Inside The Numbers: Recruiting Rankings And Development At QB, WR And RB

Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech has struggled with player development on the offensive side of the ball. (Ivan Morozov)

Recruiting.  Talent.  Evaluations.  Development.  Those are four things that get talked about a lot when it comes to winning football games and running a program.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a player is talented or if he’s just not being developed properly.  Sometimes a guy is rated highly, but the evaluations are wrong.  Sometimes there’s very little difference between a 3-star and a 4-star, and their success comes down to fit, culture, and development.  Yes, you need a ton of 4-star and 5-star talent to be the 2021 Georgia Bulldogs, but you also need the proper development program in place.

But you can also have plenty of success by evaluation and development of players who aren’t rated quite as high.  When doing the game preview this week, I noticed that Syracuse running back Sean Tucker is the No. 2 rusher in the country, and that he was only a 3-star recruit.  So I decided to take a look at the top 10 Power 5 running backs in the country in terms of yards per game, see who they play for, see what their recruiting ranking was, and see what other teams recruited them.

All rankings are from 247 Sports, and I didn’t include Group of Five running backs because they play a different level of competition.  Here we go…

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