Twitter Tuesday: Purdue, Nebraska, recruiting rankings
MORE: Five Midwest prospects that should emerge this spring
This week Midwest Analyst Josh Helmholdt dips into the Rivals mailbag and finds questions relating to teams looking to repeat recent success on the recruiting trail and others hoping to set new standards of excellence.
I could make a compelling argument for either scenario here. One of the reasons why 2020 can be a better class than 2019 is Purdue getting out to a faster start in this cycle. The Boilermakers have three commitments currently in 2020, but did not receive their third commitment in the 2019 class until mid-May. A faster start will certainly help build an overall better class.
Purdue also does not have questions about Jeff Brohm’s future hanging over its head in this class. Although Brohm turned down Louisville and removed the biggest threat for his departure during the 2019 recruiting cycle, that did not happen until late November when all but one of the eventual signees had already committed.
However, Purdue benefited from a strong in-state class in 2019, landing four-stars George Karlaftis and David Bell from the home-state crop. The 2020 class in Indiana is not nearly as deep at the top, with only one state of Indiana prospect rated four stars. Both ranked among the top 150 prospects in 2019, and were foundational pieces in that class.
The other challenge for Brohm and Co. is showing they can reel in four-stars across the board. Purdue signed five four-stars in the 2019 class, but three of those were wide receivers. Brohm’s offense will attract quarterbacks and wide receivers, there is no doubt about that. Can the Boilermakers consistently compete for the top prospects at other positions, though? That is a question for this 2020 class to answer.
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This is where we should ask the question: Can Nebraska ever win a national team recruiting title? And, I would argue they cannot. Ohio State nearly won the team recruiting title in 2018, so my argument is not conference-specific. It is, however, geography-specific. There simply is nothing Nebraska can do about being located so far from the largest concentrations of talent in this country, and there is not a mass-migration to the Great Plains in the foreseeable future.
So, what is the top end of Nebraska’s recruiting potential? The highest a Nebraska class has finished in the Rivals.com Team Recruiting Rankings was fifth. That was back in 2005 and required signing 32 prospects – five more than any other team in the top 10 – in order to accomplish. Nebraska has not signed another class that ranked in the top 10, but I do believe it can sign top-10 classes and I do believe that is possible in 2020.
Nebraska is a national recruiting program because it has to be, but like every other school the Cornhuskers still have to be able to get the top prospects from its backyard even if their backyard is sparsely populated with elite-level recruits. So far in 2020 Nebraska is off to a good start, with Rivals100 wide receiver Zavier Betts from Omaha committed.
Nebraska is also in a very strong spot with Rivals100 offensive tackle Turner Corcoran out of Kansas and Rivals250 linebacker Kaden Johnson out of Minneapolis. Locking down one or both of those guys, then duplicating the success they had in 2019 where the Huskers went into places like Arizona and Kentucky and beat out local schools for four-star guys, could result in a top 10 class. The excitement for the Scott Frost tenure in Lincoln remains high, and Nebraska can max out its potential in his second, full recruiting class.
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This is not the first time I have heard this accusation, but it’s simply not true. The internal process to change a player’s rating requires several steps, multiple people and usually only takes place during one of the rankings update periods. Any player ranked at the national, position or state level cannot have his rating changed until one of the update periods, which occur about every three months.
Ratings are based on a prospect’s ability and potential as it projects to the next level. Changes to those ratings are made only when new evaluations of a prospect suggest his previous rating is no longer representative of that projection. Which schools have offered a prospect, in and of itself, does not factor into that rating.
There are prospects with fewer than 10 offers rated four-stars and others with more than 30 offers rated three-stars. There are prospects who sign with Group of Five schools who are rated four-stars and prospects who sign with Power Five schools who are rated two-stars.
Later this week I will have a new edition of the Recruiting 101 series that deals specifically with the rankings and evaluation process. That article will go deeper on this question, and should give you a clearer picture of the rating and rankings process.