All recruiting classes are hit or miss.  If you’ve followed recruiting long enough, you know that.  Also, star rankings aren’t necessarily a reflection of an individual’s ability to produce at the college level.  Today we’ll take a look at the 2017 class – Justin Fuente’s first class at Virginia Tech – to illustrate both of those points.

The 4-Star Recruits

I don’t put too much thought into star rankings for individual prospects these days, because I think they can be misleading and I would prefer a half-star system.  I wouldn’t even be opposed to a quarter-star system, though that might be a little bit too detailed for some.

But I used to take then pretty seriously, and I’d put thought into each recruit’s star ranking on TSL.  Generally speaking, I went with the Rivals/247/ESPN consensus, though sometimes if my own personal feeling was strong enough I would either add or take away a star.  The 2017 class contains one such recruit, and it was one that I got wrong.

Overall, the 2017 class contained six 4-star recruits, according to the TSL rankings.  Judging from the comments on the recruiting board over the last year or so, I think most people believe that signing more 4-star players would mean more wins.  That’s not necessarily the case.  Here were the TSL 4-star players that Tech signed in 2017: Zion DeBose, TyJuan Garbutt, Hendon Hooker, Devon Hunter, Nathan Proctor and Dylan Rivers.

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