USF #1 with Carlton Hill again

[Papa_Bull]

It's a shame he didn't write anything because I was interested in hearng what he had to say since he's involved in USFRivals. I wonder how much "input" Rivals.com accepts from its school sites when they are ranking their players, if they are not familliar with them.

[Guest S.  Bien]

Curious.....

Why Insiders over Rivals. IIRC, I remember you writing that you were a insiders subscriber. How timely is the coverage?

I believe insiders, or scout.com is more accurate in rating players.  They are not as inclined to allow people to give those ambiguous three star rankings.  I call three star rankings ambiguous because in the world of internet site recruit ranking invariably two stars is considered average, but three seems to send a stronger message to fans and subscribers- as if this player's better than most think.

For example, Conshario Johnson.  I think this kid has immense potential, I think his college career could end-up being better than OJ Murdock's, but I don't believe he's a three star prospect.  Not yet, at best he's proven to be a pretty sure handed receiver, with decent size, route running and decent speed.  There are probably 30-40 kids in FL just like CJ every year, but never get noticed or get better ranking.  On the insider's, or scout he's got the proverbial two star, and no national ranking.  That's about right for this kid, just because he's got potential, and a few offers doesn't mean he's bona fide or a guaranteed gem.

The scout.com rarely raises rankings from their preliminary rankings, and really only give kids more than two stars if they're nationally ranked at their position, have impressive accolades and an impressive line-up of schools.  The other impressive thing about scout.com is they aren't afraid to give a kid no-stars, or one-star.  They don't do the commensurate everyone gets two stars game that rivals plays.  

In fact, going back to Howie's theory, if you look at all the scout.com players that signed with USF over the past three years and were provided more than two stars, they, in fact have been nearly right on the mark.  Last year, the players with four stars on scout.com for USF were Andre Hall, and Peyton.  Judging from their play they clearly were worthy of four star accolades.  The three star players were Clebert, Searcy, Buie, Griffin, TJ, and Mompremier, again all worthy of that ranking.  From the 2003 class Ronnie McCollough, and Mike Jenkins.  The year prior it was only Nicholas, Davis, and Ramon McCollough (who was a four star, and a bit of a bust thus far).

Take into account that they don't give out three stars as liberally, and who they gave three stars too, and what they've achieved thus far, it's quite apparent that scouts.com is much more accurate.  Look at the scout.com this year, and thus far they've given three stars to DeArmas, and Taurus Johnson, and four stars to Carlton Hill.  That tells me that coupled with their rivals ranking, that those are players we can expect great things from in the coming years.

This is just what I've seen.  It doesn't imply that eventually a two star, or no star prospect won't amount to anything or doesn't possess potential.  But it does say that when scout.com gives a player two stars, that means more than when rivals gives a player two stars.  

[S p e n c e]

What about thier only giving Grothe 2 stars and no NR?  You make some good points in the rest of your post, but this still seems a little off to me.  The Florida Mr. Football runner-up, 4A Player of the year, led team to two state championship games.  ANd most other recruiting sites have him at 3 stars and and a NR somewhere in the top 30 or 40.  They may be pretty accurate, but I think it would serve them well to update thier rankings after these kids play out thier senior year.  Things change, kids can have a break out year.

[BigShoop]

As for comparing Hill to Grothe, that's a diifficult task.  Carlton played at a 1A school.  Much like Ingram he was a man among boys.  He's a real athlete, real strong arm, excellent feet, great speed, decent accuracy, but he's raw.   Grothe's a real athlete too, but much more of a QB at this juncture.  He doesn't have Hill's arm strength, although at this point his arm's strong enough, he is extremely accurate, he ran a spread offense in HS, he's very smart and heady player that can scramble and make plays with his arm and legs.  Hill can do that too, but Hill has a tendency to break right away while Grothe has this innate ability to keep his focus down field (hard to teach a QB that trick), and make plays throwing it while he's scrambling.  Again, Grothe's more accurate, he's got a nice touch, great vision, and a real leader.  We'll see what wins out when they both get on campus, the heady QB with a great QB head on his shoulders, or the raw athlete with amazing upside.  Honestly, my bet is with Grothe.  The kid reminds me of Tate at Iowa, or Lafor at UL.

For those of us who DONT subscribe and immerse ourselves into all this recruiting stuff, posts liket his REALLY help...

Thanks for the info, keep it comin.

(btw, i'm gettin PUMPED about this year's class)

[Papa_Bull]

Just to finish off on the Rival kicker rankings.

I just looked up the stats for the #1 Rivals kicker, who committed to So Cal. I could only find those for 2003. He went 6 for 9 in FG's and his longest was only 45 yards and he didn't make even another 40 yarder!

http://216.176.197.111/members/view.asp?id=vanblarcom

Of the 23 kickers Rivals shows 8 comes from Ca and only 1 from Fl.

What's up with that?

They evidently rely heavily on the players who go out to Chris Sailer's camps and he's located out in Ca. So, of course, there will be more west coast players there.

Not every "top flight" kicker from around the country goes there.

Sorry for the intrusion into this thread again about this, but maybe Velcro can move the "kicking" posts to the kicking thread.

Just to complete my thoughts on the subject.

Rivals just updated their kickers.

