Rivals.com Five-Star Club: Favorite Fives

Through extensive scouting of their regions, the Rivals.com analysts see the top players across the country multiple times in their high school careers. And with so much talent, the Rivals.com rankings meetings can become a bit spirited as analysts push for certain prospects in whom they believe deserve the highest honor: five-star status.

Below, our analysts share stories about the five-star they backed adamantly and now the player has backed up their support.

MORE FIVE-STAR CLUB: Ranking the best five-star QBs | Five who made us look smart

I willed Texas A&M wide recover Christian Kirk to five-star status when I was covering the West a few years back. I'm pretty glad I did, as he caught 80 passed for 1,009 yards as a true freshman last season. I spent a year chipping away at everyone else despite hearing about how short he was (Kirk was 5-foot-11 but some of my coworkers acted as though he was 5-foot-4).

Kirk's acceleration and strength made him special. He carried a ton of muscle in a compact frame and got off the line as though he were shot from a cannon. His five-star status was the product of a heated argument and a poll during the final rankings meeting of the cycle. One analyst "abstained from voting" and Kirk became a five-star by a single vote. – Cassidy

Stephon Tuitt was a guy who was a bit overlooked in 2011 who I really liked a lot. Remember, that was the year of Jadeveon Clowney, so everyone seemed to be overshadowed a bit at defensive end, but it was also the year of Ray Drew in Georgia. While we had Drew No. 9 in the country, Tuitt was down further at No. 22 but I felt it should have been reversed.

I got to spend time with both of these guys at the Top Gun Camp in Virginia and I loved Tuitt’s combination of size and athleticism. I felt he was more scheme-versatile than Drew, who was an outside pass rusher and more of a one-trick pony. I was very high on Tuitt and it was one of the reasons we had him ranked higher than any other website. His career at Notre Dame and now in the NFL has rewarded my faith. – Farrell

There were a lot of people that thought Fitzpatrick shouldn't have been a five-star because he didn't put up huge numbers during the season and excel in camps or 7-on-7 tournaments. The way he reacted to plays and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time signed to me that I should lobby hard for his fifth star.

Fitzpatrick was always a physically gifted prospect, but he really started to display his toughness and strength more during his senior year and that made him a solid five-star prospect in my eyes. So far Fitzpatrick has proven me right, earning a spot on the Freshman All-American team and All-SEC Freshman team. – Friedman

Su'a Cravens in high school was incredible for many reasons. He was a five-star, I was certain, and would do special things in college and the NFL - and it turned out to be right. Cravens had this special ability to read plays and diagram them so quickly that he was almost waiting for the pass before the ball was even thrown. He would be right where he needed to be all the time and then he had the skill and athleticism to make the interception or knock down a pass.

On offense, when Vista Murrieta needed a big first down or just a big play in general, the team would give the ball to Cravens and make it happen. The one concern I had with him was he was a tweener. I was unsure if he'd project as a linebacker or stay at safety but that didn't become an issue. He was great at USC and he just had a big interception to help lead the Redskins to a win last week.

Cravens was a fantastic player all around, but what I remember most was his ability to see plays developing and to always, always be in the right position to make something happen. – Gorney

A month after Deshawn Hand blew everyone away with his performance at the Army Combine as a sophomore, I got my first look at a sophomore Malik McDowell. Shortly after that evaluation, I remember telling national analyst Mike Farrell that McDowell was on Hand's level. Having just seen Hand dominate, and not having seen McDowell yet, I am not sure Farrell believed me at that time.

Those two players have gone into very different situations at Alabama and Michigan State. Now in his third year as a Spartan, McDowell has delivered on that promise he showed as a sophomore and is one of the most unique combinations of size and athleticism in the game today. – Helmholdt

Jones was an instant favorite of mine after seeing him for the first time in one of the last games of his high school career. At the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Game in 2013, he won me over with his demeanor in interviews and his play on the field. Prior to that week, he had only been ranked as a three-star because there wasn’t much game film on him, but it was clear after that week, he deserved to be a five-star prospect.

After some inconsistent play over his career at Mississippi State, he probably wasn’t as dominant week-in and week-out as we all would’ve liked to have seen. But his talent and potential was still clearly something NFL teams saw, and he was selected early in the second round of the NFL Draft earlier this year by the Kansas City Chiefs. – Krueger

My favorite five-star to date is probably Deshaun Watson. He was not only one of my favorite players to watch in games as a high school player, but I also enjoyed dealing with him from a media perspective. He was always willing to compete and was eager to prove that he was the best quarterback in his class.

He barely hung on as a five-star after suffering an injury during his senior season and struggling at some 7-on-7 events, and it seems like yesterday I was defending him against other people in the recruiting industry that said he had a "noodle arm."

Despite those concerns, there was no doubt in my mind that he would be a special player in college. – Wommack