Not sure how to quantify an answer, but the thread below made me wonder. You would think accuracy would improve among the services, but then again they are probably evaluating many more kids. Plus politics and $ has to have increased over the years.
I pretty much feel like they are the same caliber of recruit, which is why you can see such a wide variance between services for a certain player. I remember last season there was something like a 200 player difference in rankings between two major services for Micah Jones. That's the thing with ranking them, how do you it credibly? This is why the camp circuit is so important. You have one guy who the services have seen film of, plus have seen in person vs. a guy they have only seen film of. The guy they've seen will naturally get rated higher. Just human nature.
Service scouts probably fill out numerical surveys that are then composited to produce a ranking. I imagine there are quite a few of these guys out there rating prospects on all kinds of dimensions.
To your point, 247 displays ratings using 4 significant digits which is kind of silly because their accuracy probably doesn't extend much past the first figure.
It probably has less to do with accuracy for them and more to do with getting guys ranked in order. But, yeah it is silly. There is just no way they can evaluate all of these players. But, there is an industry for it and people like a reference so it makes sense to do it.
But, you just can't possibly accurately evaluate hundreds of kids. That's why I wondered if technology has allowed them to improve accuracy or the $$ involved gives the services more resources.
Is it being drafted by the NFL? College All-American at their position? # of games started in college?
People tend to forget it is a very inexact “science”—it is a coin flip as to whether a five star is drafted by the NFL. (Though 5 stars are twice as likely to be drafted as 4 stars.)
Link: https://247sports.com/Article/NFL-Draft-recruiting-rankings-go-hand-in-hand--117819292/
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I have thought for a long time that they were overhyped. They give out high recruiting ratings and if the coach doesn't win he gets criticized/fired. Is that the coach's fault or the ratings fault?