.vresize.36.36.medium.0.png){kind=small}
.vresize.36.36.medium.0.png){kind=small}
Scout.com National Director of Scouting Scott Kennedy spoke to
Fox Sports Southwest about the class of 2010 and how he and his
team rank nearly 3,000 high school players every year.
Q: The commitments of Jackson Jeffcoat (Plano, Texas/Plano
West) and Jordan Hicks (West Chester, Ohio/Lakota West) elevated
Texas over Oklahoma for the highest-rated class in the Big 12. Is
it possible for the Longhorns to pass Florida for the No. 1 spot in
the country?
Scott Kennedy: Texas did leap-frog Oklahoma. For most of this
year, Oklahoma has been ahead of Texas, and as strange as this
sounds, it's because they got off to a faster start than Texas.
This hasn't been happening lately for Texas, where they pick up two
five-star guys a week before National Signing Day. They're usually
done by spring practice of the previous year. The late by push by
Texas has put them right on the heels of Florida. They're one
player away from taking over the No. 1 spot on Scout's rankings.
Q: What kind of player are the Longhorns getting in Jordan
Hicks?
SK: Jordan Hicks is one of those bigger linebackers with
speed, and what's strange is you normally don't see Texas go into a
place like Ohio and pull a guy out. That's almost as strange as
pulling a top-five guy out of Texas up to Ohio. It just doesn't
happen. For one, those states are so rich with in-state talent.
Texas is the biggest state for Division I signees in the entire
country. Texas normally doesn't have to go out-of-state for talent,
but when they have a chance to pull in a top-10 or top-15 type of
guy, it doesn't matter where he's from at that point.
Q: Why was Hicks interested in Texas? It seems like almost
every top talent in Ohio ends up signing with Ohio State.
SK: I haven't spoken to him. I think that when I rank some of
the teams with the biggest natural recruiting advantages, based on
location and in-state competition, I think three of your biggest
winners are Ohio State, LSU and Georgia. Texas, Florida and
California might have the most talent, but they also have the most
competition for players, whereas Ohio State is really recruiting
within its state borders by itself.
Q: Seantrel Henderson has been the top-ranked player in
Scout's rankings throughout the course of the recruiting year. Why
was he the wire-to-wire No. 1?
SK: With these rankings, you're trying to predict the future.
Obviously, that's an impossible task; you're trying to project what
these guys are going to do, how they're going to finish their
careers. Are they going to be All-Americans, are they going to be
first-round NFL draft picks, or will they be both? Seantrel's a guy
who should be both. If you were building a prototype offensive
tackle on your NCAA football video game, this is the guy you would
build. He's 6-foot-8, 300 pounds, he plays basketball so he has
nimble feet. He's got long arms, and despite the fact that he's a
two-sport athlete, he's not soft. He is tenacious on the offensive
line and isn't afraid to hit somebody. So he's got size, he's got
athleticism, he's got the mentality. Basically, he's the perfect
offensive tackle recruit. Now, the last time I heard that about a
guy was when Tony Mandarich was in school, and he ended up
flopping. And that's what you don't know, is how are these guys
going to handle the next level, and how are they going to handle
the acclamation to going to classes. There's no such thing as a
sure thing, but he's as close as we can get.
Q: How did Henderson fare at the postseason all-star games
and practices? Did he live up to his billing?
SK: Yeah, he did. In the one-on-one drills during the
practices, he had to pass protect almost exclusively, which gives
an automatic advantage to the defense because they know what's
coming. We may have seen some guys beat him in practice, but I
don't think you're going to see too many beat him in games, because
they don't know for sure whether the pass or run is coming and
can't pin their ears back.
Q: Perhaps the biggest uncommitted name left is running
back Marcus Lattimore (Duncan, S.C./Byrnes). He seems to have
narrowed his list to two schools: Auburn and South Carolina. Where
do you think he'll go?
SK: There's really good reasons for both schools. He could
pick South Carolina because it's close to home and they have a big
need for a running back. But, he could also pick Auburn because
he's liked them for a long time. He's got no problem coming in with
another five-star guy in Michael Dyer (Little Rock, Ark./Little
Rock Christian). Auburn has proven it can use two guys in the
backfield — even if it was a different coaching staff —
with Ronnie Brown and Carnell Williams. Now, Auburn has a new
coaching staff with Gus Malzahn, who proved before that he can use
two guys in the backfield with Felix Jones and Derek McFadden at
Arkansas. There are good reasons to pick both. I think the Scout
team feels that when you're hesitant to pick, pick the home team.
