| 17 March 2010
I don't get around to other boards.I go to Rivals because of the national film database. I have not been to their message board one time. I am on Bucknuts every day. I stop by Buckeye Planet now and again. The conversationat those sites is enough to leave me scratching my head.
Today I would like to be celebrating several more verbals and talking about those players, but the fallout from those verbals has prompted to to address what fans are talking about. Yes, I used the term "fallout." That seems to be the reaction. What has fans all worked up is the lack of "stars" for the committed players. I am not going to tell you they don't matter. I think they do. Yes, there are always exceptions. We can always point to Malcolm Jenkins and many other players who rose above their rankings. The percentages of four and five star players becoming stars is higher. The better the prospect, the better the chance the player is going to pan out.
What I want to point out is the date. It is March. March 17th to be exact. National signing day was just about five weeks ago for the class of 2010. Who has stars? Nobody. We in the business of evaluating players are just getting up to speed on the class of 2011. Take DerJuan Gambrell and Antonio Underwood. I had to run it through my mind for a minute to remember what position Underwood played when I heard about his offer and verbal. I was not aware of Gambrell at all. Mark Porter is the only person I know who sees more Ohio players than me. He knew more about them than I did but had not taken the time to break down and evalute either player at the time of their offers. Rivals is the national film king of this business. Mark and I have not seen all the players we need to see in Ohio. You think Rivals is going to be able to rank the entire nation five weeks after national signing day? Come on.
The other argument is offers. MalcolmTen covered that in a question to the Bucknuts board, He asked do fans really believe that the coaches on other regions of the country know who the top players in Ohio are right now? They may know who the top players are at Glenville and Centerville but they are not going to know who the top players are Toledo Rogers, Shaker Heights and Cleveland JFK.We are about six weeks from when they can make personal contact. It is very difficult for staffs to recruit out of state players until May 1st of their junior year.
Of our seven verbals I see Kenny Hayes and Steve Miller as five star guys. I think Kris Farris will be at least a four-star player. Chis Carter could be a four-star. Bobek will be at least a three-star and maybe a four-star. Gambrell and Underwood are going to be three-star players.
Give it time. Let the national ratings services do their thing.
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