Rich Rod Says Recruiting Stars Shift More on Program Prestige Than Actual Evaluation

West Virginia has never been a program that's finished at the top of the recruiting rankings or routinely lands five-star talent. They've always done more with less, and that's going to be the case in this new era of college football as well.

Every now and then, though, the Mountaineers will land some top-tier talent, especially with Rich Rod back at the helm. We've already seen that with WVU securing a commitment from four-star offensive lineman Kevin Brown, who also considered Ohio State after his decommitment from Penn State.

While recruiting rankings are something fans closely watch, Rodriguez couldn't care less about it or how many stars a player has, and stated as much during his radio show Monday night.

"It's funny. Like if a big-time Power Four established program offers a guy, they automatically get an extra star. Like, oh, okay, Ohio State offered him, he must be a four-star or five-star. Some of that happens. Now that being said, there's not a lot of five stars that were missed, but there are some guys that are four stars that maybe shouldn't be, and there's been guys that have been no stars or two stars that were great players. I had them here, I had them at Arizona. I had a kid named Scooby Wright, and we used to call him no-star Scooby, and he won the Butkus Award, the best linebacker in the country. Still has the single-best season of any linebacker in the history of college football, and he was a no-star guy out of Northern California.

"Believe it or not, they're getting better with their evaluation of the stars because there's more information, whether it's the correct speed or highlights, or whatever, but we still trust our own eyes more than we do anybody's ranking that they give them."

Rodriguez is spot on with these evaluations and how they are influenced by offers and even where a kid commits. Speaking of Kevin Brown, he dropped 27 spots in 247 Sports' national rankings following his commitment to West Virginia. Why? Did he all of a sudden become worse simply because he committed to WVU? It's also happened where a recruit was committed to WVU as a three-star, but flipped to a bigger school, and all of a sudden, he's upgraded to a four-star.

I said it last week, and I'll continue to harp on it... If your recruiting system docks a kid because of the school he commits to, maybe it’s time to reevaluate the evaluation process.

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