WaPo review of 2007 recruiting class

Really interesting article by the Washington Post on the top 100 players from the 2007 recruiting class.

The fact that the top seven all not only made it to the NFL, but made it long enough to qualify for an NFL pension seems pretty amazing. The success rate (as far as getting to the NFL) from the next 93 is shockingly low. It really drives home the point that scouts are able to identify the absolute best of the best, but outside of that extremely limited group, it's a anyone's guess what a player will turn into.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sp...p_rhp-more-top-stories_no-name:homepage/story

Really illustrates the fact that it's about finding the right players, not the highest rated players.

I am not saying there isn't any value to that but if they are just going by the 2007 isn't that too small a sampling? In longer studies on NFL players it has been shown that there is a predictable outcome to rating players with 1st rounders having a 71% chance of sticking five years and a 4th rounder a 17% chance with the other rounds along a similar line.

Granted, college players are going to be more predictable so it probably says as much about the difficulty of predicting outcomes from that age group.