Article: Florida Football Recruiting: Off3 Drops Several Gator Commits In Rankings. Why?

They have done that. They also posted stuff on the Rashada and Simmons deals that turned out to be false.

That silk guy some of the recruiting board is in love with lost a lot of cred with me after the long ass video about Simmons. He’s not an on3 guy, but made his vid based on info released by one of on3’s writers instead of verifying what he made the video about.

 

Napier and staff do their own evaluations and the important item to me is he has been able to secure commitments from the kids his staff wants. These recruiting sites are there to generate interest and “clicks”. Not a lot of hype is generated from the lower uncommitted ranks, so moving kids up is in their best interest. Someone has to fall to do that. It’s hard to justify large movements at this point of the year.

Just my opinion. Frankly, I don’t care if we end up 10-20 this year if we ultimately are in the hunt for championships in a couple of years.

 

From my viewpoint the problem is we (fans) take the rating services way too seriously. Sure there is some correlation between success and consensus ratings, but there is no trophy for winning a mythical national recruiting championship.
I believe the prospect lists, and the subsequent priority lists, by position, that the power school staffers develop are much more important to being successful (with coaching and other intangibles thrown in to a lesser degree).
If a power 5 schools staffer’s aren’t as good at evaluation of prospects as the employees of some journalistic recruiting publication, someone (most of this information is coming from the schools anyway) needs to be fired and the writers for the sites hired.
The problem is we (fans) for the most part don’t, and probably never will know what those boards look like. We don’t know if we are getting our tenth choice at a position or our first choice.
If the last 10-15 years are an indication it was often the 10th. Personally I believe that’s changing. Whether that’s the case or not will be evident in two years max.
The ratings from ON-3 or anyone else will have little or no impact on the reality of our recruiting, but us evaluating properly and then signing our top priorities certainly will.

 

I don’t think this is a question of taking the recruiting “services” too seriously. It’s about dishonest and biased people in positions of being able to influence public perception, rankings, and even potentially the market value of athletes. If a kid courting UF knows his rating will suffer at the hands of these assholes, he may be swayed to commit to another school.

A person can be sued for publicly slandering another person. If Off3 is purposely publishing false statistics and downgrading kids marketability with no objective justification, what’s the difference?

 

Of course there can be a cause and effect if journalists have a particular narrative they are pushing, but they only have the power to influence that we give them.
The recruiting services are businesses, and like all businesses they depend on our attention to succeed, if enough ignore them, they will fail, hence the statement “we take them too seriously”. On-3 has already started feeling the effects that result from poor craftsmanship. Even recruits and their advisers are starting to call them out.
Sure if their conduct falls into a category that is clearly libelous there should be a price, I’m just not sure ranking Georgia’s recruits higher than ours or reporting inaccurate heights and weights is actionable in a court of law.
To me it’s simple if you think someone is engaging in an unfair practices, don’t give them that which they need more than anything… attention. Let their own inaptitude sink them.
You and I are not on different sides on this issue, we just disagree on the remedy.
I respect your thoughts on this, and on many other issues. We just happen to disagree on the best way forward.
(In an effort towards total disclosure, I don’t pay any site for “insider information” which is nothing of the sort and will be available open source in one or two days anyway).

 

Its actually libel (written) but I had the same thought. When will a kid sue On3 for faulty stats which affect his offers/NIL? We are such a letigious society I wouldn't doubt this will happen at some point.

I'm actually surprised there is not a third party company doing 'certified stats' where a kid can go and get measured officially, and sign off for confirmation. I know some that are deficient in whatever stat won't want to do this, but for the ones that do, at least a recruiting site could mention the stats are 'certified'.

Did I just invent a business here?

 

Hey man I don’t think we disagree on anything here. I’m not suggesting a remedy or corrective action because the only thing we have the power to do is stop clicking on their site and hope enough other people do to make them irrelevant.

I’m just pissed off and disgusted with what these buttholes will stoop to doing

 

I doubt they are making stuff up out of thin air though. But when the bag changes so does the truth.

 

You’re giving them more credit than I will. If you want to be a legitimate news outlet, verify your stories before you run them. Being accurate is more important than being first, at least it should be.

 

We’ve had a couple that what they say means nothing.

 

And when these ranking services suddenly, out of nowhere, decide that 8 players recruited to, and pledged to the Gators, suddenly all get their rankings dropped at once? With NO football being played, is that on us too?

How does the rankings of these services affect a player's future NIL potential? Is that on us too?

I agree that none of these services are perfect and they do get many players wrong... many of us know this. So... it's not unusual that they might drop one or two kids in their ranking periodically. And it's not the end of the world for me (I speak only for myself) if our coaches rank/rate 3* star players highly, higher than all the recruiting services... I understand that rankings may change during recruiting on both side... our coaches and the ranking services.

But to drop 8 players/recruits or more from The Gators all at once is not on us...

 

I never said that it was “on us.” I never even implied it.
My comments about us “taking recruiting services too seriously” wasn’t a compliment to them, but that indeed it just gave them exactly what they want and need to survive. (See my follow up with Skink)
We don’t punish their incompetence or downright disinformation by complaining about it constantly, we highlight it and then ignore them. (and if anyone subscribes, by canceling that service)
D.J. Lagway hasn’t said one thing that I know of about being ranked near the bottom of the Elite 12 competition, because he realizes that only generates more publicity for them… he prefers to work hard and prove them wrong. Other recruits have called them out, and that will hurt them far worse than us spending two weeks complaining about it.
Max Emfinger was one of the most influential recruiting analysts in the country until he called Emmitt Smith a plodder. People ignored him after that because he showed his southwestern bias. It ruined his service.He’s still around, but no one takes him seriously.
You seem to think I’m supporting On-3 (or any other recruiting service) and blaming the fans. I am not, I am saying that having a month long griping session on it is not the solution. ( in my opinion, and experience). As I told Skink, we don’t disagree about the issue but we do disagree about the solution.
I no longer care about how some recruiting service with questionable motives ranks the players we are recruiting. (Max got my money then also) To me a far more reliable measure of recruiting is are we getting the top players on our board, you know the one the staff we’re paying developed, and who else is recruiting them.

 

I think what Max actually called Emmitt was a "lugger," whatever the heck that is. I can see how it ruined his business pooh-poohing the eventual NFL all-time leading rusher.

 

These services are run by fans of a certain team. The analysts are not exceptional college or pro athletes or former coaches. They are not even seasoned professionals. They do not watch live games. One of services has UGA fans running it. Lot if younger people. Of course there is bias. Human nature. Where did you grow up or live? Where did you go to college? Who was your hated opponent or arch rival? Finally, what fan base subscribes most and pays your bills? You don’t alienate the people feeding you.

 

Silk actually has some good info and also loves to rile up the rival fan bases. He's well connected to former players, and generally on point. Him and Ahmad Black are good friends. The simmons situation like the rashada ordeal was just a weird one and I think had more to do with the daddy then Austin himself. Austin had actually posted something pro gator to another recruiting target the day before he flipped, the same day the info about him reclassifying to our '23 and yet he didn't refute it himself at that point. Pretty $ure $omething wa$ happening out of hi$ hand$

 

Not to be too picky here, but slander occurs when someone uses dishonest words verbally to make someone look bad, etc. Libel is when this happens in written form. In this instance On3 would be using libel, not slander.

 

Yeah I used the wrong word. Thanks

 

It's not on us... that is all. Not on we rational fans. Read this below.

Florida football recruiting: On3 drops several Gator commits in rankings. Why?

 

Butthole was however used in a correct manner. It does seem like Skink has softened his descriptions of irritants of late.

 

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