The 5 Star Factors of the 5 Star College Football Recruit - Rivals, 247 Sports and ESPN

How to Get Stars in High School Football

This article does not pertain to every college football coach or program in America. It is just a reflection and opinion from the best college football analyst in America. 

I have been coaching and examining the recruiting/scouting system for a little over 2 years now, and I have been asked thousands of times, "how do I get stars or become a ranked player?" I normally gave a cliché coaching response in an effort to boost the athlete's or parent's morale, as they've watched many players receive offers. I made the effort of figuring it all out and decided to rank players along the way using my own methods. First, let's dive into what it takes to be a 5-star recruit in today's society.
All findings were discovered through intensive online, in person coaching of top and "sleeper recruits" and opinions formed by collegiate coaches (current and former). 

5 Star Recruit Definition

The 5-star Factors 2019 

1. Offered Early - NCAA Rules prohibit most contact between college "coaches", but you can always attend a college camp that is instructed by those coaches and/or start becoming a "nationally ranked" collegiate prospect by attending such available events. Most networks will claim that offers do not play a factor in their overall rating
2. Mostly all of the athletes have very good to high academics. Most athletes also have already taken the ACT/SAT going into their 2019 Senior seasons. 
3. Most athletes have flashy media highlight videos that date back to their youth football playing days. They also have attended credible camps and have posted combine numbers (good or bad) available for recruiters to check out. 
4. Most of the extremely highly rated athletes come from high school football programs that are highly publicized in the national media in the four football states that produced over half of the nations recruits on average the past 5 years. (GA/TX/FL/CA) They also have newly formed "Sports Academies", that cater to being a top rated recruit. as the rankings on all major media sources reflect. 
5. Recruit Name Recognition - Any relation to former NFL/D1 athlete. Playing in an  All-American game like Under Armor, Polynesian Bowl, Hall of Fame All-American game or the Scout Trout All-American Bowl (2nd most visited page on website at 20,000 views a month). All-State, All-Conference or any notable off-season all-star team that is listed online. 
6. Now your fate is decided by Tom Luginbill of ESPN, as he "culls from three to four games and is comprised of REALLY GOOD PLAYS, REALLY POOR PLAYS and MEDIOCRE PLAYS." 
7. At Rivals, you better go to a "3 Stripe camp" or whatever they call it nowadays, as they treat the combine as if these young men are heading to the National Football League. You will then be graded using a wacky system of points to where you fall "among your peers", which by the looks of things is a very limited selection of so-called "Top Recruits". 
8. You can submit your info to 247 sports, but as you will read, you must already have major recruiting interest and/or actual offers. They like you to include this in the email to them as seen by clicking HERE. Their email is recruiting@247sports.com. 99% of the time, your success rate will be determined on your "recruiting interest". 
9. Now that you have all of this media attention, they will give you your grade and add stars based on how many more offers you attain. From researching endlessly, these groups make up a collection of "Team staff writers", former High School Football players and Tom Luginbill, whom, I found out, I am actually Facebook friends with. 
10. Always beware of NCAA rules and regulations, as Ohio State had to reportedly cease recruiting a "5 Star" prospect, as ESPN's COLLEGE GAME-DAY broke NCAA violations by having a prospect on the show on his official visit to THE OHIO STATE. 

How are Recruiting Rankings Determined

Now that we understand that the highest grade for football skills is only graded at 60% of your total value, which came directly from 247 sports. We can now understand the quandary that prospects are put in across the world, who display very visibly that they are much better than what we are actually deeming as top scholarship athletes across the spectrum. Which brings me to the "Overall Team Recruiting Rankings" and how media companies have almost cornered the collegiate coaches into going after only players with 3-5 stars by their name from the very beginning of the recruiting process.  From the top down, the logic is very simple in business terms. The recruit with the largest fan base will generate the most revenue for that universities overall budget in a variety of ways. A few of these things they can generate revenue from are as follows: merchandise sales in athletes locale, more viewership on all of content, more influence as a whole in the recruits area, and possibly more top recruits/students from that area enrolling in that university. Now in return, the institution will waive your tuition fees for 4 years, in other terms a "Full Ride Athletic Scholarship". Believe it or not, most of these programs are making money off of your play long after you leave their grounds. They also save money by lessening their programs recruiting budget, as all of these sources can be found from the comfort of your office or home. 