Now, that didn't pay off so well for Jordan Hicks and Ohio State,
but when in doubt, pick the home team.
Q: Talent-wise, how does Lattimore compare to backs like
Bryce Brown and Trent Richardson, who signed with SEC schools
(Tennessee and Alabama, respectively) last February and saw
significant playing time as true freshmen?
SK: I think he compares well. I think the running back
position is probably the easiest position for a freshman to
contribute. I like to say that skill players are born, and linemen
are built. There's not a whole lot you have to teach a running
back. He's born with an innate ability to balance and the instincts
to make people miss. When you hear color analysts say, "You just
can't coach that," they're almost always talking about running
backs. I think he's physically mature enough. He's over 200 pounds
and he's been at a good program at Byrnes. He's got the type of
build where can absorb early punishment. I think he's very similar
to guys like Bryce Brown and Trent Richardson, who are both bigger
backs. They're both hard to knock off their feet, and they both
break a lot of tackles. I think Lattimore can come and contribute
early. We expect him to.
Q: Can you take us through the process of ranking nearly
3,000 high school seniors every year? Where do you start?
SK: It never stops, to be honest with you. This is a media
business, as well. We're out there reporting on guys who are going
to Texas or Oklahoma, but all those guys have teammates. If we see
a guy in the sophomore or junior class, we put him in our own
database at Scout, or keep a list of our own as scouts of guys we
need to be watching soon. Scout has already come up with a Class of
2011 ratings list with 600 players on it. It's not just a watch
list, but a list of guys rated three stars and above. We came out
with that at the beginning of January, and we're actually going to
begin ranking this group the day after National Signing Day.
The process starts earlier and earlier every year. Texas
understands that better than any school. The biggest day for Texas
might be their Junior Day in February, because that's when they
finish up a lot of their recruiting, so if Texas coaches know about
those players, we need to know about those players. It's not just
Texas, either. If Texas is taking commitments that early, so is
Oklahoma, so is Texas A&M, Georgia, Florida, USC, it doesn't
matter. We need to know about those guys in order to give you our
take on who's getting the best player.
Q: Once you put up your initial rankings, how often are
they changed? What goes into changing a recruit's ranking?
SK: We have a team of between 12-15 guys with five regional
managers and two national directors. The rankings are pretty fluid
every day, because while we do a good impression of making it seem
like we're everywhere at once, we're really only about the size of
one Division I school's coaching staff. The difference is that we
don't have to coach. We get to scout and watch football every
single day of the week, and we don't have NCAA limitations telling
us that we can't go to certain tournaments or combines. In fact,
we're allowed to run them. We're working 24/7, and as we see new
players we add them, because it may take longer to see a recruit
from Memphis than it does to see a player from Dallas. Even though
it seems like early commitments move down in the rankings as time
goes on, the truth of the matter is they're the first players who
are evaluated. If you're listed on the initial top 100, you really
don't have anywhere to go but down as we get to see more players.
We have weekly regional meetings to determine whether to move
guys. The regional managers move guys in the region up or down
fairly consistently. It can be kind of hard to move a guy in and
out of the Scout 300. First, it has to be a slam dunk. Even if
there is a guy who is good enough to be part of it, the problem
then is who do you take out? Fans aren't real big on seeing guys
lose a star. They want everyone to move up, but they don't want
anybody to move down. I haven't quite figured out how to cram 700
guys into a Scout 300. We do more detailed overall analysis at the
top of the rankings after some of the big events. We'll sit down
and do our first Scout 100, which we've already done [for the Class
of 2011], and then after the spring evaluation period we'll meet a
bit more. After the summer evaluation period, camp and combine,
we'll do it again. After the senior season, around Thanksgiving,
that's when we'll sit down and go though it again. The final time
we meet is after the all-star games, where we've each had a chance
to put an eyeball on each others' recruits from different regions.
It's tough putting together national rankings when you're getting
evaluations from five different guys in five different areas in the
country.
Q: Fans who follow recruiting know that the more stars a
player has, the better he is supposed to be, but what exactly goes
into deciding how many stars each recruit gets?
