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Rating sites

BuffClass90

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Can some explain, or point me in the right direction, about why some players never get rated? And why do we select unrated players?

Thanks.
 
Can some explain, or point me in the right direction, about why some players never get rated? And why do we select unrated players?

Thanks.


Time/money/politics

There are a lot of HS football players out there. Even with the myriad of sites like rivals, scout etc. a few fall through the cracks. The coaches might hear about these players from high schools coaches, tini's mom, or alums. Once a BCS school offers they usually get bumped up to a 2-star and the rating sites might look into them more.
 
I'd say because there are just too many kids playing high school football over too big of a country, too small of a budget and too few evaluators.

Some places, it's easy and cost effective to send talent evaluators out to and get a bunch of kids rated. Southern California or Texas is a great example. Huge density of college level prospects so you can go to one school and evaluate five or six kids, drive ten minutes down the road, and evaluate another five or six.

But some places get a little less exposure and attention and therefore less ratings or evaluation. Some kids participate in less camps. Some just are late bloomers.

Let's say you're working for Rivals and you have a certain travel budget. Do you want to use that budget to travel to Montana to take a look at some kid that rumors say is beating the **** out of lesser talent...or do you want to use that budget to go visit seven or eight schools in close proximity of each other in Texas and evaluate 45 different prospects you've been hearing about? Even if you pick that kid from Montana, maybe he has a bad game because he knows the scout is in the crowd and that's the only time someone sees him play?

Just an example. Agencies like Scout and Rivals are the best we have for finding the best talents coming out of high school, but I suspect they'd be the first to tell you that they can't be everywhere and see everyone.

As for the second question, why take an unranked player?

Well, sometimes you have no choice. But other times it's because you think you've found someone that everyone else has missed. Odds of a 5* being a stud at the next level are MUCH higher than an unranked player, but diamonds in the rough or sleepers DO happen.
 
unrated players get selected for a variety of reasons, it could be a firm handshake, a great smile or perhaps even just a twinkle in their eye.
 
I have a smart question. For reals.



Do the rating sites grade on some sort of bell curve? Like, they will only give out X amount of 5*s, and Y mount of 4*s, and Z amount of 3*s, etc. Thus, it is possibly to have classes which might be much stronger or weaker in the 3* range?
 
Thats why there are the # ratings. On ESPN, you can be a 79 but a 4* or a 79 3*... lat years class we had two 4*'s but then we also had i believe three 79's that were 3*... so in all reality we had five 4*'s last year...
 
Thats why there are the # ratings. On ESPN, you can be a 79 but a 4* or a 79 3*... lat years class we had two 4*'s but then we also had i believe three 79's that were 3*... so in all reality we had five 4*'s last year...
Umm, no. No we did not.
 
I have a smart question. For reals.

Do the rating sites grade on some sort of bell curve? Like, they will only give out X amount of 5*s, and Y mount of 4*s, and Z amount of 3*s, etc. Thus, it is possibly to have classes which might be much stronger or weaker in the 3* range?

Short answer is no. That said, they usually don't give out more than ~15 total 5*s/year, and 25-30 4*s/year. The total number of 4 & 5 star players varies every year, but is generally pretty similar. Based on their documented methodology, you can have stronger classes in the 3* range, but that is based on the perceived strength of the class, as opposed to having guys ranked 3* because the site(s) already hit their annual quota of 4-5* players.
 
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I have a smart question. For reals.

Do the rating sites grade on some sort of bell curve? Like, they will only give out X amount of 5*s, and Y mount of 4*s, and Z amount of 3*s, etc. Thus, it is possibly to have classes which might be much stronger or weaker in the 3* range?

I follow Rivals the most and they generally have 28-30 players in the 5* range most years. Sometimes less and sometimes a bit more. For the 4* range, every player in their top 250 is given that rating and then usually about 50 players beyond that (so about 270 players in the 4* range total). In recent years, 3* ratings are pretty much given out like candy (lots of token 5.5rr 3* ratings).

For Scout, they tend to give out closer to 40 players in the 5* star range, and then every player in their top 300 overall after that is a 4*. They do give out more 2* ratings than rivals (general observation, maybe not fact).

Basically, easy to see why 5* players are so desirable. A consensus top 30 player in the country is pretty lofty company.
 
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