Of the 32 first-round picks in this year's draft, only ten were 5-star recruits by 247 Sports, 12 were 4-star, six were 3-star, two were 2-star, and two were NRs. Corey Davis was a 2-star, and I think ESPN said that WMU was his only offer.

http://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/2017-nfl-d... /

Some guys just blossom later and others get the right coaching.

Worse, the ratings lose accuracy quickly as you move lower in the rankings, where the analysts spend a lot less time per recruit on evaluations. That, plus the fact that the group of athletes a school like Ohio gets is non random, makes the annual exercise of looking at recruiting rankings of entertainment value only. In a recent thread on the recruiting forum, I showed that there is a negative correlation between the rankings and how the athletes perform on the field for Ohio:
http://www.bobcatattack.com/messageboard/topic.asp?FromPa...

This is a relationship I have consistently found, not just a unique data set. Why does it happen? Here are some plausible reasons:
1. The three star athletes that a G5 school gets tend to be the lower end 3 star recruits, not a random sample of 3-star recruits. As such, there tends to be little difference between them and the 2-star athletes.
2. Analysts spend most of their time on 3-star and up recruits, so they tend to miss some good players in the 2-star and under pool.
3. The two-star and under recruits that Ohio, and other G5 schools, take are not random 2-star athletes. They tend to be the best of the 2-star recruits.
4. The unrated players tend to be late blossoming players, and when Ohio goes into that pool, they tend to be looking for true gems, not just another body. That's where Ohio has found players like Carrie, Brazill, Basham, and Brown.

From my post on the recruiting board:
[quote=LC]... This doesn't mean that highly rated players are always bad, nor that low rated players are always great, just that the low rated players have tended to be a bit better, on average. To illustrate the differences, here are are two lists. The first is the players who had 247Composite 3-star ratings, and the second is the unrated players. There are good players in both groups, but the very best players are in the unrated group, and there are less players who never were starters in the unrated group:
Sebastian Smith .85
Joey Duckworth .84
Jared McCray .84
Joe Lowery .82
Robbie Walker .81
Zach Murdock .81
John Tanner .81
Justin Wyatt .80
Greg Windham .80
Corey Quallen .80

Unrated players:
Tarrell Basham .70
Blair Brown .70
Davon Henry .70
Toran Davis .70
Maleek Irons .70
Brendon Cope .70
Kylan Nelson .70[/OUTER_QUOTE]

Finn, that's pretty remarkable accuracy, I'd have to agree. I've always said that their accuracy at the top end is much better than the accuracy at the bottom end. That isn't too surprising since that is their point of emphasis.