Is This Good? Data Reveals 5-Star Recruits Have 63% Draft Rate

[Charles Fischer]

You can spin this a number of directions....that Stars DO matter the majority of the time.  Of course another way to look at it is how over a THIRD of 5-Star players don't get drafted.  How do YOU interpret this article?

 

On3 data reveals 5-star recruits have 63% draft rate

WWW.ON3.COM

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Data collected by On3 from the past five NFL drafts show that the major recruiting media companies have been getting it right when handing out stars.

 

[DanLduck]

The "stars" ratings don't measure intangibles like work ethic and desire.

Too many kids work on physical skills that will yield higher measurables, thus a higher star rating. 

 

To me, 'ya gotta want it' often is more valuable than natural ability. 

[Charles Fischer]

On 3/16/2022 at 1:11 PM, DanLduck said:

To me, 'ya gotta want it' often is more valuable than natural ability. 

OL Coach Steve Greatwood spoke of how tons of players had the natural ability, but he was trying to find out what was "here," as he was patting his heart.  Agreed, my friend!

[Flyin Vee]

Hypothetically assume 32 5 stars a year. NFL draft 7 rounds of 32 players = 224 total picks. I am to lazy to do the math, but 63% of 32, somewhere around 20 out of 224, or around 10% of all picks were 5,,,,,,.....what was the question again?

[Duck 1972]

I went through my nephew who played baseball being drafted. I know it's a different sports but I believe this is a similarity.

 

The highly thought of players that had the physical tangibles were selected higher and promoted faster above the grinders who had leveled out but who played better than the so called stars in HS, college and even the minors.

 

Just can't believe the NFL is any different. 

[Drake]

Professional sports has a long history of good and bad decisions on draft day. So the guys that rank HS talent are in good company with good and bad evaluations. 
 

The NFL is a demanding place to work. Every team has highly ranked players. A 5 star player just out of HS has a long way to go to be physically, and mentally prepared to play professional football.  Attrition from those highly ranked players is inevitable as they face stiffer competition in college. 
 

If 60% of 5 star players get drafted then that indicates that the rankings are far from perfect. So, that simply means that we need a whole lot more 5 star ranked players. 
 

 

[David Marsh]

Having the physical traits is important for starters and that alone will be a major factor. 

 

I loved playing basketball in middle school and high school... Never was that good at it... And I was often one of the taller players on my team so I played forward and sometimes center. Which was fine for me back then. But at 6 foot I am far too short to ever have been considered for any high level team unless I was going to play guard and even then I wasn't that fast or even good at playing guard. 

 

So the physical measurables are a must have to start with. 

 

Troy Dye was a beast at Oregon but he was a bit undersized to be a linebacker but he did work hard and did make the leap to bekng drafted. 

 

Vernon Adams was an incredible deep ball throwing quarterback. He worked very hard but he really couldn't overcome some of the physical measurables to get him in the door at the NFL. I don't think the injuries helped ... But he could really play. 

 

Measurables don't guarantee success but they are a starting point that most don't even have so it is easy to separate. It also leads to some crazy star inflation for some players... Just having those psyicial attributes make them better than those try play against at high school which does not build the needed work ethic for the next level. 

[Kurt Rambis]

Seems pretty clear:  the higher your star rating, the higher the chances you'll eventually be drafted - and the gaps are huge.  At the same time, it's not a sure thing at all.  

 

Some of the same things have been done with the stats on NFL draft position - first round choices have a much higher chance of making the team, still being in the NFL after five years, making the Pro Bowl, etc. than lower round choices, but there are still plenty of first rounders who wash out. 

 

Recruiting ranking and draft position are no guarantee, but both suggest much higher chances of making it.  We can all talk about the 6th round choice who ended up a superstar (Tom Brady), the UFA who ended up a Hall of Famer (Donnie Shell), and the nobody recruit who ended up with the Heisman (Marcus Mariota).  And those things certainly happen.  But the odds are strong that the highest rated players will find success over the lower rated players.

[kirklandduck]

The big thing to remember here is that star rankings are a rough evaluation of a football player's talent at the high school level, emphasis on "rough".  A lot of what goes on when those ratings are calculated are subjective which is why results will never, ever be perfect.  Subsequently you have to look at this from an aggregate level, which is what this on3 article is doing.  63% of 5 star players are drafted, according to them.  Given the sheer number of college football players vs NFL roster availability, there's a pretty small percentage of players that make it...so in that context, 63% is a pretty high hit rate.  Compare that with 4 star and 3 star rankings they list in the article:

 

Quote

In fact, over the past five years, players ranked as five stars are 15 times more likely to get drafted vs. two stars or lower prospects. Four-star recruits over the past five years are 5.2 times more likely to get drafted over two stars and three-stars are 1.3 times more likely to get picked.

Assuming their numbers are accurate, a higher number of stars means you're more likely to get into the NFL but it's not a guarantee which the article does not say it is in any way.  

[Haywarduck]

And how many of them played for and win a national championship? Programs need 5* star talent, 5* talent does end up in the NFL at a higher rate, but what part of the formula for winning a national title is recruiting 5* players? 

 

I think it could be argued Oregon needs more 5* players to compete for a national title, but how many? Is the talent level more important than the culture, the scheme? We definitely see programs loaded with talent underperform. We also see genius coaches who can't compete with the talent they recruit. 

 

There has to be a balance and no one thing can be the focus of a program. We have had coaches who aren't balanced, great at one thing, and it hasn't worked. There is no one magic area to focus on, and that will get us a national title. I do think it is an area we can improve upon, but merely having NFL talent won't get us to where we want this program. 

 

One thing I would be interested in seeing is the number of camps, 4* and 5* players have been too. The kid who scouts flock to see is different than the kid who is promoted at each camp he goes too. Some kids don't go to camps, yet still get the press. A Herschel Walker type is too busy running track and running over people to go to camps.  Other kids don't go to any camps, and don't get any press. 

 

I just want to make sure we don't focus too much on the star rating of the student athletes we recruit. Our recent RB transfer was a 2* coming out of high school, but runs a 4.4 40. Sometimes a position coach knows what he is looking for, and he isn't in the recruiting circles top picks. We will definitely need more 5* recruits on our roster, but we need coaches choosing which guys they want too.

[Washington Waddler]

     On a national level, assessing a player’s raw talent by the star system appears to be the only means possible to give some general sense of what a football program stands to gain by offering a scholarship and NILS $ in exchange for at least one year of service.

 

     Past that, evaluation is much more difficult, simply because it involves the development of  innumerable intangibles that effect, but rarely light up stat sheets and scoreboards. Those assessments are the outcome of coaches committed to their students, and often involve slow, painstaking teaching that can result in the maturing of the whole player.

 

     That kind of player attract stars, but more importantly, attracts program interest within the channels of mentoring relationships that coaches truly rely upon to get the fuller picture of what a player is about. It’s a smaller system than the star one, but it gets results.