Why college football recruiting is overrated
Is College Football recruiting really worth all of the coverage and hype?
Recruiting is important. Just ask Alabama. However, recruiting also receives a bit too much attention for what it’s worth.
Say your favorite team is in the run for some of the top recruits in the nation. While it may seem totally normal to be excited and even expect these new additions to lead your team to contend for the College Football Playoff, having such high expectations for recruiting may not always hold up.
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The first reason college football recruiting is overrated is because the process starts too early, and recruits may not end up joining their respective team at all. So much of recruiting hype happens months before recruiting season heats up and things get stable. For instance, its big news for many players when they commit early to a school, but the problem is when some of them change their mind as National Signing Day approaches.
According to Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples, between the years 2007 and 2011, 12.4 percent of recruits ended up flipping their original commitment. In 2014, Mitch Sherman from ESPN quoted Utah safeties coach Morgan Scally saying “It’s gotten so bad that it’s almost not worth taking commitments in the spring.”
With that being said, it’s hardly worth getting excited when a player commits to a school a year early, and especially two or three years early because a lot can change within that time frame.
The second reason College Football recruiting has become overhyped is when some of these talented players do end up on your favorite team and have solid performances, yet about midway through the season, a couple of them decide to transfer to another school. It’s fairly common for players to transfer schools, and although the two aren’t directly related, it still dilutes the relevance of all the recruiting hype.
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Third, recruiting star ratings aren’t always reliable, and from time to time a highly recruited player will turn into a bust as shared by Athlon Sports here.
While highly rated players may be more likely to perform at a higher level than lower rated players, there’s only so much stock you can put in the ratings. An underrated player could well end up being a solid contributor in their first season, even on a pretty talented team.
In fact, according to CBS Sports, not one starter from last year’s Super Bowl was a five-star prospect, although it remains to be said that some weren’t around at the time of star ratings. Several players were two stars, including the Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, according to the scouting resources CBS Sports listed.
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college football recruiting should be taken with a grain of salt, because who really knows how players are going to turn out and just where the may end up. Recruiting shouldn’t be hyped year-round like it is because so much of it can change. Lastly, the ratings are an inexact science and that’s why we see five-star busts as frequently as we see two-star recruits come out of nowhere.
While recruiting is important, other factors, such as coaching and a strong work ethic, also play into the development of athletes and the overall talent level a team has.