Surprise, surprise, that the FSU verbal, Graham Gano, is NOW classified with 3 stars and #2 recuit. Do ya think maybe the guys on WARCHANT had anything to do with THAT?

http://usf.rivals.com/viewrank.asp?ra_key=931&Year=2005

On a related note about their rankings, isn't it a curious coincidence that the other USF "commits" keep getting pushed further and further back. For example, before RJ Anderson gave his verbal to USF he was ranked with 3 stars in the 20's (I think it was #24). Afterwards, he suddenly dropped to #49. Now he's #51. This is a kid who had ANOTHER great year on the BEST team in Florida, ARMWOOD. When Rivals, computes their team rankings they give EXTRA POINTS for where a player finishes within his position, so we keep losing quality points.

The same is true for Grothe, DeArmas and Johnson who ALL had a better "position" ranking within Rivals earlier this year. They didn't lose nearly as much as Anderson, but they did go backwards. Shouldn't Grothe at least have gone Forward after ANOTHER great year and barely missing out on Mr Florida Football?

It just makes me go hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[Cattle_Prod]

I don't have access to that website, but from Rivals, it still looks as though he has a visit planned for Miami next week.  

[USFreak]

Sorry for the intrusion into this thread again about this, but maybe Velcro can move the "kicking" posts to the kicking thread.

Just to complete my thoughts on the subject.

Rivals just updated their kickers.

Surprise, surprise, that the FSU verbal, Graham Gano, is NOW classified with 3 stars and #2 recuit. Do ya think maybe the guys on WARCHANT had anything to do with THAT?

http://usf.rivals.com/viewrank.asp?ra_key=931&Year=2005

On a related note about their rankings, isn't it a curious coincidence that the other USF "commits" keep getting pushed further and further back. For example, before RJ Anderson gave his verbal to USF he was ranked with 3 stars in the 20's (I think it was #24). Afterwards, he suddenly dropped to #49. Now he's #51. This is a kid who had ANOTHER great year on the BEST team in Florida, ARMWOOD. When Rivals, computes their team rankings they give EXTRA POINTS for where a player finishes within his position, so we keep losing quality points.

The same is true for Grothe, DeArmas and Johnson who ALL had a better "position" ranking within Rivals earlier this year. They didn't lose nearly as much as Anderson, but they did go backwards. Shouldn't Grothe at least have gone Forward after ANOTHER great year and barely missing out on Mr Florida Football?

It just makes me go hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Do you guys think the Rivals network is the Devil repackaged?

Let's look at the facts -- the higher ranked guys USF is looking at right now are basically the ones angling to get on with Miami, FSU, UF -- guys like Phillips, Stewart, Jean-Francios, etc.

I'm not sure if you guys realize this yet, but USF hasn't arrived.  Sure, they've made great strides, but the guys they are going after aren't Miami and FSU first-stringers.  They may have one or two a year, but look at last year.  Cornelius Ingram and Brent Scheaffer were TOPS on USF's list.  Either one would have started at QB last year and played all four years.   Schaeffer shared the position in a stroke of luck and we'll be lucky to see Ingram in any regular basis on that field.  

Now players like Gordon and the others are great players, but they are the guys Miami and FSU are "thinking" about.  

Also, I'm not so sure it is about USF players getting pushed back as much as it is about other's stock rising.  A kid that is getting legitimate interest from Tennessee, Georgia, Clemson, etc. is going to move up the flagpole.  There are a few examples where it is not true, but generally look who is out in front.

This is not to take anything away from Grothe or DeArmas, and so on, but both of those guys were unranked at the beginning of the season.  Their stock rose when they signed with Bulls and I'd argue it has been steady.  Problem is - other guy's stock continues to climb.

[Omniscientbull]

Freak - Yes, there are a core of anti-Rivals Bulls fans.  Most of which still browse the headlines, refer to them in posts and sometimes even ***** because they think there is a trick behind the link.  Others don't realize the amount of work that goes into the site and believe that tracking down 17 year old kids, coaches, etc is an easy task and that the local newspaper should be able to report it daily.

[USFreak]

Freak - Yes, there are a core of anti-Rivals Bulls fans.  Most of which still browse the headlines, refer to them in posts and sometimes even ***** because they think there is a trick behind the link.  Others don't realize the amount of work that goes into the site and believe that tracking down 17 year old kids, coaches, etc is an easy task and that the local newspaper should be able to report it daily.

Well, I'm not saying that.  I think there are generally two consistent sites for the information and the stuff flows pretty freely (ie. there was a McCray update like 15 minutes ago on Rivals).  I guess all I'm saying is there is no real conspiracy by Rivals to knock USF players down the chart.   I think if you compare the overall rankings on signing day they are generally pretty similar.

I personally agree that a player like Johnny Peyton should have been ranked a little better than #58 last year, but ultimately it was probabaly a fair ranking.  

[Papa_Bull]

Well, I'm not saying that.  I think there are generally two consistent sites for the information and the stuff flows pretty freely (ie. there was a McCray update like 15 minutes ago on Rivals).

Yep, they are prettty consistent.

There is an Insiders update on McCray with almost the exact same headline today:

McCray Down to a Final Three

-by RutgersInsider.com Jan 10, 2005

January 10, 2005

Demetrius McCray down to three

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Talman

Rivals100.com