Shouldn't surprise anyone, but I thought this article from the Athletic on USC's decline had an interesting tidbit about recruiting that I think we all know to be true:
"Top-10 classes are determined by the recruiting sites, and while they’re typically accurate at the top, USC has generally been an outlier. Stars matter, but they seem to matter more at Alabama and Ohio State than they do at USC, which has a top-10 roster according to 247Sports’ team talent composite, but doesn’t have the talent that reflects a top-10 team.
In some instances, the Trojans signed players who were simply overrated by the recruiting services.
“They’re over-ranked,” the parent of the former Trojan and current NFL player said. “And then the machine perpetuates it because they go, ‘Hey, who has the most five-stars?’ Everybody wants to have the most five-star athletes. It doesn’t matter if a guy is a five-star or not. … So they get all these guys on their team but they’re not good football players.”
“USC always is gonna be ranked top 10 in recruiting but that’s because when you commit to USC you’re all of a sudden ‘a great’ recruit,’” one of the former assistants said. “We had coaches in the building who knew the guys at (the recruiting sites) and they’d call them, ‘Hey I need you to rate this kid as a 4-star before I take his commitment.’ That’s the way that stuff works.
“If we signed 25 kids there were 10 of them that were that way. We had so many (four and five-star guys) who were just terrible. We signed one five-star linebacker and he would’ve been a really good player 30 years ago when it was just going from A-gap to A-gap but not these days when you gotta go tackle perimeter screens now and go sideline to sideline. Look at all those cats that Alabama is running around with. Saban turns down 10 five-stars a year because he knows they’re not good enough.”
Don't think it's a secret that a lot of the recruiting rankings are relatively pre-determined. Rankings still matter in the aggregate, but the scouting and developing (and holding on to recruits that "blow up") is a big deal too.
theathletic.com
"Top-10 classes are determined by the recruiting sites, and while they’re typically accurate at the top, USC has generally been an outlier. Stars matter, but they seem to matter more at Alabama and Ohio State than they do at USC, which has a top-10 roster according to 247Sports’ team talent composite, but doesn’t have the talent that reflects a top-10 team.
In some instances, the Trojans signed players who were simply overrated by the recruiting services.
“They’re over-ranked,” the parent of the former Trojan and current NFL player said. “And then the machine perpetuates it because they go, ‘Hey, who has the most five-stars?’ Everybody wants to have the most five-star athletes. It doesn’t matter if a guy is a five-star or not. … So they get all these guys on their team but they’re not good football players.”
“USC always is gonna be ranked top 10 in recruiting but that’s because when you commit to USC you’re all of a sudden ‘a great’ recruit,’” one of the former assistants said. “We had coaches in the building who knew the guys at (the recruiting sites) and they’d call them, ‘Hey I need you to rate this kid as a 4-star before I take his commitment.’ That’s the way that stuff works.
“If we signed 25 kids there were 10 of them that were that way. We had so many (four and five-star guys) who were just terrible. We signed one five-star linebacker and he would’ve been a really good player 30 years ago when it was just going from A-gap to A-gap but not these days when you gotta go tackle perimeter screens now and go sideline to sideline. Look at all those cats that Alabama is running around with. Saban turns down 10 five-stars a year because he knows they’re not good enough.”
Don't think it's a secret that a lot of the recruiting rankings are relatively pre-determined. Rankings still matter in the aggregate, but the scouting and developing (and holding on to recruits that "blow up") is a big deal too.
How USC crashed a 'friggin' Ferrari' of talent, and what it means for the next head coach
USC's stretch of poor recruiting and NFL development is due to incomplete scouting, coaching turnover and Clay Helton's mismanagement.
theathletic.com
