Tips For Recruiting Evaluations
In today's age everybody and their mom is giving their opinion on recruits. How do you do it better?
I've argued before that recruiting services are pretty good at recognizing the best national recruits, meaning the ~200-300 guys nationally that more or less everyone agrees are among the best prospects in the country. These are your “4 star” or “blue chip” guys that most every Power 5 program is fighting for. The services tend to focus on a few hotbeds (Florida, Houston/DFW, SoCal, and a few other areas) not because they’re biased towards these areas, but because it isn’t feasible to see guys from the middle of nowhere in person.
Does every one of these blue chip guys deserve their rating? Absolutely not (for example, Texas’ highest rated commit in their most recent class, JD Coffey, is probably not a guy I would’ve offered). But as far as crowdsourced general consensus goes, if you’re one of these blue chip prospects you’re probably pretty valuable.
It’s when you get into the non-blue chip guys, the 3 stars and below that make up the vast majority of most college football programs, where the recruiting services value becomes well, less valuable. Evaluating these guys is tough. Many times they’re not obviously dominant as an overall player. Maybe they have an elite trait or two with some clear weaknesses and you have to evaluate whether those traits can add up to a valuable prospect. Or maybe they’re a dominant player who has obvious football savvy but questionable athleticism and you have to figure out whether they’re athletic enough to allow their football skills to play at the highest level.
The difficultly many evaluators have is that, if you love college football enough to evaluate high school prospects, you probably also really love a particular program, which puts internal pressure on yourself to positively evaluate guys your school wants. Not to mention the obvious external pressure that subscription sites face to positively review prospects/team/etc. I’m not meaning to cast any aspersions; the reality is that we know how the human mind works and it is influenced by pressures even if we don’t want it to be. No doubt that my being a Baylor graduate and fan has influenced some of my evaluations despite my best efforts to be as neutral as possible.
I’ve been writing recruiting evaluations for Baylor’s classes for the past few years now, and I think I have done a decent job. For instance, in this article I evaluated several players who are a big part of Baylor’s current team: starting LT Connor Galvin, starting WR Tyquan Thornton, starting TE Ben Sims, and significant contributors WR Josh Fleeks and RB Craig Williams. Here’s my eval of Tyquan Thornton, who went on to catch 65 balls at a cool 17.5 yards per catch over his first two seasons (don’t ask about his third):
Thornton was unranked when he committed to Baylor and was a low-ranked guy for a while thereafter. But for a spell he committed to Miami and received a Georgia offer, so services caught up and had him as a borderline 4* by the time he recommitted back to Baylor before signing day. This tells you another undeniable bias among recruiting services: you often need big time offers to get a big time rating. Anyway …
What really separates evaluators is their willingness to not just say who they think is gonna be great, but also to put their cards down for guys they have questions on. If you just say that everyone is gonna be great, well, you’re bound to hit on some. So here’s my eval of highly ranked recruit Braylen Taylor:
Taylor arrived at Baylor as a TE, it didn’t work out, he was moved to WR, it didn’t work out, and then he was a backup DE for a year before having to medically retire. I think he could’ve been a really good DE, but we’ll never know.
OK, enough tooting my own horn (I just felt that for a first post I needed to explain why you should care about my opinion at all). As a writer I’m constantly having to tell myself “stick to the point,” so with that said, here are a few tips for evaluating recruits that I think will help separate you from the average plebe. This is not an all-encompassing list, just a few things to always keep in mind.
1. Know The Level of Competition
Guys can become high level college football players from any level, whether they’re playing 6A ball in Texas or pancaking 155 lb dudes in rural South Dakota. The important thing is that you keep it in mind while evaluating their film. A high level guy playing in low level ball should dominate. Like, easily be the best player on the field, make everyone else look sluggish dominate. Somebody at a huge program filled with college athletes doesn’t need to dominate, but they need to produce well and show that they can compete with other college-bound guys.
A funny thing about the level of competition is that there is a sort of inverse. At smaller schoosl, the film quality is usually poorer, so often guys just won’t look as good. I learned this lesson years back with Grayland Arnold, a former Baylor star and current NFL DB who is from the tiny Kountze, TX. On film and on the stat sheet he sure dominated, but I just wasn’t sure that a 5-9 guy like him had enough speed to make it. Then he ran a 10.32 100m (elite elite elite) during track season and I realized I had no idea what I was talking about. But I learned my lesson—he was playing on crappy fields in tall grass and probably didn’t have the best fitting, lightweight equipment that guys playing at bigger programs had the luxury of playing in.
So the flipside of the Grayland Arnold story plays too. If I’m evaluating a WR from a huge program in Texas, for instance, I know that how they look on that pristine film and playing on that immaculate field in top of the line equipment is probably as good as they’re gonna look! It’s pretty translatable to the college game.
So, remember Grayland Arnold. The next time you’re watching some smaller guy dominate at a small school level, watch Arnold’s highschool film and see if it compares.
2. Testing, Testing, Testing …
This one really goes without saying and is something even average fans/evaluators understand. At some level, it doesn’t matter how good your tape is if you aren’t a good enough athlete. Quite simply, you cannot football savvy yourself into a good college CB; you can yell “I’m football smart!” at the WR as he burns past you for a TD. I’m not recruiting any defensive backs who aren’t around 11.00 100m guys, which is why I think JD Coffey, the highest rated signee in Texas’ class with his 12.00 100m and 24.5 200m times, is extremely overrated. His film is tremendous, no doubt, but at some level you gotta be fast enough and he just ain’t. Texas A&M has gotten into similar trouble with its highly rated safeties who can’t run.
This doesn’t just apply to defensive backs, of course. At some level there is a minimum level of athleticism for every position. You’ll have a hard time playing OL or DL with stubs for arms. I wouldn’t take a LB who had slow feet and couldn’t turn and run sideline to sideline. I don’t really care how freakish a RB looks if they have slow feet. Etc. etc. So when you’re looking at a guy, try to find their track numbers or publically available testing numbers from the numerous regional camps.
And most importantly when you’re watching a guy, ask yourself: “What are my best guesses for this guy’s testing numbers? What do they need to be for him to be a take based on his film?” This is a great way to check yourself and improve.
3. Know the Schematic Fit
Even if you’re evaluating guys in general and not with a specific school in mind, it is still very important to evaluate with particular positions and schemes in mind. Some positions, like CB, this is less important, but it’s still something you always want to be thinking about.
This is most important on the offensive and defensive lines, where schemes and requirements vary the most. For instance, if I’m running a wide (outside) zone scheme like Baylor has decided to switch to, there isn’t any point in taking an OL who can’t reach the outside shoulder of a DL lined up outside them. They can be as powerful, mean, and tenacious as you like, but if they can’t execute the bread and butter of the schematic requirement then they don’t provide any value. Similarly for defensive lineman, you can be a an absolute load who eats up blocks, but if the scheme calls for guys who need to get upfield in a hurry, you’re not gonna play.
Thanks for reading …
I appreciate all who have made it this far and reading my first post. I’ll still be doing my thing over at OurDailyBears, I plan to use this here to shoot off more random football/sports/maybe other? stuff that doesn’t as neatly fit into the Baylor sphere.
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