keep in mind that football recruiting rankings are an inexact science. Perhaps most importantly, they can be dependent on which schools are offering scholarships to these players and how many of them are. As a result, stars often do not arrive until the offers do despite the player often not having improved relative to their peers in the meantime. Of course, this is a useful metric, especially since these are the people who are very particular about who they offer those scholarships to, but it is not a perfect measurement. For that reason, be patient if you believe that you can contribute to a top team but are not rated or have received any scholarship offers as those often arrive at the same time for that reason.
That is also why it is so important to be proactive during the recruiting process. You need to get the schools to notice you. Generally, unless you already very highly thought of on a national level, you are not going to receive stars until after that occurs.
However, these football recruiting rankings services do very much also take into account game film, how players perform at camps and specific measurables such as their forty and shuttle times and vertical reaches. It is by no means fully dependent on offers. But players on the bubble of being rated or not usually will not unless they have already started to receive scholarship offers. Those who are already thought of as five- and four-star players will not see their value impacted much by offers. Their status will be based much more on other factors as the inexact science part of the equation is applied more so to those on that bubble.
The bottom line is to not take any NCAA football ranking as gospel and the be-all and end-all. They are useful and interesting as they do provide reasonably accurate assessments for how players and teams rank relative to each other, but the bottom line, your focus, is garnering a spot at a school that fits you.
Story By: NCSA
