Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

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CelticCat
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Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by CelticCat » Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:01 am

https://herosports.com/fcs/football-201 ... kings-ajaj

249 MONTANA STATE WR Jamahd Monroe San Diego, CA Utah State, Army, UNLV, 7 offers

They have their own formula for ranking, but it's all based on offers, not star ratings.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by technoCat » Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:19 am

I really don't understand how we can be ranked #40 is FCS with one top 300 player on the list...

I get that its an inexact science and trying to do if for FCS is a monumental task but there HAS to be a better way than this. FCS is built on guys that fall through the cracks which is anathema to this listing structure. I really wish the Ivy leagues would do the playoffs every year so we would actually know if they are recruiting so well year in year out.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by VimSince03 » Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:19 am

CelticCat wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:01 am
https://herosports.com/fcs/football-201 ... kings-ajaj

249 MONTANA STATE WR Jamahd Monroe San Diego, CA Utah State, Army, UNLV, 7 offers

They have their own formula for ranking, but it's all based on offers, not star ratings.
And a lot of those offers are off the table by the time the kid signs. There is usually a time limit on offers depending on the player and how many kids commit to the same position.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by VimSince03 » Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:22 am

CelticCat wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:01 am
https://herosports.com/fcs/football-201 ... kings-ajaj

249 MONTANA STATE WR Jamahd Monroe San Diego, CA Utah State, Army, UNLV, 7 offers

They have their own formula for ranking, but it's all based on offers, not star ratings.
This isn't the 247Sports "star" rating formula, or Rivals.com. It's only based on scholarship offers. If you held at least three FCS offers? You added bonus points to your school's ranking. But no matter what? If you signed with your school, you helped in the ranking below in our formula.
And the only reason why Jamahd Monroe is our "#1 Recruit" is because he has the highest star rating/grade per 247Sports. He can say its not based off 247Sports all he wants but Hero has consistently followed their rankings per team. And the fact you get a higher ranking because you have more than three FCS offers? Can someone please explain to me why the ***k that matters in this process? By the way, Gabe Sulser had like 6-7 FCS offers and didn't even crack a list from HERO Sports last year.

Like I've stated before, HERO Sports is exceptional at collecting data...then sorting it based off rankings provided by someone else. I just don't see the value and that is just my opinion. Overall, I like that Brian gets the FCS name out there. I just disagree with their ranking process. The only teams that should be in the ranking are ones that qualify for the FCS Playoffs.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by CelticCat » Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:36 am

I get the logic in the number of offers, that always seems to be the part most fans brag about in the various FCS groups I'm involved in. Oh we stole this guy away, he had 12 other FBS offers.

What I'm getting at is that seems to be a popular way for fans to gauge recruits, so Hero is trying their hand this way. I don't think this is the method they used last year which would explain why Gabe Sulser wasn't part of it.

My biggest flaw with this system is just how more exposure everything east of the Missouri gets. There aren't nearly as many programs out here, and I may be wrong on this but it seems most guys in the West stay in the West, so logically that means less offers overall. A 3 star player from Idaho is going to get less offers than a 3 star guy from Alabama based on location alone.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by VimSince03 » Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:37 am

CelticCat wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:36 am
I get the logic in the number of offers, that always seems to be the part most fans brag about in the various FCS groups I'm involved in. Oh we stole this guy away, he had 12 other FBS offers.

What I'm getting at is that seems to be a popular way for fans to gauge recruits, so Hero is trying their hand this way. I don't think this is the method they used last year which would explain why Gabe Sulser wasn't part of it.

My biggest flaw with this system is just how more exposure everything east of the Missouri gets. There aren't nearly as many programs out here, and I may be wrong on this but it seems most guys in the West stay in the West, so logically that means less offers overall. A 3 star player from Idaho is going to get less offers than a 3 star guy from Alabama based on location alone.
Exactly.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by CelticCat » Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:43 am

What would be the best way to evaluate the FCS recruiting class, without actually doing the evaluating yourself? You'd essentially have to have a formula that takes into account offers, star rankings, and maybe some other criteria but not sure what else you could do?


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by VimSince03 » Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:15 pm

CelticCat wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:43 am
What would be the best way to evaluate the FCS recruiting class, without actually doing the evaluating yourself? You'd essentially have to have a formula that takes into account offers, star rankings, and maybe some other criteria but not sure what else you could do?
Offers aren't fixed throughout the year and the college's never put out what they offer. The kids getting recruited can say whatever they want on Twitter. "Blessed to receiver an offer from (insert college here)." This can mean PWO, partial, or full from FCS schools and PWO or Full from FBS schools. I guess what I'm trying to say is not all offers are equal so trying to rank based off offers is a tricky tactic.

