My basic premise is that the more people who look at a kid and think he has potential, the more likely he is to have it. Over the course of a year, analysts from Scout, rivals, and ESPN look at kids, and rate them, but also coaches at various levels do. Take the example of Murray above. ESPN hasn't rated him at all, Scout gave him 2 stars (their minimum), but Rivals has him at 5.6 and 3 stars (very high for a MAC recruit, average for BCS). Furthermore, four BCS schools, Illinois, Iowa State, Kansas, and Washington State put their money where their mouth is, and made offers, plus he has some other offers. Therefore there are at least 6 reviewers that think he's very good (including Ohio's staff), and one, scout.com, that wasn't overly impressed.

The fact is that if you go back to 2005-2008, the majority of recruits had no competitive offers. Some of those turned out well, others not so well. Looking at 2006, Posey and Williamson turned out great, but how much playing time did we see from Pete Reese or Robert Mercer (of course, it could have been injuries, I have no idea)? In 2007 some with no other offers include Lavon Brazill, Matt Donahue, Curtis Meyers, but players like Marcus O'Hara and Brian Sweeney never played much, if at all. By 2008 and beyond, most of the players, even with no competitive offers, have turned out pretty well. 2008 includes some low ranked players like Matt Weller, Travis Carrie, Vince Carlotta, Alphonso Lewis, and Neal Huynh. 2009 you have Ryan Boykin and Carl Jones. In 2010 you have Ryan McGrath who was alone at the bottom, yet one of the first to play.

How about the ones at the top of my chart? Generally they have turned out well. Here are the top rated incoming freshmen, by my rating system:
2006 - Hubbard (xfered to Oklahoma State via Juco), McCrae, Hodge, Taylor Price
2007 - Keller, Harden, Flading, Spegal (injured?), Dunlop
2008 - Bussey, Britain (injured), Moore, Tremayne Scott, Jordan Thompson, Eric Herman
2009 - Lechner, Hughes, John Taylor, Gary Fortune (xfered), James Davis (xfered), Sam Johnson, Tettleton
2010 - Carpenter, Mark Smith, Kristoff, Cochran, Grady, Snyder (xfered)
2011 - I gave the top rated ones in a prior post, but virtually anyone in the class would have been considered "high-rated" in any of the years 2006-2010
2012 - Again, virtually everyone on the list would be included in the "high-rated" players from 2006-2010

MH55...Once again refusing to let a trivial thing like fact get in the way of a reasonable interaction...

"]["emple logic...

I would love to see what Ohio's coaching staff could do with the recruiting classes Beckman brought into Toledo the last few years, but that's only because in' m very unprofessional opinion Ohio molds its roster as well as any in the MAC. The stability of the staff  and steady improvement of the entire roster is fun to see. You don't get that everywhere.

Impressive. Good work.

How does yesterdays committ fit into your "no other offers" theory......he actually de-committed from Memphis:

Nicholas Gibbons (Updated 1/22)

Stone Mountain Stephenson, GA

T

6-4/295

Ohio*, BC*, Illinois*, Memphis*, Marshall*, S Alabama*, Wake Forest*,

The latest recruits were, on my scale, about equivalent to the first ones, and set the stage for a class comparable in quality to last year's class, or perhaps slightly better, though smaller in size. In my opinion these last two classes were clearly superior to all the prior Solich classes at Ohio, and that sets the stage for Ohio to show some significant improvement from current levels over the next few years. Ohio may indeed make a run for the top 25 by 2014-15..

Sir, without the benifit of real film study, game attendance, personal interview, coach interview, you judged these recruits as not to Ohio standard.  You presented an assumption about how coaches were not getting after recruits like you woud expect.  You seem to judge these athletes by the other offers they have received, that the earlier recruits are not to Gibbons level.  You are not clairvoyant and have not researched the earlier recruits like the staff. Me I will stand by the staff and the earlier players.  I expect them to fit in, to accept their roles to work hard and to get bigger, stronger and faster over the next few years and to make you proud.  This is a process, it is coach Solich's process. Calling for heads to roll when you are not clairvoyant and really don't know these recruits is nuts.

Gosh I love this board.... That's the best laugh I've had in days.
(and I can laugh, as it's happened to me, too)

Thanks delbobcat and others. Great insight. You guys know your stuff.

Monroe, that was his post admitting he was wrong. The original post said that according to Rivals.com, IIemple had the lowest ranking per verbal, which he denied. After careful research, his post above admits that IIemple indeed has the least stars per verbal by the fact that he no longer denies it, and instead he moves the discussion to Scout.com. While it isn't a very classy way to admit he was wrong, it is the best you can expect from him.