Stars wars

If you’ll recall, last month I linked to a post that tried to analyze with of the two big recruiting services did a better job of predicting the success of high school recruits by correlating the service rankings with their numbers on All-American lists.

Sunday Morning Quarterback, in response to the same post, took a look at the broader question of what sort of correlation exists between being highly ranked and making an appearance on the A-A lists.  I commented on SMQ’s post here.

Well, now we’ve got a response to a response.  Brandon Hansen, inspired by SMQ’s post, has fleshed his initial piece out.  You can read the details – 12 charts and graphs! – but here’s the meat of his conclusion:

From the information presented in the graph, star ratings appear to have the following correlation with becoming an All-American:

• 0-2 stars – Some negative correlation. Using the Rivals ratings and excluding kickers, there are about half as many 0-2-star prospects on the All-America teams as there should be if they were chosen randomly. If kickers are included, there is less of a negative correlation. If Scout ratings are used, the negative correlation is very slight.
• 3 stars – No meaningful correlation. The number of 3-star prospects present on the All-America teams is about what it would be if the members were chosen at random.
• 4 stars – Some positive correlation. While the Rivals ratings (both with and without kickers included) show there are nearly twice as many 4-star prospects on the All-America team as there would be if members were chosen at random, the Scout ratings show no meaningful correlation.
• 5 stars – High positive correlation. All three rating systems show 5-star recruits to be greatly over-represented in the All-America teams. There are over five times as many Rivals 5-star prospects as there should be (nearly six times if you remove the kickers), and over four times as many Scout 5-stars.

Further Concluding Comments

It would be nice to have more complete (or official) data from the two websites on the average number of star ratings given, but it seems reasonable to conclude the following:

• A 4-star rating from Rivals or a 5-star rating from either website significantly increases the chances a player will become an All-American.
• A 4-star rating from Scout or a 3-star rating from either website has no significant effect on a player’s chances of becoming an All-American (i.e., they might as well be picked out of a hat).
• Rivals ratings in general are more “meaningful” in predicting success (as defined herein) than Scout ratings.

Now if only somebody would do this with Lemming.