SK: I'm not sure everybody really knows what the stars mean.
I think there is a lot of confusion between them. The stars all
look the same, but they're not awarded the same. I think there's a
big difference between different scouting services. The star system
isn't zero through five; it's really two, three, four and five. I
cannot tell you everything there is to know about a player, or even
give you a great idea of the difference between one player and the
next, on a four-point system. What we've tried to do at Scout is
try to give some definition to what a star really means. It's a
hard definition, not a subjective definition. The definition of a
five-star guy on Scout is a top 50 player in the country,
regardless of position. That way, there's no debate about why the
48th-ranked guy is a five-star and the 49th-ranked guy is a
four-star, when anybody with deductive reasoning can figure out
there just isn't that much difference between them on a list of
2,500 players to warrant dropping a star. Our Scout 300 are
four-star guys.
Q: In addition to ranking each and every player, you also
evaluate the recruiting classes pulled in by each school. Are those
classes evaluated solely on talent brought in, or is there an
emphasis placed on filling the needs of a particular team?
SK: It has to be based strictly on talent. Right now, it's
just a mathematical formula where points are awarded based on each
player's star rating and position ranking. So if you're a five-star
guy ranked No. 1 at your position, you're awarded 300 points. As
anybody knows, it's hardly an exact science, so I always say to
look at these rankings as a guide. Recruiting is a component of
winning games; it certainly isn't
the component.
Q: Can you tell us about how important accuracy is in your
rankings and evaluations? How often do you feel you "get it
right?"
SK: You know, I've never actually sat down and calculated it
like a batting percentage. I feel that the Internet has changed so
much, even since the beginning of the recruiting services on the
Internet. The original Rivals, which was Scout.com at the time, was
made up of a lot of old-school guys who did what we called
"recruiting by telephone." They had a couple of contacts, and
they'd make a couple of calls and ask who the top players in the
region were, etc. Then all of a sudden, those would be the top guys
in the region. You're depending on the bias of your local contact
with that. I think that's changed a lot, and it's really helped put
more eyeballs on the players, so that people are actually doing
bona fide scouting. This business has matured enough that's it not
just a bunch of computer geeks like me sitting around and watching
guys. We've got four or five guys that have actually played or
coached college football on our staff, and we're not alone in that.
It's become enough of a mainstream business now that it's
attracting a higher caliber of talent to the scouting staffs. How
often do we get them right? I think we do a pretty good job. If you
look at the top teams every year, and at the NFL draft, I think
you'll see a lot of guys who were highly-rated. Of course, you're
going to see some guys mature at a different rate and they're going
to end up in the NFL, too. Nobody gets them all right, or else
they'd all be going to the same school.
Q: Have you gone back and reviewed the rankings for the
classes of 2005 and 2006?
SK: I've gone and looked back at them, but haven't really
reviewed them. I was in a different position then. I was the
Southeastern regional manager in 2005. I'm really trying to
evaluate how I've done since then, because what I really learned
from the class of 2005 was that more emphasis needed to be placed
on the character of the player. That class was full of
knuckleheads, for lack of a better word. There were guys like Ryan
Perilloux, who hopefully will come out of Jacksonville State like
he should. Fred Rouse was ranked No. 1 at wide receiver at one
point, and was thrown out of Florida State. That entire class was
full of guys like that who didn't end up doing anything because
none of them were very strong character kids. One of the things
I've tried to learn is that character is a tangible asset, just as
much as a 40-yard dash time is. Last year, I was pretty proud of
the fact that 49 of the 50 five-star guys on Scout actually
enrolled last year.
Q: What are some of the bigger advancements that have
helped make scouting more accurate?
SK: I think one of the big things is the fact that digital
video is easier to come by. You can't scout off of YouTube, but
with advancements like it, people are buying better cameras.
There's just better video out there. There are Internet video
services out there that let you watch high-quality video at your
desktop, so you don't have to hope that the coach from the high
school sends you a copy that's basically black-and-white, grainy
VHS tape by the time that you get it.
Q: With the message board and chat room fervor created by
the recruitment process, do you think it's possible that fans take
this too seriously, and hang their hopes too much on what these 17-
and 18-year-old kids are deciding?
