I guess my disagreement with your post was about the actual importance of the ranking for an individual, known recruit.
If you followed the recruitment or saw the film of Jaylon, Teo, or Floyd then you knew that they were a big-time get, regardless of the star rating. But similarly, it was clear that Golden Tate, Mike McGlinchey, Ronnie Stanely, etc. were similar major gets to anyone who knew what they were talking about..........though fools like
@chaseball and
@NDIRISH53 some manage to lose the importance of these recruits bc
@MFarrell doesn't think they look good enough in their underwear.
Recruiting rankings are useful on a statistical level, as you've pointed out, but they're too inaccurate to be useful in evaluating an individual, known recruit.
Example: The rankings of Kristofic and Hamilton do NOTHING to impact the fact that they are major, major gets and high impact prospects/talents.
Golden Tate was the composite 81st ranked player in the country with a 0.9594 rating.
Ronnie Stanley was the composite 125th ranked player in the country with a 0.9472 rating.
Mike McGlinchey was the composite 172nd ranked player in the country with a 0.9280 rating.
By any reasonable standard a top 150 recruit is considered a high 4 star player. While I disagree with Chase at times regarding his thoughts on recruiting, I've never seen him complain when Notre Dame lands a top 150 player. Both Stanley and Tate fell in that range (and deservedly so) and McGlinchey barely missed the cut. The guys that rank players aren't psychic. They make film evaluations and have to slot a bunch of guys that have similar talent levels and often have different skills sets and are at different points of their development. On top of that, it is impossible to know the work ethic, the relative health of the recruit, the individual quality of coaching he'll receive at whatever school he chooses, or the multitude of other factors that will have a positive, negative or neutral affect on his development... Because of those unknowns, is it possible that the 81st ranked player in the country develops into a top 10 player from his class? Of course. I've never seen a recruiting service suggest that can't happen, or even that it's unlikely. Chances are that the difference between let's say the 24th ranked player (a 5 star) and the 81st ranked played (a 4 high star) is very slim. It could literally (unfortunately) come down to something as simple as politics or business, or it could simply be something completely benign, such as the struggle to rank 100+ players that essentially have the same level of skill.
Did Mike McGlinchey and Ronnie Stanley out develop their rankings? Yes. But were their ratings so off that the recruiting services clearly missed the boat on their talent level? Or did they simply fall inside the group of other excellent recruits in the country and work hard and stay healthy?... Furthermore, when the recruiting services ranked them it was based on film, camp success, reputation and perceived upside (plus some politics that can account for a small slide or a bump here or there). The recruiting services did not (and should not) account for the unknown fact that they would both commit to play for Harry Hiestand, and end up getting coached by the best offensive line coach in college football, who develops 1st round NFL talent at a higher rate than any of his peers. It is not possible to reflect that in the rankings. Was there much separating Ronnie and Mike from the maybe 8-10 guys ranked ahead of them as tackles in their class? Not at all. Did Harry Hiestand's coaching, combined with their commitment to development make up the difference (if there even was one)? Obviously, yes... It's not like they were composite 3 stars ranked in the 30's at their position, who had attended a ton of camps and had lots of film out there and the recruiting services just missed them. They were highly ranked 4 star players, who pushed the needle a little further. I think we'd be silly not to allow for that range in the development of a person who is 18 when they leave high school.
I agree that if you watched any of their tape that you knew they would be good... So did the services. That's why they were ranked among the best players in the country.
As for Jaylon, Manti and Mike... Nothing changes about what I said above. They were evaluated, deemed elite and ranked as such. They wound up being just as good as the recruiting services said they'd be. Going back to ND's "hit rate" on players ranked that highly. Again, it underlines the importance of landing not only top 150'ish players and top 100 players (because those players have a chance to be game changers) but it further underscores the importance of landing a couple 5 star, elite guys as well... Because when ND has, they've had over a 60% chance of becoming nationally recognized, award winning, All Americans and all time ND greats. That's not to say that other players of a slightly lesser rank can't achieve that, evidence simply shows that statistically, they'll do it less often.
As for Hamilton and Kristofic… They are being evaluated and re-evaluated. That's why services update their rankings. Yes there are some politics involved in that process, but, generally the idea is the increase the accuracy (especially accuracy of range) in the final rankings at the conclusion of the cycle. Both Kristofic and Hamilton were clearly ranked too low. We knew that. We've been talking about it for months and so have the people that cover Notre Dame. The recruiting services are now just getting around to seeing what we've seen all along. Why does it matter when it happens?
I agree with you that their ranking isn't the determining factor in how good they'll be. Their actual talent, work ethic, development, health and coaching will ultimately determine that... In saying that, it takes nothing away from the fact that landing top 150, top 100 and 5 star talent with ultimately lead to more success. That's really the undertone to all of Chaseball's recruiting arguments and overwhelming evidence both on the micro and macro levels suggests that to be true.
