USC Morning Buzz: How Are Those Highly-Rated Quarterbacks Doing?

GOFF

I want to repost this from Sunday because it is good to remember regarding recruiting rankings for quarterbacks.

If 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.

26 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: How Are Those Highly-Rated Quarterbacks Doing?

  1. Hackenberg will bomb out in the NFL just like he did at Penn State.

    • IDK about that. I got a feeling he might surprise a bunch of people. You can blame Franklin for his downfall!

  2. This wasn’t much the first time around, what’s up with the recycling?

  3. I guess I’ll repost my text too.

    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.

          • He fooled everybody, I can honestly say I was scared to death going to play Eisenhower and was in shock after then game as to how soft he was. Turned out I wasn’t the only one. The only person I have ever seen pancaked by Doug Koo.

    • I don’t think that’s correct Rob. A 2010 5-star had a 60% chance of getting drafted, 15% chance of being a 1st rounder. Those 1st round odds were abt twice good as a 4-star’s odds, 13 times as good as a 3-star’s odds, and 166 times as good as a 2-star’s odds.

      HS scouts, like NFL scouts, often get it wrong, particularly if the measure is a 1st round draftee. Of six 5-star QBs (impossible in any one year, since there were fewer than 30 total 5-stars in 2010), one might expect only 1 to be a first-round pick. Still, the odds fall by half regarding a 4-star, and then go into a free fall below 4-stars.

      By no means is HS scouting meaningless. The very top programs recruit the very best, and then elicit the best from those players. Of late, USC has failed at the latter.

      • Duce, I agree with you that being a 5 * is the best pathway to make it in to the league. And please take into account that I was referring to back when I played. High School evaluation is much better now than it was when I was beginning recruited too.

        I guess all I was trying to say is that I don’t get all jazzed up about letter of intent day, or recruiting rankings like others do. I still stand by my belief that Rivals and other recruiting mags over hype some schools ranking to sell magazines. They did that a lot to Notre Dame when front butt Charlie Weis was there.

        I thank you though for the stat. Also I enjoy reading your posts here.

      • That’s cool, won’t be the first time I was wrong about something.

  4. An average high school quarterback will get a 5 star rating bssed on stats, and not talent . Just as an average college quarterback will become a #1 draft pick based on the exact same criteria, remember Matt Leinert ? So stop buying into media hype, and do the eye test with a bit of common sense.

  5. I also remember Andrew Luck being a 3 star recruit. The number 1 QB in his class was Blaine Gabbert. Most of these recruiting honks never see these kids play in real games, only summer camps. They will bump a kid a star for doing nothing but commit to a big time program.

  6. Wait – UCLA had 8 guys drafted and SC only had 4? #clowncollege – where 5*s go to die!

  7. Trojan Jamie Lovemark in playoff for PGA Tour Zurich Classic in New Orleans right now!

    • I’ve never played golf. It looks intense and I’m sure it’s a great sport. That being said my younger brother is obsessed with with it. He plays twice a week, plays in tournaments and thinks he’s all world basically ruining it for me. I pull for the kid from Murrieta who always wears orange. Ricky Fowler.

  8. Christian Hackenburg played behind one of the worst lines in college football. Give him some time.

  9. This is a a bit random–but here goes. I am not clear how blogs such as this generate revenue/ if they do in fact generate revenue. I know that newspapers/magazines/tv/radio sell ad time and the higher the ratings & distribution the higher the ad rate. Does this blog generate revenue and or exposure for the DN? Or is the blog a separate entity?

  10. Did you know who take my post down? I only mentioned some factual inaccuracies in the post, no bad words no insults. Wow.

  11. Let me put this in a way that won’t get flagged. Jeremy Johnson is behind a 4/5 star guy who came in before him. Ryan Burns is behind a 4 star guy who came before him. Think what we want about Browne but he is behind a 4 star guy who came before him. Paxton Lynch got a 3 stars even though he was injured and sat out his senior season, which affected his recruiting. Hayden Rettig lost out to a 5 star guy and then went to Rutgers where he is behind a 4 star guy who was also already a starter who happens to lead the Big 10 in completion percentage. And Scott, in case you missed it, Wittek who after finally getting to start injured both knees, and had to get knee surgery in November but he still got signed to the Jacksonville Jaguars on talent alone.

    So yeah, Carson Weintz is a good story, over his career he started on the bench but grew three inches and gained 50lbs while at North Dakota where he received excellent coaching. He is the rare exception, not the rule.

  12. One more thing about the “rankings don’t matter”. Tell Nick Saban that.. One of the things that most of the rankings rely upon: offers from the top coaches and programs. Sure the coaches may be wrong sometimes but they are the ones who put together the camps, measure the kids, talk to the high school coaches and families, watch the film, read the reports and then put out the offers. Coaches miss kids, injuries happen, kids get beat out by other talented kids (that happens a lot), kids make poor decisions, and people tend to downgrade kids who don’t sign with the biggest name coaches as if there must be something wrong with the kid. But put the occasional misses on coaches and life- not that rankings are meaningless.

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