If you stick to star-ratings, there are problems with how those ratings are disbursed. I've seen on numerous occasions where scouting sites will literally give a kid a two or three star rating after a kid commits to a FCS school. Like that is the only reason why they got the rating. Why?

You build the database at the beginning of the year (or whenever) and you start to categorize players. You can throw in offers, stars, stats, past accolades, size for their position, GPA (if available), multi-sport results/accolades, or any other variable that can be used to compare athletes. As the data continues to build, start ranking the players per position. Adjustments can be made throughout the year based off any of the categories above. The final piece to the puzzle is the film. You have to watch an extensive amount of film if you want to put out an honest ranking, in my opinion. The film is the #1 litmus test because it doesn't lie. Now of course you can let the film lie to you by only watching short highlight clips. But top recruits should have an extensive amount of film on HUDL to view. Once the film data is collected, let it guide you throughout your final ranking along with the other factors.

Finally, I'm quite sure Brian puts in a ton of hours into his work. That is certainly not what I'm questioning. He works very hard at what he does. I just think the focus should be on different areas.

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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by CelticCat » Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:20 pm

VimSince03 wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:15 pm
CelticCat wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:43 am
What would be the best way to evaluate the FCS recruiting class, without actually doing the evaluating yourself? You'd essentially have to have a formula that takes into account offers, star rankings, and maybe some other criteria but not sure what else you could do?
Offers aren't fixed throughout the year and the college's never put out what they offer. The kids getting recruited can say whatever they want on Twitter. "Blessed to receiver an offer from (insert college here)." This can mean PWO, partial, or full from FCS schools and PWO or Full from FBS schools. I guess what I'm trying to say is not all offers are equal so trying to rank based off offers is a tricky tactic.

If you stick to star-ratings, there are problems with how those ratings are disbursed. I've seen on numerous occasions where scouting sites will literally give a kid a two or three star rating after a kid commits to a FCS school. Like that is the only reason why they got the rating. Why?

You build the database at the beginning of the year (or whenever) and you start to categorize players. You can throw in offers, stars, stats, past accolades, size for their position, GPA (if available), multi-sport results/accolades, or any other variable that can be used to compare athletes. As the data continues to build, start ranking the players per position. Adjustments can be made throughout the year based off any of the categories above. The final piece to the puzzle is the film. You have to watch an extensive amount of film if you want to put out an honest ranking, in my opinion. The film is the #1 litmus test because it doesn't lie. Now of course you can let the film lie to you by only watching short highlight clips. But top recruits should have an extensive amount of film on HUDL to view. Once the film data is collected, let it guide you throughout your final ranking along with the other factors.

Finally, I'm quite sure Brian puts in a ton of hours into his work. That is certainly not what I'm questioning. He works very hard at what he does. I just think the focus should be on different areas.

Their are two tremendous tools called Microsoft Excel and the Internet. Use them to your advantage!
Therein lies the problem. That is a massive amount of time. Now your way spreads it out and starts to sort itself as the year progresses, and then you can get a list of 50, 100, 200 or however many guys you want and actually watch film on them.

But in the end there just isn't enough demand to put this out at the FCS level. I give the guys at Hero a ton of credit for doing what they do do, flawed or not.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by VimSince03 » Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:26 pm

CelticCat wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:20 pm
VimSince03 wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:15 pm
CelticCat wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:43 am
What would be the best way to evaluate the FCS recruiting class, without actually doing the evaluating yourself? You'd essentially have to have a formula that takes into account offers, star rankings, and maybe some other criteria but not sure what else you could do?
Offers aren't fixed throughout the year and the college's never put out what they offer. The kids getting recruited can say whatever they want on Twitter. "Blessed to receiver an offer from (insert college here)." This can mean PWO, partial, or full from FCS schools and PWO or Full from FBS schools. I guess what I'm trying to say is not all offers are equal so trying to rank based off offers is a tricky tactic.

If you stick to star-ratings, there are problems with how those ratings are disbursed. I've seen on numerous occasions where scouting sites will literally give a kid a two or three star rating after a kid commits to a FCS school. Like that is the only reason why they got the rating. Why?

