A Fake Recruit Getting Ranked on Rivals Leads 247Sports to Change Its Composite Policy
College football recruiting website 247Sports announced a significant change to its recruit ratings policy after a fake high school player was ranked on Rivals, SBNation's Morgan Moriarty reported on Thursday.
According to Moriarty, a recruit by the name of Blake Carringer received a three-star rating from Rivals and wound up automatically appearing on 247Sports's Composite rankings page, even though 247Sports did not provide their own rating. The site's Composite is a collective rating that receives rankings from Rivals.com and ESPN.
Carringer was listed as a 6'6", 315-pound offensive lineman from Knoxville, Tenn. A Twitter account for the fake recruit was created to boast offers from Alabama, Georgia and others.
After the incident, 247Sports's founder and CEO Shannon Terry announced a change in their policy on Twitter. Terry also called out Rivals for the mistake.
"Yday a national recruiting service rated a prospect that doesn't exist," Terry said. "Unfortunately, that service's public data contributes to the 247 Composite. While appalling, I am not surprised.
"Ironically, it was the same lil brother service that took shots at 247 on NSD," Terry continued. "In order to insure that never occurs again neg impacting the Composite, 247 has a new protocol where prospects are no longer given a Composite rating w/o also having a 247Sports rating."
According to Moriarty, Carringer's headshot appears to be that of Corey Stephens, a 2017 Arizona State signee.
The account associated with the fake prospect has since been deactivated.
