Originally Posted by
CadaverDawg
My thoughts on the "star" system is probably a little different than most.
To me, the only thing "stars" tell us is whether A) A recruit is more polished, B) He dominated a high division and very competitive league in highschool, or C) How much the player has actually been seen at all and evaluated.
I also think the system is flawed because you cant look at all states, and positions the same. In other words, a 4 star WR from MS like Joe Morrow, is going to be far less polished than a 4 Star WR from Texas, like Fred Ross. Why are those guys both listed as 4 stars? If you watched the highschool video of either one, you knew Ross had more front end talent and was less "raw" from a refinement standpoint. That it why I keep saying we need to do better at recruiting OL talent. It's not that we are recruiting bad players....it's that we are ending up with a stable of raw, undeveloped linemen that take a ton of development to reach SEC standards...much less All-SEC standards. Imagine what we could do with better front end talent. That's why so often people act like I just care about "stars" when it comes to OL...but thats not true. I want to mix in a few higher "star" players because they will have the potential to reach their ceiling quicker than most of the guys we typically get. Not trying to start the OL discussion again, I just wanted to give an example to help explain my point.
So as many have said...When it comes to skill positions, I want 4-5 stars if possible, but only if they are from skill position states, like Texas, Florida, etc. Not saying that all of our skill guys are behind those guys, because there are exceptions....but as a general rule, a 4 star MS WR is probably a 3Star or worse in Texas in terms of front end talent and refinement. The opposite is typically true for Defensive Linemen and Running Backs though. Since our MS high schools are built around the power running game for the most part, we usually have really good RB and DL talent. We also have good LB talent.
And Dan deserves a ton more credit for his recruitment of so many small highschool QB's in MS. These kids are typically head and shoulders the best athlete on these teams, but they are playing out of position because their coach has nobody else that can generate offense. So we end up signing a bunch of raw athletes that have been playing "wildcat" QB their entire life. Truth is, many of these guys are 4 Star caliber athletes that are simply out of position. So we are able to mold them into Safeties, Corners, Slot WR's (Gabe, Jameon), and even stud Linebackers (BMac).
So, while I think stars matter....they really don't mean as much as they could if they weren't so flawed overall. That's why I keep up with recruiting some, but I don't get bent out of shape over certain recruits unless I actually think they are worthy of their star rating.