SK: You used a key word there that I always used to describe
our business: hope. It's the first day of the season for everybody,
and everyone's got a chance to win the title on Day 1. On National
Signing Day, players are signing with your college, and those are
the guys who are going to win you a BCS championship, those are the
guys who are going to help you beat your rival for the first time
in years, and nobody can tell you differently. Now, the hope is a
good thing, but do people follow it too closely? Probably. I think
a bigger mistake that people make is they put too much emphasis on
it. There's a good mix of people who really don't care about
recruiting; they just want to know about the team and what's going
on with it. Then there are the people who believe if they're not
getting the four- and five-star guys, they're doomed. It becomes
almost as bi-partisan as the Congress these days, between the
defenders of the program and the "recruiting means everything" type
of people. As with everything, there should be a good mix of
coaching, development, talent and character, along with a little
luck. That's what helps you win. It's not any one aspect of the
game. I think there needs to be a little bit more middle ground.
Q: Do you ever get angry feedback from parents of recruits
who feel like you don't have their son ranked high enough?
SK: You mean today? I think I've missed a couple calls since
we've been talking. It's one of the harder parts of this job.
You're dealing with a very passionate person in the parent. The
kids aren't so bad about it. They'd like to be ranked higher;
everyone wants to be ranked higher. Parents are parents, and being
a first-time parent this year, I'm actually surprised I don't hear
more from parents. I think it's understandable. It happens a lot,
and we're all in our own little worlds, and I don't think parents
understand that we're trying to put together a list of 2,500
players in order. Sometimes, just because the coach is telling you
how great your son is doesn't mean he's telling you the truth. It's
a recruiting thing. Coaches are going to recruit the players they
think they have the best shot with, not necessarily the best
players in the country, and there's a difference.
Q: What do you think sets Scout apart from the other
prominent recruiting services?
SK: I think Scout is a pretty good blend of ESPN and Rivals.
What I think Rivals does best is report on recruiting. They've
always done a good job of tracking the kids. I don't think ESPN is
on the same level in terms of manpower or how well-established they
are. I think they're pretty Southeast-centric, and they do a fairly
good job with the top 150 or 200 guys, but I don't think they can
follow the guys as well as Scout and Rivals. They just don't have
the network involved, and therefore they don't report so well on
where the players are going.
I mentioned earlier about the three-, four-, and five-star
guys, and I don't think people know what they mean. One of the
things I think Scout does better than Rivals is we delve so much
deeper into our rankings. This might be an extreme case, but if you
look just at wide receivers, Rivals ranks the top 100 receivers in
the country, whereas Scout has ranked the top 287 receivers in the
country. By contrast, Rivals has 240 receivers rated three stars or
better. So basically, more than half the guys rated three stars or
better aren't even ranked by position. Scout only has 140 receivers
who are rated three stars or better, but have ranked all 287. I
think we do a much better job of trying to line people up against
their peers. Basically, what this tells me is a ranked wide
receiver on Scout is a three-star, not-rated guy on Rivals.
I looked at the junior colleges, and they basically have the
same numbers. Last year, 280 players signed with junior colleges,
and this year Rivals has 230 junior college players rated three
stars or better. That's almost all of them. So what does it mean to
be a three-star player? It basically means you got a scholarship
offer on Rivals, I guess. I think being rated as a three-star
player on Scout holds a lot more weight and a lot more power. All
stars aren't created equal. Rivals actually has 50% more four-star
players than Scout, too. I hear all the time, "But he's a
three-star on Rivals." Well, of course he is; everyone is.
Q: Several schools over the past few seasons have taken in
huge classes, knowing full well that everyone they've recruited
will not get into school due to academic issues. Has there ever
been any discussion about factoring in a recruit's academic prowess
into his rating?
SK: With players who are academic risks, I think we
constantly don't rank them as high as guys who we know are going to
qualify. There's been some discussion about whether or not we
should put that on their profile. I'm in the business of giving my
opinion, and I don't mind being wrong. In fact, when you're
predicting the future, it's not a matter of being right or wrong,
it's a matter how often you're going to be wrong. But if you're
wrong on reporting a fact like a kid's ability to qualify
academically, you can ruin a kid's future. That's not something I'm
willing to be wrong on. There are too many kids out there, and I
think it's up to the universities to delve into whether or not this
kid can qualify for their school.
