

  4. Not just QB recruiting rankings, but the whole CFB recruiting arena is worthless.

    CFB recruiting is the most worthless wannabe spectator sport ever contrived. For those guys who wanted to play a sport but never had the balls to venture to a court or a playground for the day.

    • It should be noted that CFB recruiting rankings are determined not by college athletics, but by media types who know very little about football.

  5. Good point Scott! That’s EXACTLY why Alabama goes after 1-2 star recruits. You nailed it my man.

  6. So now when they recruit a 3 star they will have your backing, because recruiting rankings are meaningless, right?

  7. That’s why you want to spend the money to put together a winning team. I don’t mean the players when I use the term ‘team’ here. I mean the coaches and a large group of administration assistants. This means nutritionists, trainers, a large group of people who scour the nation for athletic talent and a whole lot of others. There were 9 1st round draft choices this year who were rated 3 star or less when they came out of high school. Two of them weren’t rated at all. If there are that many 3 star or less in the first round, I’ll bet there a ton in the other rounds. It takes a lot of research to find these guys which means you must hire a lot of good administrative assistants. I’ll guarantee you that Ohio State, Alabama, Florida State and other programs outspend SC big time and they don’t have the money that SC has. But football is more important to them than it is to Max and the buddy boys.

  8. Interesting that the Blogger always says USC has all this talent based on the recruiting rankings and that they should win every game, and now says the rankings are meaningless. Hmmm.

    High school recruiting rankings do not measure the player’s NFL potential – they are High School rankings and don’t even measure college ranking, much less NFL.

    #WeToldYouSo

  9. I have to call BS on Scott. Most of these guys are still in school. He even put guys who were not in the same graduating class into his rankings!

    Paxton was a 3 star recruit who missed his senior year due to an injury- hardly like it was someone without talent, he was a risk. Rettig is still in school, went into LSU to compete with another top player, lost out and did a year to get his grades up, transferring last year as a redshirt sophomore. Last year was his first at Rutgers where he was behind a senior four star with the highest passing completion percentage in the Big 10. Jeremy Johnson came in to play behind a highly regarded starter too. So guys being behind Hogan (a four star guy and starter) or Sean White (another four or five star guy).

    And Scott who posts incessantly about some SC transfers missed that Wittek had injuries to both knees last year and had surgery in November, but still was signed as a free agent by the Jacksonville Jaguars on the basis of talent.

    See ya in the funny papers Wolf.

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