Thursday, April 28, 2011

Reviewing The 2006 Recruiting Class: Top 50

brandon-graham ricky-dixon

Brandon Graham and Ricky Dixon

A few years ago I took a look at the Rivals top 100 and attempted to evaluate the success or failure of the kids in it, ranking each player on a five point scale and coming up with an average. It was pretty interesting but an enormous pain in the butt and the vague desire to repeat that study for future classes paled in comparison to the mountain of tedious research it required.

But if ESPN is going to do the tedious research for me, I'm on board. What follows is a reprise of the earlier post's methodology. Players are rated on a five point scale:

  1. Total bust.
  2. Contributor but a marginal one, or a not-very-good starter.
  3. Average starter.
  4. All-Conference-ish player in a BCS league, likely NFL draftee.
  5. All-American-ish player, likely to be drafted in top two rounds.

These should roughly correspond with star rankings. Players on the borderline will be assinged a 3.5 or whatever. Players who don't make it for reasons other than talent?injury, grades or being a total knucklehead?are noted as such. It's a bit much to expect recruiting analysts to project who is going to rob a liquor store.

This post covers the ESPN top 50. The table below has rankings from the three major services and a brief explanation of what happened to them.

Player School ESPN Scout Rivals Rating
Myron Rolle FSU 1 7 12 4
Three year starter and second-team All ACC at FSU; left for Rhodes Scholarship before senior year. Sixth round pick of Titans, NFL backup.
Percy Harvin UF 2 8 1 5
All-purpose Florida ninja. First round pick of Vikings, offensive rookie of year.
Vidal Hazelton USC 3 5 7 Inj
50 catches for USC as soph, injured, buried on depth chart, transfer to Cinci, injured in first game at UC.
Andre Smith Bama 4 2 2 5
Three year starter left to be top ten pick after true junior season.
Matt Stafford UGA 5 11 6 5
Instant starter at UGA, first pick in 2009 draft.
DeMarco Murray OK 6 37 35 4.5
Part of backfield platoon for first three years; 1200 yards at 4.3 YPC as senior, two-time AB12, expected to be 2nd-3rd round pick
Sergio Kindle Texas 7 6 5 5
Three-time AB12, AA as senior, second round pick of Ravens, Butkus finalist
Taylor Mays USC 8 21 16 5
Brutal headhunter was four-time AA. Second round pick of 49ers.
Micah Johnson UK 9 9 36 3.5
Three year starter had some injury problems but was 1st team All SEC as junior; undrafted, practice squad type in NFL.
Antwine Perez USC 10 43 29 3
Transferred to Maryland after one year, worked way into starting lineup as junior, probably won't be drafted.
Maurice Evans PSU 11 62 46 3.5
Monster sophomore season (12.5 sacks, Hendricks finalist) followed by minor legal trouble, disappointing junior year, early NFL draft entry. Went undrafted and is a practice squad guy.
Mitch Mustain ARK 12 10 10 1
Left after Las Cronicas Locas, transferred to USC, sat on bench, lost to ND in only start.
Jevan Snead Texas 13 68 61 3
Beat out by Colt McCoy, transferred to Ole Miss. Mediocre two-year starter there. Idiotically entered NFL draft after 20-int junior year. Surprise: undrafted.
Stafon Johnson USC 14 13 18 3
Member of USC diverse but mediocre backfield as soph/junior. Dropped 275 pounds on his throat before senior season. Entered draft anyway, made team, immediately destroyed ankle.
Tim Tebow UF 15 29 22 5
Is Tim Tebow.
Jai Eugene LSU 16 17 #12 CB 2
Started nine games as a sophomore but was LSU's nickel guy after that; bacup safety as senior.
Al Woods LSU 17 12 20 4
Contributor for four years, starter as senior. No college accolades but a fourth round NFL draft pick.
Marcus Ball FSU 18 67 37 TKE
Problem-ridden LB suspended three times before transfer to JUCO, then Memphis. Was starting for Tigers before getting suspended again. http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/nov/05/porter-suspends-tiger-senior-safety-ball/
Sam Young ND 19 3 11 4
Four year starter surrounded by utter incompetence. Sixth round pick of Dallas
Brandon Warren FSU 20 #7 TE 24 TKE
Contentious transfer after excellent freshman year; booted from Tennessee; at North Alabama.
Gerald McCoy OK 21 4 4 5
Two-time AA was third pick of NFL draft.
Eddie Jones Texas 22 20 25 3
Started as senior, contributed before that. Six sacks, one honorable-mention AB12. May go at the tail end of the draft.
Allen Walker Miss 23 89 60 3
Three year starter but not a notable one. No accolades, won't get drafted.
Carl Johnson UF 24 39 28 4
Three year starter and enormous human; projected to go in the fourth to sixth rounds of the upcoming draft.
Reshad Jones UGA 25 #13 S 14 4
Two year starter was twice second-team All SEC; picked in fifth round.
Allen Bradford USC 26 28 9 3
Another member of USC's consistently mediocre backfield. Had bust-out senior year until sidelined by injury.
Markeith Summers Miss 27 #81 WR #38 WR 2
Mostly a backup; did start as a senior but finished fourth on the team in receptions.
Jim Barrie UF 28 #58 OL #15 OT Inj
Career ended with ACL explosion.
Jermaine Cunningham UF 29 #13 DE #4 WDE 4
Three year starter was second team all SEC as a senior; second round NFL pick.
Chris Wells OSU 30 1 3 5
Human battering ram was brutally effective when healthy. First round pick.
Brandon Graham MICH 31 14 15 5
The best player in the history of awful defenses, Graham was an AA in 2009 and a first round pick of the Eagles.
Richard Dickson LSU 32 #13 TE #6 TE 3.5
Three year starter had 30 catches as soph/junior. Dropped off a bit as a senior. Second team All SEC twice; undrafted but stuck with Lions.
JB Walton PSU 33 #28 OL 72 Grades
Transferred to D-II school after academic issues.
J'Marcus Webb Texas 34 44 63 Grades
Played in every game as a freshman, then succumbed to academic issues. Got drafted in seventh round and started 12 games as a rookie.
Damon McDaniel FSU 35 #29 WR 69 1
Seven catches in two years; transferred to Hampton; didn?t do much there.
Adron Tennell OK 36 91 42 2
Vague contributor didn't do much until he was a senior and even then just 24 catches.
Emmanuel Moody USC 37 75 70 2
More mediocre USC tailbacks. Moody had about 400 yards each year he was at USC; he transferred to Florida and did little.
David Ausberry USC 38 46 66 2
Started as junior but was unproductive; moved to TE; played a bit. Won't get drafted.
Jeremiha Hunter Iowa 39 #19 LB 78 4
Three year starter was second team AB10 as senior. Probably will get drafted at tail end.
Byron Maxwell Clem 40 #20 CB #18 CB 3
Nickelback until his senior year, when he was a decent starter. May get drafted.
Terrence Austin UCLA 41 81 #14 WR 3.5
Second team AP10 as kick returner; also a decent receiver. Seventh round pick who stuck with Redskins.
Dustin Earnest Texas 42 83 #14 ILB 2
Career backup. Did contribute a decent number of tackles as an upperclassman.
Raeshon McNeil ND 43 92 74 3
Okay two-year starter was passed over by NFL.
James Aldridge ND 44 34 27 2
Mediocre runner averaged under 4.0 YPC for career; moved to FB as senior.
Mike Goodson A&M 45 18 32 3.5
Started off with a bang but production tailed off. Fourth round pick.
Konrad Reuland ND 46 40 81 3
Transferred to Stanford, started as a senior in TE-mad Harbaugh offense. Won't get drafted.
CJ Spiller Clem 47 16 8 5
Insanely explosive do-everything RB/KR/PR was a top ten pick.
Ricky Dixon LSU 48 #46 WR #23 WR 1
Two catches in two season; tranferred to Texas Southern.
Akeem Hebron UGA 49 32 65 1
JUCO, then three years at Georgia where he didn't do anything.
LeSean McCoy Miami 50 22 43 5
Prepped, went to Pitt, and was the Panthers offense for two years. Second round pick.