You build the database at the beginning of the year (or whenever) and you start to categorize players. You can throw in offers, stars, stats, past accolades, size for their position, GPA (if available), multi-sport results/accolades, or any other variable that can be used to compare athletes. As the data continues to build, start ranking the players per position. Adjustments can be made throughout the year based off any of the categories above. The final piece to the puzzle is the film. You have to watch an extensive amount of film if you want to put out an honest ranking, in my opinion. The film is the #1 litmus test because it doesn't lie. Now of course you can let the film lie to you by only watching short highlight clips. But top recruits should have an extensive amount of film on HUDL to view. Once the film data is collected, let it guide you throughout your final ranking along with the other factors.

Finally, I'm quite sure Brian puts in a ton of hours into his work. That is certainly not what I'm questioning. He works very hard at what he does. I just think the focus should be on different areas.

Their are two tremendous tools called Microsoft Excel and the Internet. Use them to your advantage!
Therein lies the problem. That is a massive amount of time. Now your way spreads it out and starts to sort itself as the year progresses, and then you can get a list of 50, 100, 200 or however many guys you want and actually watch film on them.

But in the end there just isn't enough demand to put this out at the FCS level. I give the guys at Hero a ton of credit for doing what they do do, flawed or not.
Brian gets the list out and hits social media hard to give the kids some promotion. I have no issues with that.

But Brian knew there wasn't going to be immediate demand for FCS recruiting when he started doing this. The whole goal of his structure is to give FCS kids more spotlight. He is already putting in a massive amount of time knowing the demand will be low. I just wish he would build his ranking differently and put more time into other factors. That's all. Plus, I'm quite sure there is a team of analysts who work for HERO sports. I'm sure they already delegate work but maybe that should be revisited.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by technoCat » Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:26 pm

:lol: Seems like he should do a rating of classes from 5 years ago so that we actually know how things turned out!


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by mslacatfan » Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:49 pm

I have a hard time believing that some of the DB's in this class are not top 300, along with a couple other guys we signed.... oh well, these reports are fun to see, but they are pretty meaningless (and usually pretty inaccurate).

Can always go back to the Troy Andersen example. I would guess/assume that he was not on the top 300 list for that years class...…. hahaha.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by catatac » Mon Feb 11, 2019 3:35 pm

mslacatfan wrote:
Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:49 pm
I have a hard time believing that some of the DB's in this class are not top 300, along with a couple other guys we signed.... oh well, these reports are fun to see, but they are pretty meaningless (and usually pretty inaccurate).

Can always go back to the Troy Andersen example. I would guess/assume that he was not on the top 300 list for that years class...…. hahaha.
Great point, and he just might be the best FCS football player in the country.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by gtapp » Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:15 pm

Villanova really did well. PSU and Mercer had a top 15 recruit. How the hell is that possible. They had other offers and they thought those were the best ones.


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by Cataholic » Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:57 pm

To give you an idea of how subjective these ratings are, Bobcat recruit Jaden Smith was ranked the 16th best Wide receiver recruit in FCS by Hero on January 29. The guy just behind him at number 17 was Alex Cherry who committed to Princeton.

In the latest ranking of 300 top FCS recruits, Alex Cherry was ranked at number 166 while Jaden Smith had dropped completely out of the top 300.

Another to pass up Jaden Smith was the #23 prospect on January 29 who ended up #237 overall. #18, 19, 20, 21 and #25 all ended up in the top 300 also passing up #16 Jaden.

Keep in mind that all 6 of those WR became better prospects (higher ranked) than Jaden while NO football was being played! I also noticed that each of those prospects come from the east coast or upper Midwest where there is a plethora of marginal FBS schools who could be offering and increasing their rankings.



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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by TomCat88 » Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:44 am

The best way to tell if you had a good recruiting year is to look at how well you’ve recruited in the past. Good recruiters at good institutions recruit well year-in and year-out. Works the same way in academia. Aside from that just hope you catch lightning in a bottle. Andersen, Ifanse...


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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by iaafan » Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:11 pm

You’d have a hard time showing me MSU hasn’t recruited well the past four years overall.



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Re: Hero Sports Top 300 FCS Recruits

Post by 95bcfb » Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:56 pm

We are in good company since NDSU, EWU, SDSU, and KSU had very few player in the top 300 and none in the top 50 I don't think. I would take those schools every day over any other school in fcs and you can't tell me that SFA has a better recruiting class than NDSU.



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