Just how reliable are some of these recruiting "gurus"?

Sometimes it just boils down to where the kid really wants to play and has let everyone know it, especially his parents and coaches.

If Miles gets a call from a coach that tells him that a kid wants LSU real bad, he should listen REAL close and give the kid every opportunity to show his potential.

And realize also that some recruits may have a big influence over other potential recruits.

 

TigerRagAndrew, I am not complaining about a post being deleted....

on a forum. The point was that when one of these gurus was questioned about his contention that there were no OL recruits in Louisiana worthy of an LSU offer, he had no answer but chose to delete the post. He did so even though there were articles which prove the opposite of his continued
downplaying of Louisiana OL recruits.

The point is that some of this information put out by some of these so-called gurus is questionable at best and that it was, in my opinion, far too early for a recruiting "guru" to be writing off every OL recruit in the state when the recruits are still in their Junior year in high school, especially when schools such as USC, OU, UCLA, Bama, Auburn, Tennessee, Miami and many other major programs are actually recruiting Louisiana kids in LSU's backyard as we speak. This situation just made me wonder how truly accurate some of these guys are.

 

We'll know in a few months if any of the major programs are recruiting OL from LA. As Sabanfan pointed out, right now some kids may have offers from an LSU while not having one from some big schools for a variety of reasons. I'm sure the coaches are not even close to finishing their evaluations of many of the prospects they will look at between now and February.

 

My problem with these "gurus" is when they change the rankings of players after the players have committed to schools. Like last year, Perrilloux was the #1 qb until he commited to lsu, then sanchez moved up. I cant remember specifics, but ive seen it in other years. These sites make more money if they rank teams like USC, who are in a highly populated, high income area, about teams in the SEC, who are in generally more blue collar states. Yet, the SEC always puts the superior talent into the NFL.

 

I've only seen that with some of the players who were ranked as 2 or 3 stars and the services than went and looked much closer at thie kids, but it was usually when several of the bigtime programs offered them. I know on Insiders Sanchez was rated as the number one passing QB and RP was the number one combination and the number 2 passing QB pretty much the entire recruiting season.

I don't know what Rivals had them ranked.

 

Stripes:

I think many of the Rivals guys will tell you that evaluating OL is probably the most difficult position to do. So many lack the necessary physical maturity needed that it really makes it difficult. On top of this many evaluators have different philosophies about which is best (e.g. big massive guys that they whip into shape or leaner athletic guys that they bulk up properly). Different philosophies have produced good linemen, but I think it complicates evaluating potential. One thing I'm fairly confident about is that post-season high school awards, or the lack of them, is not a reliable predictor of next level success.

Generally, if the recruit is far away, he has sincere interest, and he doesn't have any obvious ties to the school, most likely the coaching staff has been working him for some time. Maybe Saban's staff was on him, but I would guess that that most likely Miles was on him because of the Big 12 connections. As a former lineman, Miles knows what he is looking for, and in this area particularly, I would cut him some slack.

As far as Scarborough goes, I was a member of Tigerbait for several years. Mike never claimed to be a talent evaluator himself, but he has a network of people whose opinion he trusts. His opinion is generally a synthesis of their opinions. There is nothing wrong with this as his focus is LSU recruiting, not deciding who LSU recruits. He will offer his opinion nevertheless from time to time. He may or may not be right, but it is an informed opinion and it's nothing to get upset over if you happen to disagree with it.

WRT your deleted post, no one can have an informed opinion on why unless they witnessed it's unfolding. You have a kind of rough style that can come across quite harsh. Maybe something you wrote was misinterpreted, or maybe it was something that should have been handled via email. It might not have had anything to do with you. Perhaps someone else posted something that was offensive and the whole thread got deleted. If you really want to know why, you will have to sincerely ask other members who saw this for some feedback.

 

They move as many up as they move down, but people consider the ups justified and only focus on the downs. I don't think many people realize what a massive undertaking it is to rank all these players and they are constantly getting new information all the time. While we all want to see them do it because it does communicate something to us, it's kind of ridiculous to think that they can actually rank order all these kids. But people pay them to do it and I think they do the best they can. Personally, I think the Rivals ranking (i.e. the 6.1, 6.0, 5.9 etc) is about as detailed a ranking that they can get. Even the pros, who expend orders of magnitude more resources on a smaller population pool have a tough time getting the evaluations "right." Typically, only about 1/2 of the top 5 draft picks ever make a pro bowl and the success rate goes down from there.

 

Indiana Tiger, while I may be blunt & to the point....

I simply do not understand how or why someone who SELLS his service as a
supposed source of knowledge regarding LSU recruiting doesn't do a better job of research. That also goes for any service not just specificly one devoted to LSU or recruiting in general.

The point of this thread wasn't to bash Rivals or anyone in particular. However, that site is marketed as a recruiting site and charges for what is supposed to be accurate information. Rivals aside, I have heard the same mentality regarding LSU not offering ANY Louisiana OL prospect this year and how there are non OLs in Louisiana worthy of LSU's interest. It isn't just Rivals.

In truth, there are several OL prospects in Louisiana who are actively being recruited by not only LSU but other MAJOR Football programs. Anybody who follows recruiting at all knows that Doug Stroud from Evangel is a big-time recruit. As is JaMarr Thompson of East St. John & Daverin Geralds has certainly received interest from LSU.

The point of all this is how can they all be so inaccurate on IN-state recruits and be looked upon as reliable sources of information on out of state recruits?
For some reason, some but not all of the recruiting "gurus" seem to be
either ignoring major OL recruits in Louisiana or are simply poorly informed.

If you consider this thread harsh, so be it, but in fact it's a legitimate question regarding what other posters who follow recruiting think about
the information which is tallked about on local radio in Baton Rouge and other areas in Louisiana by these gurus who at least portray themselves as knowledgable. It has become noticeable that the information given out by some of these services/gurus over the last year or two has become questionable at least regarding Louisiana recruits. There is no doubt about it.
If this offends you, sorry.

 

Some info on LA OL recruits:

Doug Stroud 6-7 350

This guy will probably be recruited by most of the top programs around the country but has yet to receive any offers as of 3/22. LSU was not among his favorites at that time. His dad played for Ole Miss. His favorites are Arkansas, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Alabama, Michigan and Georgia with Ole Miss and Bama at the top.

Daverin Geralds 6-3.5 285

He likes Oklahoma, Duke, Tennessee, USC and LSU. No offers yet. Has been contacted by UT, Duke and one other school.

There are really no other LA OL on the radar right now that are getting much attention from the major colleges. But I do believe there may be several of the DL in LA that get offers to play OL such as Chaz Washington.

 

I think it depends on which site you are talking about.

I don't subscribe to any LSU Recruiting Site because I can get everything here and many times I don't feel as if the guys doing those sites really have a feel for what they are doing. Maybe its me.

My friend has a GatorCountry.com pass (he went to UF of course) and he is blown away by how inside and informative the owners are of UF football