re: Question about Stars with regards to rankings.

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dgnx6:

I'm just going to say its because those positions aren't valued highly. To LSU they are, but most schools not so much. Plus I guess its hard to project those guys on the next level. Kicker spots don't open up much in the pros. Usually it just seems like the sane recycled names.

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This. The services' rankings do not value classes well of teams with LSU's style of play and priorities.

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star ratings are based on NFL draft stock...for instance, a kicker rarely gets drafted no matter how good he is...hence the 3 star ranking. same for fullbacks.

Stars have little to do with how good a player currently is and more to do with how he projects in 4 years in the draft.

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And this is entirely on point; 5-star recruits are the services' best guess of who will be drafted in the first round of the draft when the recruits come out. A review of how well those guesses have panned out in the past shows they are consistently correct on about 4 out of 32. Sometimes a little better. That performance strikes me as pathetic. So their poor evaluations of teams like LSU comes at the expense of doing an even poorer job achieving their goal of predicting the first round.

Another way of looking at this is that services ignore the team with which the players choose to sign. Their ranking of a player is independent of the team for which he will play. If Ducre signed with aTm, his 3-star FB rating would be an effective 2-star. At LSU, Ducre's 3-star rating is an effective high 4 or even 5.

So take the services with a grain of salt. They are the second best thing we have as recruiting fans. The best thing we have is our coaches' evaluations, which insiders leak out.

Star ranking does not reflect anything about the NFL at all. Star rankings reflect when the player will be able to contribute to a college team.

For example a 5* player is expected to make meaningful contribution as a freshman.

A high 4* like a Top 100 player may also make a meaningful contribution as a freshman but is expected to make a meaningful contribution in 2nd year.

Lower ranking 4* and top 3* are expected to make a meaningful contribution as a 3rd year and 4th year player.

Since the evaluation and ranking system are less than perfect and it is done before the player is fully physically, emotionally and mentally mature, the results are less than perfect.

The NFL scouts do a complete new evaluation of the potential of a player based on his college playing history and his physical, mental and emotional development after he matures. Nothing about his development or any ratings at the end of HS is considered. This is why many of the lower ranking players become NFL draft choices. It is a whole new ball game by the time a player is 21.