Iceland12
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WAY to much information for the "Gophers are going to suck" or "Ratings are MEANINGLESS" crowds but if you've got the interest, stamina and the time it might be worth a read.
" With the anticipation of the blue-chip signature that will make or break a class in the eyes of the big recruiting sites comes an implicit, longstanding suspicion that signing day is a well-packaged production of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Anecdotally, it's not hard to reach that conclusion. We're coming off a season in which the Heisman Trophy was won by an undersized quarterback, Johnny Manziel, who slipped through the cracks a three-star afterthought. Another finalist for the award, Kansas State's Collin Klein, was passed over by virtually everyone, including schools in his home state of Colorado, only to lead a team full of castoffs and transfers to a Big 12 championship over the likes of Oklahoma and Texas. Wisconsin, never a recruiting power in the Big Ten, has claimed three conference titles in a row. In the past five years, BCS bowls have featured such non-entities on the recruiting trail as Boise State, Cincinnati, Connecticut and Northern Illinois. The starting quarterbacks in Sunday night's Super Bowl, Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick, rose from the obscurity of (respectively) Delaware and Nevada, two of the few schools that showed any interest. Ryan Perrilloux, Bryce Brown, the USC Trojans: Recently history is littered with once-touted flops, all of them hovering ominously over the proceedings like the ghosts of signing days past.
"Not to take all the fun out of it, but in practice, drawing conclusions from recruiting rankings is the rough equivalent of selling health insurance. Both industries are in the business of predicting the future on a large scale -- of making bets, essentially -- and both have sound, proven criteria for guaranteeing they bet right more often than they bet wrong. Occasionally, of course, certain individuals will defy that criteria: A lifelong smoker who eats fast food every day may live to be 90 years old. A vegetarian who exercises every day may suddenly drop dead at fifty. But when you're dealing with large groups of individuals, say, 1,000 smokers vs. 600 vegetarians, then the results become very, very predictable.
Recruiting operates on the same question, with measures for size and speed standing in for health risks. On a player-by-player or even team-by-team level, guessing who specifically will or will not live up to the hype, or will thrive despite a lack of hype, is almost always a fool's errand. But the foundation underlying those predictions remains remarkably stable. The key is to think in terms of groups, not individuals."
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...-numbers-why-the-sites-get-the-rankings-right
" With the anticipation of the blue-chip signature that will make or break a class in the eyes of the big recruiting sites comes an implicit, longstanding suspicion that signing day is a well-packaged production of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Anecdotally, it's not hard to reach that conclusion. We're coming off a season in which the Heisman Trophy was won by an undersized quarterback, Johnny Manziel, who slipped through the cracks a three-star afterthought. Another finalist for the award, Kansas State's Collin Klein, was passed over by virtually everyone, including schools in his home state of Colorado, only to lead a team full of castoffs and transfers to a Big 12 championship over the likes of Oklahoma and Texas. Wisconsin, never a recruiting power in the Big Ten, has claimed three conference titles in a row. In the past five years, BCS bowls have featured such non-entities on the recruiting trail as Boise State, Cincinnati, Connecticut and Northern Illinois. The starting quarterbacks in Sunday night's Super Bowl, Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick, rose from the obscurity of (respectively) Delaware and Nevada, two of the few schools that showed any interest. Ryan Perrilloux, Bryce Brown, the USC Trojans: Recently history is littered with once-touted flops, all of them hovering ominously over the proceedings like the ghosts of signing days past.
"Not to take all the fun out of it, but in practice, drawing conclusions from recruiting rankings is the rough equivalent of selling health insurance. Both industries are in the business of predicting the future on a large scale -- of making bets, essentially -- and both have sound, proven criteria for guaranteeing they bet right more often than they bet wrong. Occasionally, of course, certain individuals will defy that criteria: A lifelong smoker who eats fast food every day may live to be 90 years old. A vegetarian who exercises every day may suddenly drop dead at fifty. But when you're dealing with large groups of individuals, say, 1,000 smokers vs. 600 vegetarians, then the results become very, very predictable.
Recruiting operates on the same question, with measures for size and speed standing in for health risks. On a player-by-player or even team-by-team level, guessing who specifically will or will not live up to the hype, or will thrive despite a lack of hype, is almost always a fool's errand. But the foundation underlying those predictions remains remarkably stable. The key is to think in terms of groups, not individuals."
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...-numbers-why-the-sites-get-the-rankings-right