Spring Break
Stars don't always equal success
AP
Issue date: 2/5/09 Section: Sports
Rashad Johnson is the no-star All-American, the player overlooked by every scouting service in America, and most college coaches, too.
Johnson walked on at Alabama in 2004. Now after 30 starts and 11 career interceptions, the safety is likely bound for the NFL. He wouldn't trade his path for all the attention lavished on blue-chip recruits.
"That's something, when I get older and get my kids and grandkids, that's something I can talk with them about and use it to help them with anything they have in their lives," Johnson said. "If they want to do something or be something in their lives and get disappointed and say they can't do it, I can always relate this story here."
In football-crazy America, more attention than ever gets paid to the annual pursuit of the perfect recruit - a chase that culminates Wednesday with national signing day, when players officially accept scholarships.
Yet as Johnson's story illustrates, pinpointing the teenagers who will evolve into tomorrow's stars is tricky, even for well-funded scouting services with hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers.
The Associated Press reviewed the top 50 recruits as named by scout.com and rivals.com from 2002-04, two services that essentially began as start ups but sold in recent years for tens of millions of dollars.
The AP found that when picking the 10 players with the brightest football futures, the services were right a little more than half the time, based on whether a player started 20 games or more in college, his recognition for awards or whether he made it to the NFL.
When it got to picks 11-50, the services were even more hit and miss.
Longtime talent evaluators for both sites quote similar statistics. They figure they're on target as much as 60 percent of the time, which they see as a decent record given everything that has to go right for a recruit to become a standout.
Bad grades and big parties, immaturity and injuries - any number of pitfalls can bring down a five-star athlete. On the flip side, avoiding problems can help push a player thought to be lacking something - speed, size, toughness - to the top of the class.
Johnson walked on at Alabama in 2004. Now after 30 starts and 11 career interceptions, the safety is likely bound for the NFL. He wouldn't trade his path for all the attention lavished on blue-chip recruits.
"That's something, when I get older and get my kids and grandkids, that's something I can talk with them about and use it to help them with anything they have in their lives," Johnson said. "If they want to do something or be something in their lives and get disappointed and say they can't do it, I can always relate this story here."
In football-crazy America, more attention than ever gets paid to the annual pursuit of the perfect recruit - a chase that culminates Wednesday with national signing day, when players officially accept scholarships.
Yet as Johnson's story illustrates, pinpointing the teenagers who will evolve into tomorrow's stars is tricky, even for well-funded scouting services with hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers.
The Associated Press reviewed the top 50 recruits as named by scout.com and rivals.com from 2002-04, two services that essentially began as start ups but sold in recent years for tens of millions of dollars.
The AP found that when picking the 10 players with the brightest football futures, the services were right a little more than half the time, based on whether a player started 20 games or more in college, his recognition for awards or whether he made it to the NFL.
When it got to picks 11-50, the services were even more hit and miss.
Longtime talent evaluators for both sites quote similar statistics. They figure they're on target as much as 60 percent of the time, which they see as a decent record given everything that has to go right for a recruit to become a standout.
Bad grades and big parties, immaturity and injuries - any number of pitfalls can bring down a five-star athlete. On the flip side, avoiding problems can help push a player thought to be lacking something - speed, size, toughness - to the top of the class.
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