247Sports explains how they "missed" on Justin Jefferson as a recruit

LINK

247sports.com recently took a deep dive into how it miscalculated the college potential of legendary LSU WR Justin Jefferson so severely.

247 seems to revolve most of the blame around the fact that college coaches at the time were not giving Jefferson much attention.

quote:

---

But how did Jeffeson go so unnoticed? How did the recruiting industry miss so badly?
Let 247Sports explain. 247Sports Director of Scouting Barton Simmons doesn’t really remember Jefferson from high school. There’s a reason for that.
Few colleges were aware of his existence.

---

quote:

---

“From the industry perspective, it’s important to remember our goal is to evaluate and rank FBS prospects,” Simmons said. “Within that process, if a kid is not being offered by colleges, be that for grades, off the field or him not being good enough, we’re rarely going to take the time to dig into what he is as a prospect. 

---

247 provides a few theories as to why Jefferson received such little attention from premier programs. One was an academic elgibility issue. Second was a concern about his slender frame. And third was a concern that he was always going to LSU anyway.

247 does try to give themselves some props in the process of this article however.

quote:

---

Sonny Shipp, who helps rank players in Louisiana for 247Sports, said the Top247 put a three-star ranking on Jefferson before his senior season. 247Sports is the only recruiting vehicle to rank Jefferson higher than a two-star.

---

One thing that really stood out to me from the article and the whole "college coaches didn't pay attention to him so we didn't either" argument is that it is procedurally contrary to what I believed recruiting services did to rank recruits.

I think the natural assumption is that recruiting services go out and evaluate/rank prospects and colleges choose who to scout based on those evaluations/rankings. However, it seems from this article that 247 is implying that this actually occurs (at least somewhat) in the reverse order. Coaches scout and recruit players and recruiting services, at least partially, base their rankings off of the level of interest a prospect gets.

All that to say it may not be entirely 247's or ESPN's or Rivals' fault if an LSU commit drops in ranking. They seem to look at what coaches in the industry say and if, for whatever reason, a recruit is not getting a ton of high-major interest that may shift whatever algorithm they use and force them to lower the recruit's numerical ranking.