New Penn State Coach James Franklin has had a rather smooth transition thus far; at least in the recruiting department. Since taking over for Bill O’Brien, Franklin has poached a few commits from Vanderbilt. PSU has five early enrollees, and they bolstered the class by signing four-star receiver Saeed Blacknall, who defected from Rutgers.
Which leads us into a discussion of something called “flipping.” And it’s something James Franklin is excelling at.
“As much as we would like to believe that there’s substance to some of these prospects’ decisions, and with some there are, I’m not going to generalize and include everybody, they’re going to commit to coaches,” said ESPN Recruiting Analyst Tom Luginbill.
“They’re going to commit to individuals that they have a comfort level with. The problem with that, and I’m not saying that’s entirely bad, but in this day and age, the likelihood that a prospect will play for position coach who recruited them for three to four years, it’s minimal. So there does need to be substance.”
“And whether you like it or not, until that pen hits paper, coaches are going to battle to the very end. A verbal commitment just tells them who they need to beat out to get the prospect,” Luginbill continued.
You already know how James Franklin ‘s recruiting class was rated, but did you know that he also achieved a “star rating rank” according to Fox Sport’s Scout? So we have a second new buzzword where James Franklin succeeds: flipping and, well what on Earth is a “star rating rank?”
Overall recruiting class rankings emphasize the number of recruits with a high star rating (1-5), star rating rank doesn’t matter look at the size of the recruiting class. Only overall class ranking does. So star rating ranking is more of a “star rating per recruit average” if you will. You don’t need a big recruiting class to achieve a high star rating rank.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the country; with regular weekly segments on ESPN, NBC, CBS and Fox Sports Radio. A former writer for NBC Chicago and the Washington Times, he’s also been featured on the History Channel. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)