Rivals doesn’t care about Scout’s rankings, Scout doesn’t care about ESPN’s rankings, ESPN doesn’t care about 247Sports rankings, and college coaches don’t care about any of it

With the rise of Internet recruiting rankings for all sports over the past decade, you have seen “experts” come out of the woodwork and make a name for themselves.  The truth unfortunately is that many never played football and don’t even know all that much about the game.  They were just in the right place at the right time.

What that means is the only rankings that a site like Rivals cares about is their own.  They could careless what Scout has you ranked at or how highly Tom Lemming thinks of you.  These sites are all independent of one another and they honestly don’t care where you are rated by another site.

I recently had a parent email me regarding his son.  He was telling me about he was the #58 ranked offensive tackle by ESPN/Scouts Inc. in the country.  The parent felt that this ranking should also help him get attention by Rivals, Scout, and other website that this parent can find and contact.

The problem with this is that no site can honestly say that they think he is really is the #58 best player at his position.  Do you really think they watch tape of the 57 players in front of him and eventually say that your son is just below #57 and just ahead of #59?  They make assumptions because no one has the time or resources to watch all of those videos.

The same can be said regarding just about any other list or ranking.  Do you know what impresses recruiting experts and college coaches?  It is scholarships.  If you really have a scholarship offer from a school like USC, Texas, or Florida, that can help open a lot of doors for you in the football recruiting world.  The same can be said about North Carolina, Kentucky, and Kansas for basketball.

As proven by Miami a few weeks back, college coaches are not going to win games by just recruiting the top tier athletes as ranked by Scout, Rivals, ESPN, and whoever else (although Kentucky basketball will certainly be trying).  They need to find players that fit their system, buy in, and work hard.

If you are the #53 offensive center in the country but are 5-foot-8, then do you really think you will have more opportunities than the #65 center that is 6-foot-3?  Rankings like these mean so very little outside of giving an athlete a little recognition.  These experts may get to see film but they obviously don’t have the ability to see everyone of these players up close.  And the best athletes are able to showcase their skills at Nike combines during the off-season that can catch the attention of experts because they are freak athletes.

Anyways, college coaches don’t care about where you are ranked by Scout as a safety.  That is not worth putting on your recruiting profile and not worth trying to sell to other sites to get your son ranked.  You need to show that your son is talented, can play in his highlight tape, and do a good job marketing him.  That means a hell of a lot more than a stupid ranking.