In retrospect, do the 5 stars gaurantee anything?

I only read the title, my answer is no.

just ego

Moses sucks. Amiright?

Is that the point here?

guarantees a kid with a flashy commitment announcement

quote:

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Moses sucks. Amiright?

Is that the point here?

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Did I state that? Did I pose that?

My point is that a star rating by various recruiting sources isn't a GUARANTEE of program success. Moses has yet to do anything in NCAA and he may or may not, but for folks to lose their minds over his commitment may be an unfounded regret.

I've always thought of player rankings as a matter of probabilities. It's sort of like the "*" in 5* is the fine print asterisk at the bottom of the page indicating the player is a can't miss prospect... but there's no guarantee.

In the long run, 5* players are more likely to be impact players and to make it to the pros than 4*, who are more likely to be impact players than 3*, etc. But there are a lot of recruits who are ranked 3* or below who end up being just as good or better than a lot of higher ranked recruits for a variety of reasons.

The ability to get drafted is one way of measuring relative success. Here's an old article which discusses the idea in greater detail than I will here...

LINK

There's two ways to look at this:

1) 4* and 5* players make up approx half of the first round draft picks and about a quarter of the entire draft. Considering that there's only about 25-30 5* players and 300-400 4* players, that is a comparatively high success rate. And it suggests that teams loaded with more highly rated players are truly more talented.

2) In the end, more than half a given draft is comprised of 3*, 2* and players who were not ranked out of high school. While this is coming from a pool of about 4000 players (as compared to the pool of about 400 players for 4* and 5*), the ones who are drafted are arguably similarly talented to the higher ranked players who are also drafted... And more talented than some of the 4* and 5* players who did not get drafted.

What does this mean? In my opinion...

- A team with more blue chip recruits is more likely to be more talented and to end up being higher ranked as a team than less talented teams. (Of course, coaching, schemes/style of play/strength of conference, and so on play a role in team rankings.)

- A team that works harder to vet lower ranked recruits can absolutely find some overlooked gems or luck into a player that will grow physically/mentally into a better than expected player. And such teams can absolutely compete with the majority of Power 5 conference teams.

In the last 15+ years, LSU has certainly had the luxury of consistently fielding talented teams. They've had a good number of 4* and 5*, who have largely succeeded. A few miss for whatever reason, but as the stats from the article I linked suggests, more than half of the 5* players they looked at missed, so I don't think LSU has an issue here... especially considering that LSU leads the league in active players. And LSU has also had it's fair share of unheralded players who have excelled (Mo Claiborne & Tyson Jackson, off the top of my head... I'm sure there's more.)

As for Moses, I don't think he lied or strung anyone along. Yeah, he de-committed a year or two back, but let's be honest here... he was more of a kid than a man at that point and how many guys end up marrying the girl they dated in 9th or 10th grade... especially when every girl (read: college) is throwing themselves at his feet. I also think he was leaning back to LSU before the season started and if LSU were undefeated... he'd still be leaning LSU. The fact that Moses committed to Bama one week after LSU dropped its 2nd game and fired Miles is circumstantial proof to me that we were under strong consideration.

Without looking, I'm not sure if Moses is an early enrollee. If he is, then the uncertainty of our interim staff, which probably won't resolve until after the new year, will make it hard to flip him back. If he's not an early enrollee, then we have a chance. But he's not likely to consider us until he knows who the coaches will be.

Not if they're coached by Miles.

no

but 20% of the 5 stars make it in the NFL.

there are huge numbers of three stars and many of them put in the time, learn the position and make it in the NFL too.

the very top 5 stars have a better than 20% success rate.
Landon Collins was a steal by the Giants.
He was all over the field vs LSU. won games.

The only thing they guarantee is how upsetting it is when they don't pan out.

No. the only guarantee is better odds.