So what does this say?

The 44 players who didn't bomb out for unrelated reasons averaged a 3.4. On average a player from ESPN's top 50 turned out to be a borderline All-Conference type. In buckets:

5: 11
4 (and 4.5):  8
3 (and 3.5): 14
2: 7
1: 4

75% of ESPN top 50 players were at least average-ish starters on big time college football teams or Notre Dame. 43% of them were All-Conference types, and 25% were All-American types. That's a good strike rate at the very top.

It's not as good as it was when I looked a the 2002 class. That Rivals top 50 averaged 3.5 and only had 13 guys 3 or below. However, three guys were punted on and twelve more weren't rated for one reason or another. Only six dropped out here. Sites may be more careful these days about character/grade rumors.

Who won?

Can't say yet until we get through the whole 150 and check out Rivals and Scout lists to see their embarrassing misses, but the above looks ugly for ESPN. There are four flat out busts on the above list. On two all three sites were fooled; on two they weren't. Those two were

  • Ricky Dixon, an LSU receiver two did nothing and transferred. ESPN had him 48th. Scout had him a generic three-star; Rivals had him towards the tail end of their four stars.
  • Damon McDaniel was 35th to ESPN; Scout had him 29th amongst WRs and Rivals had him 69th. All were somewhat wrong, but ESPN was more wrong.

There are seven meh guys, and on most ESPN was more wrong. Some of them are moderate differences that we'll probably see when we run across outliers in the Rivals and Scout top 50s, but on a few ESPN whiffed hard:

  • #27 Markeith Summers was a generic three star to Scout and just hanging on to a fourth star at Rivals.
  • #42 Dustin Earnest was 83rd on Scout and a generic three star ILB to Rivals.

Rivals was also considerably less wrong about Jai Eugene; both other sites got Clemson CB Byron Maxwell, LSU TE Richard Dickson, TX QB Jevan Snead, USC S Antwine Perez, MI DE Brandon Graham, OSU RB Chris Wells, and USC RB Emmanuel Moody better pegged than ESPN. There aren't many examples of the reverse, just small gaps in evaluations. We'll see if that holds up once the whole picture is tediously put into Excel.

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