The 2023 recruiting class is in the books, and it’s time for my promised star ratings article for Virginia Tech. As a reminder, I do half-stars because I think there are too many 4-star and 3-star recruits these days and it’s too hard to differentiate between most of them. Before we get into the rankings, let’s briefly revisit why I do half-star ratings and how I come to the conclusions.

For the 2023 recruiting class, the top 39 prospects are all rated as 5-star players in the 247 Composite rankings. That means the No. 40 player in the country is a 4-star recruit. There’s nothing wrong with that, in a vacuum. The problem is that the No. 446 recruit is also a 4-star player, and that’s where I have my issue with the star ranking system.

People see four stars next to both players’ names, but the No. 40 player is one spot away from being a 5-star, and the No. 446 player is one spot away from being a 3-star. There’s a huge difference of opinion of each prospect in terms of numerical rankings, but it isn’t reflected in the star rankings, which is what everybody seems to look at first. Therefore, I believe the traditional star ranking system to be a bit antiquated, and thus I’ve started to do a half-star system on TSL.*

*Our database isn’t programmed to accept half-stars, so you can ignore the players’ rankings in their recruiting profiles and instead focus on this article for my true feelings on each prospect.

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