The NFL Draft is all about speculation.
A player is scouted based on his three or four years of tape from college, evaluated at combines and pro days, and drafted based on a projection of what a team thinks he can do in the league.
It’s not so different from recruiting, except that recruiting is even more speculative. Just consider that the pool of talent coming into college covers all high schools across the country, at varying levels of talent, many flying under the radar and failing to even garner a college scholarship.
Ever heard of Two-Star Scooby?
This is the time of the year when a player will get picked in the draft, and an analyst will say “he’s proof that a guy’s rating coming out of high school doesn’t really matter all that much.”
Is that theory accurate, though?
When a player like UA linebacker Scooby Wright is drafted this weekend, it certainly will help validate that. Carson Wentz is the likely No. 2 overall pick and his only offer out of high school was from North Dakota State, an FCS program.
Heck, Josh Norman just signed a $75 million contract with the Washington Redskins. Once, he was sleeping on his brother’s couch at Coastal Carolina, only getting a chance to walk-on there in his second year out of high school.
Those are just three examples, though.
The Star took a look at this draft to determine if there really is any correlation between a recruit’s ranking and his NFL draft prospects:
Point: The ratings don’t matter.
Beyond Wright, Wentz and Norman, there’s more evidence to this theory.
UA safety Will Parks will likely get drafted in the late rounds after coming out of Philadelphia as a three-star recruit with just two “Power 5” conference offers.
On the flip side, receiver Cayleb Jones entered college as a five-star recruit and the No. 30 player in the country, according to Scout.com. After transferring from Texas to Arizona and leaving early for this draft, there’s a real possibility he goes undrafted.
In 2007, Arizona had running back Chris Henry — a two-star recruit in 2003 — drafted in the second round. Arizona’s highest rated recruit in 2003 was quarterback Richard Kovalcheck. He lost his starting job, transferred to Vanderbilt and never played beyond college.
Antoine Cason was a the Chargers’ first-round pick in 2008. Spencer Larsen was picked in the sixth round. Cason was a two-star recruit and the No. 65-rated cornerback, while Larsen was unrated by Scout.com.
In 2012, Trevin Wade — the first Wildcat to employ the “Two-Star” moniker — was picked in the seventh round. Robert Golden, a five-star recruit, went undrafted.
Nationally, Wentz is a poster boy for the low-rated narrative. Other likely Day 1 or Day 2 picks include two former walk-ons, Michigan State’s Jack Conklin and Penn State’s Carl Nassib; two who started at a junior college, Houston’s William Jackson III and Alabama’s Jarran Reed; and three others who only had a two-star rating out of high school, TCU’s Josh Doctson, Memphis’ Paxton Lynch and Louisiana Tech’s Vernon Butler.
Counterpoint: The ratings do matter
Cross-examining a 2016 NFL Draft ranking list with past recruiting rankings proved fruitful for this argument.
We used Mike Mayock of NFL Network’s Top 100 list for this study.
Of Mayock’s top 50 available players, 29 were rated as four-or five-star recruits out of high school.
California quarterback Jared Goff, the presumptive No. 1 pick, was a four-star recruit.
Historically, Arizona has never dealt with such “first-world problems” as getting their pick of the four- or five-star litter.
But the Wildcats do have some success stories in that area.
Tight end Rob Gronkowski was a four-star recruit out of high school and the No. 3 tight end in the nation. The New England Patriots star chose the UA over Ohio State and Clemson, and he wound up picked in the second round.
Eben Britton was a four-star offensive lineman picked in the second round; safety Marquis Flowers was a four-star recruit who was taken in the sixth round; Brooks Reed and Ricky Elmore were both three-star recruits with offers to ASU, California, Oregon, Kansas State and Washington between them. Reed was picked in the second round, while Elmore went in the sixth.
Ka’Deem Carey was rated a four-star recruit by Rivals.com in 2011, and he was picked in the fourth round.
If the ratings say anything, then, it’s not necessarily a predictor of future NFL talent, but it’s certainly a good way to gauge what players have the best shot at eventually being drafted.
