Seeing Stars

If you’re like me, the week that followed the Apple Cup was a down time since there was no “next game” to obsess over. Fortunately, the month of January brings with it a new obsession for college football fans: recruiting. My fellow New Guy, Tommy, did a fantastic job of recapping where our Cougs stand on the recruiting trail to date. I won’t repeat his work and touch on this year’s class in this space, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the wide world of recruiting.

I love keeping up with who has committed, who is visiting and anything else that could could shed some light on who the next great WSU football player will be. If there is a website out there that has information on recruits, that site is getting hits from me multiple times daily. The only thing more ubiquitous than the hand-wringing over who the next commit will be is the rating system that every recruiting service uses, the infamous star system.

What the Dewey Decimal system did for libraries, the mythical five star system used for grading high school football players has done for recruiting. I’m here to tell you, though, don’t worry about the stars, my friends. Let me tell you why…

History has shown that a two star kid that nobody has heard of might just be the next All American. The five star “can’t miss” might be the next huge bust. It’s the opinion of the men in the offices at Bohler Gym that should concern you far more than the number of stars next to a prospect’s name. The current Cougar coaching staff has already shown a knack for finding studs where few others were looking.

The way that Marquess Wilson and Deone Bucannon burst onto the scene last year, you’d think they were some of the most highly touted players to join the Pac 10. Depending on the source, these two future all conference athletes (knock on wood, knock on wood, still knocking on wood) were rated at two or three stars. In the case of Bucannon, a little company called ESPN didn’t even have a full evaluation. For players who look to be cornerstones of our program, we were competing with the likes of Fresno State, UNLV, Cal Poly and Army. Perhaps the rest of the conference was busy tussling over players deemed worhy of the prestigious 4 and 5 star ratings to get in on the Wilson/Bucannon sweepstakes. There are any number of examples like these, unheralded athletes turning out great or on the flip side prep All Americans not panning out. *cough-Kavario Middleton-cough*

There are something like 40,000 high schools in the US. I’m no math whiz, but that’s a lot of high school football players. There is no way that a recruiting service no matter how diligent can get an accurate assessment of all of them. My sense is that Paul Wulff and his staff do a ton of legwork to identify talent and more importantly the type of person and player to which they’re willing to say, “We want you to come play at Washington State.” If the first two full classes they’ve brought in are any indication, the hard work will pay real dividends on the field, regardless of what the experts say the first week of February.

Don’t get me wrong. I will continue to obsess over our recruiting class and fully acknowledge that over time the more highly rated players you can get the better. That said, when you study the Cougar recruiting class of 2010, worry not about their rating. Get to know their bios, watch their highlight reels if they are available, but more importantly embrace them all because they are all becoming Cougs. Once the pads are on, the stars next to their name won’t make a bit of difference to the legacy they’ll leave during their time in Pullman.

Go Cougs.