Hi!

I used GUESS ratings in addition to my own ideas on what would make a good player by position.  Most of the time both would agree to some exten, but sometimes what I thought would make a good player and his GUESS ratings were way off.

This guys' GUESS ratings were not very good at all, but I took a flyer on him since I had him rated pretty highly for a DIII DL recruit.

http://www.whatifsports.com/gd/RecruitProfile/Ratings.aspx?rid=9357580&section=Ratings

I might have missed the boat on him, but it begs the question - are GUESS ratings a good predictor of future performance?  Has anyone checked to see how good a player with high GUESS ratings actually is?

Not trying to make waves.  :)  Just want to get an understanding.

JC

Not trying to make waves either, but I have to ask about this.  I'm curious as to why you ranked him so highly?  With no speed and elusiveness, he couldn't play DE.  His WE is poor and his strength is well below average for a DL.  What factors made you like him so much?

In regards to GUESS ratings, they have been a valuable tool for me so far, and have mostly been good at predicting future performances taking potential into account along with it.  But I think bhazlewood would be the first to tell you it's just a guide.  No system is perfect.  Some of the guys that have been around for a long time develop their own systems, but GUESS has helped me tremendously in my first few seasons.

First of all, GUESS is not a predictor of future performance.  He doesn't have access to the player's potential.  So, just remember when you are looking at the GUESS rankings, that is pretty much a snapshot of where he is right then.  GUESS does keep track of players as they get older and you can usually see where the WE/potential really kicks in.  Those coaches that get those high potential players will tend to have the best teams overall (just maybe not the best "recruits" every year).

Secondly, there is nothing about your guy to get too excited about.  Unless you got a scouting report that said something like "Sky's the limit with this kid", you're not going to end up wowing the world with this kid.

EDIT: crap, I just said what 72strat did.  Sorry.

Thanks, guys!  I didn't have the guy ranked super high, just fairly high, but the GUESS stats hated him.  He has great potential, and his tackling, technique and athleticism led me to rank him where I did.

I worry that if I lean on GUESS, then I am missing some guys that might be valuable that nobody else is on.  Thats all.

For me, I use GUESS rating to determine an list of top prospects but I also focus my spending on recruits with solid core rating. An average recruit can turn into good recruit if you give them starting time.

Posted by jc1796 on 4/22/2012 6:18:00 PM (view original):

Thanks, guys!  I didn't have the guy ranked super high, just fairly high, but the GUESS stats hated him.  He has great potential, and his tackling, technique and athleticism led me to rank him where I did.

I worry that if I lean on GUESS, then I am missing some guys that might be valuable that nobody else is on.  Thats all.

They hit most of it on the head but I will add a little.

On your 2nd point...Use GUESS as a guideline, but if you have reasons to believe your own personal rankings...use them instead. I just recruited a QB for my Capital team who came in GUESS rated #130 at his position. Not only do I have no doubt he will be a top 15-20 QB by his SR* season...I think my track record shows I can recruit QB's a bit too...

Now on your guy...not so hot. While he may indeed have great potential...his WE won't ever really let him grow that much. While I do like his ATH and Tech...those are secondary attributes...especially at DIII. His STR/TKL are well below my threshold of even starting to look at DL recruits.

Bob's report is a great tool for newbies mainly by showing you the core attributes that you should be looking at in the game per position, you can adjust them to your style of play but they are a solid starting point and general overall reference check.

Everyone else beat me to it.   In general aim for 50/50 Str and Tkl as a minimum for DL.  There are ways to play with that a bit and sprinkle in your own judgements and recruiting guidelines but I would take a few of the pointers above this post.  

This is good stuff; and well received.  I'm not in love with this guy, just wanted to see if he was better than the GUESS ratings.

I might be in the minority but I place more value into STR than TECH.

I'm with you peanut (but it really doesn't matter if you have record setting rushers like yourself)  

Posted by trombumpet on 4/22/2012 10:12:00 PM (view original):
I'm with you peanut (but it really doesn't matter if you have record setting rushers like yourself)  

When you play ground and pound, you have those 9-3 halftime scores more often then you like. Thats when you look at your DL and thank god you RS two every year.

I'm beginning to think that ELU & SPD are overvalued for DLs by most people.  I've never found my D-line to be more successfull with fast, elusive linemen in the DE spot or the DL spot.  I've converted LBs to DL before who ended up with 90 SPD (at the D-I level).  I've also signed VERY elusive DL's just to test if it made a difference.  Their STR & TKL were typically 5-10 points lower than average.  The the 50+ advantage in SPD didn't make up for the low STR & TKL, and neither did a 20+ advantage in ELU.  Essentially, all these players sucked.  If the GUESS formula places any weight at all in SPD or ELU, your guy's rating will be in the toilet since they are both so freakishly low.  But if those attributes truly are rather irrelevant like I think they may be, your guy may turn out OK. 

When I was in D-III, I always tried to find guys whose STR+TKL totaled at least 90.  High secondary attributes could make up for guys whose total was in the high 80's, but I didn't want to field a whole team with recruits like that.  With that said, I don't see your guy ever being great with STR less than 40 to start out with, but he could be OK after a few seasons.

Posted by taint98 on 4/23/2012 3:28:00 PM (view original):
I'm beginning to think that ELU & SPD are overvalued for DLs by most people.  I've never found my D-line to be more successfull with fast, elusive linemen in the DE spot or the DL spot.  I've converted LBs to DL before who ended up with 90 SPD (at the D-I level).  I've also signed VERY elusive DL's just to test if it made a difference.  Their STR & TKL were typically 5-10 points lower than average.  The the 50+ advantage in SPD didn't make up for the low STR & TKL, and neither did a 20+ advantage in ELU.  Essentially, all these players sucked.  If the GUESS formula places any weight at all in SPD or ELU, your guy's rating will be in the toilet since they are both so freakishly low.  But if those attributes truly are rather irrelevant like I think they may be, your guy may turn out OK. 

When I was in D-III, I always tried to find guys whose STR+TKL totaled at least 90.  High secondary attributes could make up for guys whose total was in the high 80's, but I didn't want to field a whole team with recruits like that.  With that said, I don't see your guy ever being great with STR less than 40 to start out with, but he could be OK after a few seasons.

Thanks for this insight - you guys have been really helpful.  I am going to keep an eye on this guy vs. a couple DLs I recruited with more "customary" DL numbers.

Sometimes, the only way to learn things is trial and error.  Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.  Please update this thread in a few seasons when the results of this little experiment start to show up.