Louisiana always has kids who "emerge" as the season progresses.... It seems to be this way every year. Louisiana kids who are listed early are major recruits and as the football season gets here more and more of the kids who aren't so high-profile all of a sudden become highly recruited football players. One such player was rufus alexander of Christian Life Academy in Baton Rouge. Rufus was not really listed on too many lists early in the year but as the year wore on he became a highly recruited player. In fact, one local radio show in Baton Rouge had a well known so-called recruiting "guru" who runs another LSU website on the air and when he was asked about Rufus Alexander he responded that he didn't think LSU would offer him and thought he would end up at a state school such as McNeese, etc. Well, Rufus Alexander actually ended up being offered by several SEC schools including LSU but he ended up at Oklahoma and now starts as a LB on the OU defense. The point is that it is far too early to think that Louisiana is in a down year and I certainly would not reach that conclusion based on the information put out by some so-called "guru" on some of these websites who have proven over the years to be about as accurate as a coin flip. When all is said and done, Louisiana will once again have a strong class of players going into D1A football programs.
Well Stripes, there are alwys going to be a few players who move up or down based on performance or being overlooked, that's a natural. Even happens with the NFL analysts and the GM's around the league. However, the offers that LSU has given out tells me the talent levels are way down right now. Will some guy have a super year and get an offer, yes, but iot isn't going to be widespread unless LSU strikes out on most of the out of staters. Well.. Chicago, Cali, Texas... big markets.. gotta cater to your big markets.. in the end, its a business... Ill. is the only one of those that surprised me. Texas and Cal actually do have that talent. Id say there is nothing wrong with it because ratings mean absolutely nothing. Weve all seen low to medium rated player become beasts and highly touted's become crap. That flies in the face of what has happened since Saban started recruiting these top classes. Sure they miss on some of the players, but they get most of them pretty darn accurate.
Well, you can worry and believe what you want... but I don't see anything to be alarmed about in friggin' July. I am simply stating the truth of the situation and this early in the process, Louisiana usually has relatively few recruits listed this early and the numbers continue to grow during the year when high school football season starts. That has been the way it has gone in Louisiana for years and this year is apparently no exception. All this is simply a by-product of the "early recruiting" process that goes on before a kid even enters his Senior year. As a matter of fact, you mentioned this phenomenon in your first post as you acknowledged that there had been several recent additions to Louisiana's list of recruits already. That list will continue to grow through the year and while every year is a little different, this recruiting years will end up being pretty strong as usual by the end. Just sit back and watch how many Louisiana kids are actually recruited by major schools even though this year may look a little down right now. I'm telling you that there will be kids that emerge from Mamou or somewhere which will all of a sudden be "hot commodities". It happens every year.
Re: Well, you can worry and believe what you want... cajdav, has Scout already ranked everyone? With Rivals, they have all the five star guys and a lot of the four star guys ranked right now, but they don't have near everyone ranked yet? I guess the reason I ask is isn't it a bit early to be comparing the final recruiting ranking from years past to the recruiting rankings of July before signing day?
Dallas, I noted that there will be additions and subtractions as they haven't rated everyone. But if there are additions, wouldn't there most likely be additions in the other states as well. And we'll see how it shakes out by Feb. but I bet the LSU offers do not increase substantially to in-state playerss by then unless they get shut out on the out of staters they are going hard after. To me the number of offers Miles has given is the best indicator of overall talent in Louisiana. From my experince I don't believe that to be true or that LA is different from any other state.
Well, Cajdav, here are some facts for you..... According to your source (Scout) the following Louisiana players are listed as "1-star" players: 1-Chris Brown of Alexandria is listed as a 1 star. Brown has offers from Bama; Arkansas; OU; Miss. State; & TCU. 2-Chris Mitchell of John Ehret in N.O. is listed as a 1 star. Mitchell has offers from LSU; Ole Miss; Nebraska; Auburn; & Texas Tech. 3-Jarred Mitchell (WR) of New Iberia is listed as a 1 star. Jarred Mitchell has offers from LSU; Stanford; Ole Miss; & Tulane. The following player isn't even listed by "Scout": 1-Zhamal Thomas (OL) of New Iberia. Thomas is NOT LISTED AT ALL. Thomas has offers from Arkansas; LSU; Clemson; Florida; OU; and Miss. State. I stopped after getting the information on these 4 players (I am certain there are more) and it didn't take 15 minutes to do it. These are four players which I know are better than 1-star ranking by any service that knows anything about recruiting in Louisiana at all and schools like those listed don't offer recruits who are 1-star quality. I have doubts about whether "Scout" has completed their Louisiana rankings as yet. However, if they have, they are woefully inaccurate regarding this upcoming class of Louisiana football players. In addition, I do believe that the OL from Evangel (Stroud) has already received an offer from Michigan and I don't think Michigan offers or signs too many 1-star recruits either. You can believe what you want but I still say that you can expect quite a few additions to the Louisiana listing as the year goes on.
The one stars and 2 stars have not yet been rated, almost all of the 3's have been rated and all of the 4 and 5 star players have been rated. But like I said, don't just go off the ratings, go off the offers that Miles and other major programs have given out to LA players, I trust them the most.
Well, as of today, Scout is still adding players..... Louisiana is now listed with: 1-5 star player 4-4 star players 13-3 star players That is a difference in 3 star players from your original post of 7 3-star players which more than doubles your listed original number of six 3-star players alone. It looks as if the rating process is not over but even if it is there is no way that any rating service can ignore the entire Senior year of players who may have tremendous years in their last year of high school. That's what makes these early rankings of players so questionable. You are trying to rank a player without considering his most recent and in most cases his most productive year in high school. This is why rankings will change based on what players actually accomplish as the year goes on. Bottom line is that Louisiana high school talent was/is some of the best in the nation and this year's class is a little light on OL's but overall will be fairly strong, as usual.
