Rivals' Football Prospect Rankings Methodology

Prospect rankings are core to many of the On3 | Rivals Database products.

Rivals’ own set of prospect rankings for both football and basketball are factored into the Rivals Industry Rankings, which utilizes all three major recruiting media companies: Rivals, 247Sports and ESPN. The Rivals Industry Ranking is the driver of the Rivals Industry Team Recruiting Rankings.

The football prospect rankings for Rivals are spearheaded by Director of Scouting and Rankings Charles Power and National Scout Cody Bellaire. Both have close to a cumulative two decades of experience in scouting. Power came to On3 | Rivals after years as a National Analyst at 247Sports. Bellaire has worked in personnel departments at LSU, Baylor, Texas A&M and recently served as the Director of Scouting at Texas Tech prior to joining On3 | Rivals.

Assisting with the rankings process are Rivals recruiting analysts Greg Biggins and Allen Trieu. Biggins has covered high school football and recruiting for nearly 30 years, while Trieu has built a reputation as a trusted evaluator and reporter over the last two decades.

The rankings team also utilizes On3’s vast network of fan site insiders who have cultivated deep relationships among college staffs over the past 20 years. Those connections and individual relationships within the college coaching and personnel communities are key in gathering actionable information that drive Rivals’ rankings.

Rivals Prospect Ratings and Rankings

Players are graded on a scale that spans from 80 to 100, with star ratings assigned over specific ranges. The rating scale is as follows:

• Five-star prospects have grades from 98-100. These are the 32 prospects Rivals sees as having the highest upside in college football and as a potential first-round NFL Draft pick.
• Four-star prospects have grades from 90-97. These are blue-chip prospects who are viewed as having high-end college football impact and early round NFL Draft potential. Four-stars account for roughly the top 10 percent of FBS signees every cycle.
• Three-star prospects have grades from 80-89. The vast majority of FBS signees will be rated as three-stars. High three-stars (grades 87-89) are those viewed as having significant impact potential at the Power Four level with NFL Draft upside. Mid-three-stars (grades 84-86) are mid-to-low Power Four and high-end Group of Six prospects with starting potential at the college level. Low three-stars (grades 80-83) are Group of Six level prospects and specialists viewed as having limited NFL Draft potential.

All prospects that sign with an FBS program are rated three-stars and up.

Rivals’ numerical ranking of the top football prospects is the Rivals300. This ranking of the top prospects in the cycle from 1 to 300 and is made up of five-star and four-star prospects exclusively. There will also be approximately 100 to 150 prospects who finish with four-star ratings outside of the Rivals300 in every cycle.

Rivals’ rankings will finish with 32 five-stars each cycle. The number of five-stars will grow with each rankings update over a cycle’s lifespan, concluding at 32 in the final update.

Prospects will also be sorted within their position and home state. The position groups for Rivals football prospects are as follows: Quarterback (QB), Running Back (RB), Wide Receiver (WR), Tight End (TE), Offensive Tackle (OT), Interior Offensive Line (IOL), EDGE (EDGE), Linebacker (LB), Cornerback (CB), Safety (S) and Athlete (ATH).

Interior Offensive Line (IOL) is composed of prospects who project at guard or center long-term. EDGE accounts for prospects who project to play on the end of a defensive front, either as defensive ends or outside linebackers, depending on the scheme and alignment. Athlete (ATH) is reserved for prospects with genuine positional ambiguity between offense and defense at the college level and beyond.

Rivals’ Evaluation Process

Rivals’ goal is to assess a prospect’s long-term potential and impact in college football, ultimately manifested by the NFL Draft.

The NFL Draft is used as a benchmark because it is the other point in a player’s career where they are quantitatively sorted among their cohort. The Draft is an exhaustive numerical selection process that occurs within months of players concluding their college careers.

Using the NFL Draft as a gauge requires annual study of up-to-date positional, geographical and developmental trends among highly-drafted players. As a result, Rivals closely inspects the high school backgrounds and developmental arcs of top Draft picks every year.

This study informs positional critical factors that are used in Rivals’ prospect evaluation process. Positional rankings are the starting point of the prospect sorting process for Rivals. This is due to the apples-to-apples nature of first comparing prospects within the same position group.

Rivals’ positional rankings all start with on-field video analysis of the prospects. This includes close inspection of full game and highlight videos. The availability of full game video has increased exponentially over the past few years and plays a key role in the process, particularly as prospects play their senior seasons.

On-field video is augmented by in-person field evaluations which includes camp, 7-on-7, live game and all-star settings. Those subjective evaluations are supplemented by positional critical factors determined by NFL Draft trends. These include verified size/dimension measurements, verified athletic data, and on-field production benchmarks.

After moving past intra-positional rankings, positional value is considered in assessing each individual prospect’s long-term potential. The college and NFL games are constantly changing, making certain positions and player archetypes within each position more valuable than others.

Rivals operates with the belief that player evaluation mirrors the construction of a puzzle or mosaic. Each piece of source material and information is used to create a projection of each prospect’s long-term potential while striving to be as accurate as possible. This view is adopted with the acknowledgement that player development is not steady or linear and does not always operate in concert with the accelerated recruiting timeline.

Rivals Rankings Update Timeline

Rivals ratings and rankings will be added and updated on a regular schedule throughout the course of a recruiting cycle. The rankings grow in size and accuracy as exposure to the prospects and source material increases over time.

The Rivals Industry Ranking, a weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all three major recruiting media companies, will be updated in accord with Rivals’ ranking schedule.

The rankings update calendar within a recruiting cycle would look something like this:

1 – Sophomore year watchlist: 100 four-star prospects (ranked numerically)
Rivals Industry: 50-100 four-stars
 
2 – Initial Rivals300: March, after sophomore year
 Rivals Industry: Five five-stars, 295 four-stars

3 – Post spring/camp update: May, prior to junior year
Rivals Industry: 10 five-stars, 315 four-stars

4 – Junior mid-season update: October
Rivals Industry: 15 five-stars, 335 four-stars

5 –Post-NSD overhaul: February, after junior season
Rivals Industry: 20 five-stars, 355 four-stars
 
6 – Spring football/7-on-7/camps update: April
Rivals Industry: 25 five-stars, 375 four-stars

7 – Summer update: July, prior to senior season
 Rivals Industry: 32 five-stars, 393 four-stars

8 – Senior mid-season update: September
 Rivals Industry: 32 five-stars, 418 four-stars

9 – Senior postseason update: November, prior to the Early Signing Period
 Rivals Industry: 32 five-stars, 418 four-stars

10 – Final update: January, after national all-star games
Rivals Industry: 32 five-stars, 418 four-stars