College Football Recruiting: Dispelling the myth stars don’t matter

Offense

The most successful position for former blue chips is running back, easily. Just 8.5 percent of 2018 running back recruits were blue chips, but a whopping 75 percent of NFL starters were once highly touted recruits.

Next up is receivers, a group that goes from 11.2 percent in high school to slightly more than 45 percent in the NFL. Quarterbacks are the least correlative position offensively, as 12.6 percent of high school quarterbacks were blue chips, and just 43.8 percent of NFL quarterbacks get that distinction. Still however, that is an increase, and a pretty impressive one at that.

Defense

On the other side of the ball, the highest success rate for blue chips comes at outside linebacker. 9.2 percent of high school recruits are considered to be blue chips, and that number jumps to 48.9 percent in the NFL. Next up is inside linebacker, where we see an increase from 11.4 percent in high school to 46 percent in the NFL.

The defensive backs are a strange anomaly, that can be explained mostly by the large amount of defensive backs coming out of high school. There were 358 ranked cornerbacks in the class of 2018, and 34 of them (9.5 percent) were blue chips. There were fewer safeties, 277 in 2018, (25 blue chips, or 9.0 percent) but still more than all but three other positions. In both instances, the NFL numbers are lower than every other skill position.

Just 34.4 percent of NFL starting corners are former blue chips, while 35.9 percent of safeties got that distinction. It’s still an increase, but not as much of a massive one. Along with the increase in prospects, this can also be chalked up to the nature of the position. Defensive backs can generally survive off of either a ton of speed and athleticism or great technique, and having one but not the other is usually what results in a lower ranking. That means that specialty players are more likely to survive in the defensive backfield.