Rivals recently updated its 2019 class rankings. And a few Virginia Tech commitments received some positive reviews. Sunshine state analysis Rob Cassidy is quite bullish on Keshawn King.
Rob Cassidy (Florida): I love Virginia Tech commit Keshawn King, who was a three-star prospect until this update. King has solid speed and is coming off of a monster season running behind an offensive line that was up-and-down. I think King might be a name to know in the ACC for years to come.
King should fit like a glove at Tech given his experience in a spread offense.
Cassidy also listed the Hokies 2019 class part of Five teams that should be pleased".
Virginia Tech's class isn't exactly chalk full of highly regarded prospects, but there's still reason for Hokies fans to be pleased. Running back Keshawn King earned his fourth star based on an impressive senior season that saw him rank among the state of Florida's rushing leaders. Wide receiver Jaden Payoute also made a jump in the rankings, adding a fourth star. Virginia Tech won't land one of the top classes in the ACC this cycle, but things look better now than they did a week ago. That much is certain.
Both King (0.8925) and Payoute (0.9253) are 4-star recruits according to the 247Composite. Athlete Tayvion Robinson recently crossed the 4-star threshold (0.8943). That backs up the high praise Cox HC William Stachelski had for his pupil.
Comments
What bizarre-o world are we in where Tech commits are getting an increase in their recruit rankings after the fact?
it's a PSU/Clemson/UMD conspiracy to get them to decommit
Someone on 247 actually took the time to do an analysis of all the Fuente-era recruits and how their ranking rose/fell after being associated with VT. It was basically 50/50 on whether or not a recruit's rank would get better or worse if they were predicted to or committed to VT. No evidence at all that sites lower rankings based on someone's commitment to VT
But there is statistical evidence of a rankings "bump" whenever someone commits to Bama or the other "big dogs". Sometimes even just an offer will do it.
Is there? Not calling you on it, just curious to see the data.
And frankly they probably should get a bump. The coaches at those programs are the best in the bussiness and generally can pick anyone they want. So if they want them, then they're probably worth a high ranking.
SBNation did an article on it, but it's less artificially boosting recruiting rankings and moreso that when Saban is interested it's an indicator to re-evaluate a prospect. All their on-field success and draft hit-rates agree.
You pretty much nailed it on your edit. Artificially boosting Bama's recruiting rankings doesn't win them football games. It's clear that Saban and his team are great at identifying and developing talent.
edit: Link
No problem, I have looked and cant find the other article (read it awhile back) with more numbers similar to Chris's SB Nation article.
But recruiting to me is a self-fulfilling business. Rankings businesses rely on subscription based revenue and evaluating camps with marginal value in game tape/in person evals. They have more interest in the blue bloods who have more fans so kids offered or shown interest by them get more thorough evals. Usually the more a kid is evaluated they will give him a bump for good qualities, leading to the blue bloods being the top 15 of the recruiting rankings every year.
Now I fully agree with your statement that the Bama recruiting staff if the best in the business and the results have shown that but dont think the blue blood staffs are the only ones finding the best talent. For example, in this years VT class, I guarantee you guys like Bowick, Gallo, and Robinson would have much higher rankings had they been Bama, LSU, or Ohio State commits.
Que up 3 decommits? *sigh*
*queue
*Queue
*Cue
*Q
Looks like CFB just mutters, "Yeah...yeah, yeah, yeah" while he's dancing. So much yeah.
"chalk full"?
Nah....they're 800% in.
60% of the time these commitments are unchanging everytime?
King is a stud. His highlights have been all over Jacksonville sports coverage.
Maybe there is no such thing as a diamond in the rough anymore but it would seem our coaching staff can spot underrated talent.
They still exist, but they are much more difficult to find and keep secret nowadays. Robinson and King are huge eval wins by the staff.
Payoute went from us ranked to 4star didn't he?
I thought he was 4-star by composite already when he committed, I may be mistaken, but either way they are all good eval wins. Payoute was definitely already a composite 4-star before the Rivals re-rankings though.
I'm fairly certain he was unranked when he committed, then the first ranking he got placed him as one of the best players in VA before other services caught up. He's been a composite 4-star ever since though.
He was unranked by espn, rivals, and 247. Once interest/offer came then 247 rated him as a .96 or something like that (2nd in VA behind Ford). After his commitment rivals gave him a 5.5 I believe and not sure what espn did, but it brought his composite score down to a mid-high 3*.
The "rough" ain't what it used to be before Insta, Youtube, Twitter, etc.
Go look up Darrisaw's ratings from 2017.
Awesome that's even better, thank you for that!
I like good recruiting news
What is Payoute expected to play? Not to start a whole Caleb Farley argument again but all these sites talk about him as a WR but I could have sworn there was talk of him playing safety when he committed...a 4 star DB excites me a lot more than a 4 star WR right now.
Receiver all the way
"Virginia Tech won't land one of the top classes in the ACC this cycle, but things look better now than they did a week ago. That much is certain."
Nothing about our class changed (other than losing Dorlus) in the week, but now it looks better? Rivals simply caught up to what our coaches already knew.
Looks a little better score-wise. We had the 5th best class in the ACC last time I checked. We will take a few more guys down the stretch, but I don't know how much it will move the needle.
This class won't be ranked high because of the lack of quantity. If you look at the average recruit rating (0.8791), this is one of our better classes. It would put us 4th in the ACC right behind Miami (0.8876). The gap between Clemson (.9024) and FSU (0.9215) and 3rd place is pretty wide though.
That's actually pretty bad for miami
Oh don't worry, their 2018 class had a 5* RB and 14 4* players. And looking at who they have committed for 2020 would suggest 2019 is just a down year for them.
They will grab the #1 WR in the nation in a few weeks and will end up top 20. Not full on Miami recruiting mode but they will get 1 5* and a couple more 4*s before signing day.
Would have been better if Richt could have kept his nephew in the class.
/awkward christmas
Overall class rankings can tilt towards total class size if you look at the metrics - not the only part of the ranking obviously. This year our class in overall would be lower as it would be a smaller overall class, but I would encourage you to look at the quality rating of the prospect and it's average over time. Andy Bitter did a nice article on this dynamic although I don't have the link off-hand.
Sorry for repeat civilhokie - i missed your comment somehow.
Yeah, what an ignorant comment. Nothing says "disregard our service" more than that stupid statement from Rivals.
I don't think an uptick in these players' evaluations are going to help swing other kids to come to Blacksburg...good for optics but unchanged from a pragmatic standpoint.
How many early enrollees are we looking at this cycle and are any of these guys among them?