Team and Recruiter Rankings

We actually will be introducing our Team rankings and talking about college football's best overall coaches, as far as recruiting goes. Luckily, I got to learn from The Big 12's recruiter of the year, Coach Robert Prunty, who is now the Head Coach at Hampton University (You can listen to our interview on my radio show by clicking HERE). I am not really a fan of sports writers, journalists or a QB who went 1-10 at Georgia Tech deciding who is the best and who isn't. The information from a few sources has been the end all in college football recruiting even since I woke up one morning the #2 Kicker in the nation on Rivals.com. Why did I get rated a kicker  if I benched 340LBS, was able to squat nearly 600LBS, ran a 4.5, 40 yard dash and was a superior athlete on both sides of the football? Refer above to "NAME RECOGNITION." My father David Trout was a mediocre kicker for the Pittsburgh Steelers and a good kicker for the Championship Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars when the USFL was still around with Coach Jim Mora.  So I was a kicker now even though most couldn't have put up the numbers I did at the actual NFL combine that year or even at the 2018 NFL combine. Some so-called expert saw my last name, as I hit some long kicks,  and then drew their conclusion. Well, I will have much more to write now about this subject as we plan on adding another 150-200 prospects to our site that are being recruited heavily and under the radar prospects. When athletes wind up with the same S.T.E.P rating, we will launch a "FAN/Coach vote" nationally to determine the prospects ranking positioning and gauge outside perspectives. 

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How to Get Ranked on 247

When I was asked why I decided to start this part of my Pipeline Program, I simply said, for Scout Trout's "Mr. Football" and his brother "The Trench Monster" or the Tres Barbozas of the world. There is no end to the list of highly skilled athletes that I have had the honor to cross paths with the past three years. As we move forward with refining our system, we will always prepare as if we are fighting the same battle you young men do everyday. Our goal is not to compete with anyone else in this game, but to enlighten those who might be blinded by the fabrication of facts and start to level the playing field for the diamonds in the rough earlier in the process. ​

So you would think the NFL draft would be mostly 5-star recruits, as all of the major recruiting sites to deem 5-star athletes with "1st Round Draft Pick" potential. Well according to NFL.com, some 5-Star recruits fell off the map and literally could not be found on the planet or were in prison. Excerpt is linked below to ESPN.com's report. 

​"Not all the five-star recruits had a shot at being drafted. Two were in prison, and another faces a March trial for assault. A handful had to give up football because of injuries. A few never played a down of major-college football because of academic issues. One decided on a pro baseball career, and another chose pro track. And there are two former five-star guys whose whereabouts are unknown. We have identified those players."

How Do Recruits Get Stars

How we Rated Top HS FB Recruits

Some of the networks used to locate top college football recruits and obtain data used to rank/rate recruits. 

• Main Recruiting Networks - Rivals.com, 247 Sports (CBS Sports Interactive), ESPN FB Recruiting, Scout.com (CBS Sports Interactive), Nike "The Opening" results,
• Hudl/Youtube or wherever game film was accessible, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook profiles if applicable. 
• Branch Recruiting websites/blogs and/or insider information from a actual college coach, scout, recruiter or reputable alumni of such university. 
• Recruiting agencies like NCSA and many others with a view as a college coach. 
• Over 10,000 submitted online profiles on ScoutTrout.com, where we only directly can look at you when a payment for a evaluation or our pipeline program is completed, as this keeps our very clear, concise and competitive model that has produced over 300 million dollars in scholarship offers in it's entirety. 
• My own websites recruiting database, as I see now that it is the most trusted recruiting mechanism in all of the world today for collegiate coaches to properly evaluate college football recruits. 
• My personal expertise of playing this game for over 20 years at a very high level and from observing my fathers career and the legends that he had the privilege to suit up with. 
• My personal expertise from coaching high caliber athletes for the past 3-4 years from ages 12 to players in the NFL today. 

How to Become a 5 Star Recruit in Football

The POint System 

• Football Skill - 20 point value, position technique and overall play on the gridiron. 
• Combine Skill - 20 point value (Valued by Combine chart - see below) 
• Media Score - 10 point value, When I search for you, can I easily find all of your recruiting information needed to assess your overall talent as a student-athlete? 
• Academics - 10 Point Value - Players with unknown academics started at a 7.5 out of 10 for the first round of S.T.E.P ratings, as around half of the athletes rated have not yet taken the ACT/SAT yet or our awaiting their results. Some players below a 2.3 GPA were ranked, they cannot attain over a 6.3 rating, as they are currently deemed JUCO/PREP prospects until NCAA requirements are met. 
• Intangibles - 10 point value, on and off the field attributes that "S.T.E.P" you apart from the over one million student-athletes playing football at the high school level in the United States. 
• Prospect Upside/Outlook - 10 Point Value, things like Football IQ, Work Ethic and attributes that pertain to rapid football growth, along with overall athletics (Genealogy). I have been the best known to date at assessing this characteristics due to the vast amount of football players I have seen in person at ALL levels of football. 
• Stats, Honors and Awards - 10 Point Value, were you nominated or selected for an all-american game? All-State, All-Conference or any post season accolade. Standout game playing stats like a running back with 50 touchdowns in a season and nearly 4,000 yards. 
• Recruiting Stock - 10 Point Value, based on offers, interest and points are awarded based on Division level and commitments are awarded a addition S.T.E.P boost. Players lose points for de-committing to many times and for other negative recruiting news or press. 
• This number is then divided by 10, to figure out your overall Scout Trout Elite Prospect rating.