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How much does pre-college talent matter? - Printable Version

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How much does pre-college talent matter? - 81alum - 02-08-2023

I am wondering if there have been any high quality studies done comparing the publicly available ratings of high school talent to the actual college performances of those players, in various sports and over time.

I am sure that there is some relationship of talent as perceived in high school players to how well they do in college, but can it be empirically quantified just how strong that relationship has been, for various sports?

We always hear anecdotes of players that blossom in college and were off the radar in high school.  Lili Thompson is one of our own examples.  But it also seems that the teams that win championships are always led by players who have been superstars since junior high. 

On the other hand, at least in WBB, while there frequently seems to be a big difference between a player ranked 5 by ESPN and a player ranked 20, I've never thought that the differences between a 20 or a 30 or a 40 or a 50 really seemed to be noticeable.

I have to believe that the coaches who lead recruiting efforts understand these things quite well and use their own metrics.  What are they?  Is it strictly the eyeball test?  If analytics are so important for determining tactics in games, what do the analytics say about recruiting players?

RE: How much does pre-college talent matter? - BobK - 02-08-2023

Once upon a time Hoop gurlz was great at ranking. Espn has been up and down. Olsen was great he travels 300 days a year sells his report to many many schools. After him espn not so great now better
But your example needs clarification which I can do half time of the USC game :)

RE: How much does pre-college talent matter? - msqueri - 02-08-2023

I used to have better analyses at my fingertips because I did a lot of them myself but in short in football at least the relationship between team recruiting rankings and performance is very strong and there are also very strong correlations for individual recruiting rankings, but one has to keep in mind the inevitability that there will be guys the services miss (both busts and diamonds in the rough). At one point I came to the view based on extensive research that the most elite recruits are significantly more likely to do well than blue chip but less elite recruits who are significantly more likely to do well than clear Power Five but not blue chip recruits who are significantly more likely to do well than less high-profile recruits, and I found that defining those categories as top 100/top 400/top 1000 was analytically useful.

For what it's worth, here's a very interesting study that seems pretty methodologically sound to me at first blush: https://athleticdirectoru.com/articles/do-football-recruiting-ratings-matter/

That shows that recruiting accounts for 36 percent of the explanation for team success. When you consider all the other things that could go into team success (e.g., strength of conference, historical strength of the program, Xs and Os/playcalling, position coaching, culture, strength and conditioning, resources/funding, etc.), it seems totally obvious to me that recruiting is the most important part of college football, perhaps by a lot. This is consistent with mounds of other studies and analyses. Recruiting is the lifeblood and definitely correlates strongly.

On an individual level, this article tackles the relationship for individual recruits: https://247sports.com/Article/NFL-Draft-recruiting-rankings-go-hand-in-hand--117819292/

In the two drafts they looked at, 61.6 percent of 5-stars got drafted, 23.3 percent of 4-stars got drafted, 5.95 percent of 3-stars got drafted, and 1.25 percent of 2-stars got drafted. Looks like an extremely strong correlation to me.

The bottom line for me every time I look at this rigorously is that recruiting rankings definitely correlate and those who dismiss them are misguided, often making silly arguments. The rankings aren't perfect, but neither are college coach evaluations or literally any other measure one could devise to scour tens of thousands of people to try to find which ones will be good college football players. Recruiting is the lifeblood, and the rankings are our best gauge of what's going on.