247Sports has led the industry in recruiting coverage since its inception in 2010.
Director of Scouting Andrew Ivins provides transparent insight into the rankings process, what the rankings mean, and what 247Sports is doing that no one else in the industry is.
***** Can you describe what the rankings mean?
IVINS: “We mirror our Top247 after the NFL Draft. There are 32 first-round picks every year, which is why we have 32 five-stars. So, if we award a prospect a fifth star, we believe that they have one of the best chances out of anyone in the cycle to eventually blossom into a Day 1 pick. Obviously, we are not going to hit on every five-star – evaluating football players isn’t easy, just ask the decision makers in the NFL – but these are the prospects we feel the best about. We feel comfortable with the years of data that backs up a correlation between a five-star recruit, collegiate success and a high NFL draft floor. Plus, we have to have a way to grade ourselves. The NFL draft is a great final exam for a given class.
“Outside of the five-stars, you have what we call Day 2 and Day 3 projections. The second round of the NFL Draft is usually picks 33-64 with the third round going from pick 65 to pick 105. Any prospect that we slot in that range is viewed by us as a potential Day 2 selection. Again, we are not going to be right on everyone, but prospects in this neighborhood usually check off box after box for us. Anyone ranked from 106 to 247 is considered a Day 3 projection, which would be rounds three, four, five, six and seven of the NFL Draft. After that we have roughly 100 four-stars outside the Top247. These are essentially priority free agents and in most cases they are prospects that have a case to be inside the Top247. We have tried to get way more conservative with naming four-stars early on in the cycle because we want these prospect’s arrows to be pointing up as they embark on the next steps in their careers and we only have so many spots to use.
“When it comes to the three-stars, this is where a bulk of college football players will be ranked and it’s an area we have really tried to improve in recent years. If you go down our grading scale, you will see that a prospect with a grade of an 89 can be a really, really good college football player and potentially even an NFL Draft pick. The same goes for an 88 or an 87. We always get asked why isn’t this prospect a four-star? Well, if we made everyone a four-star, then the question would quickly become, why isn’t this prospect a five-star? At some point you have to draw a line in the sand and take your calculated shots, and I think we are as equipped as anyone when it comes to having a grasp on the class nationally. We are watching more kids than ever. And we are going to get it wrong. And the ones that we do miss on, we’re going to study them and figure out why we missed.”
See more below.
Five-stars (98-110 rating): The top 32 players in the country to mirror the 32 first round picks in the NFL Draft. These are the 32 players that we believe are the most likely to be drafted in the first round from each recruiting class. Any player with a rating of more than 100 is considered a “franchise player” and one that does not come around in every recruiting class. (Jadeveon Clowney is the highest-graded player in the history of 247Sports and he received a 105 grade. Bryce Young and Jeremiah Smith received grades of 101.)
Four-stars (90-97 rating): These are players that we believe are the most likely to produce college careers that get them drafted. By the end of the cycle, it will be populated by prospects that meet key thresholds. Some four-stars might be a longer burn than others, but they have separated themselves from the rest of the pack and almost always for more than just one singular reason.
Three-stars (80-89 rating): This is where a majority of college football players will be ranked. There are roughly 15,000 high school football players each year. A three-star grade signals that we think a prospect can play at the Power Four, Group of Five or even FCS level and each three-star rating means something a little bit different.
More specifically:
89 – This grade should be valued as much as a four-star 90, and opinions are likely split as to whether or not that prospect should have a fourth star. Anyone holding a grade of an 89 when the rankings go final at the end of the cycle is a prospect that we feel strongly about. These are prospects with redeeming qualities that we think can get drafted or work their way into an NFL camp. They project as multi-year starters and impact players at the Power Four level.
88 – These prospects have what we are looking for in certain areas, but maybe lack something in others. They too project as multi-year starters at the Power Four level and potential difference-makers with NFL upside. For example, he could be an edge rusher with great tape and on-field production, but below average measurables. These are likely individuals with a higher floor. If a prospect has a grade of an 88, they are considered a top 600 player in the class.
87 – Any prospect found here usually has one key trait that signals long-term potential. The floor might be going to be lower than some of the prospects ranked ahead of them, but they have a higher ceiling than the prospects below them.
86-84 – These are the prospects that we don’t view as future NFL players, but can play – and start – at the Power 4 level. There will certainly be individuals that out play their projections, but this range is reserved for multi-year contributors and depth additions.
83-81 – Group of Five starters, FCS impact players
80-70 – Group of Five depth players, FCS starters
Counterpoint: Why not use college “success?” Why the NFL Draft?
IVINS: “The NFL Draft is when our work is on full display every single year. That’s when the entire world is watching. We are in a unique situation because we’re trying to project what 15-, 16-, 17-, 18-year-olds are going to look like three to five years down the line. By using the highest level of football as our compass, it allows us to work towards an objective goal. I mean, how do you define college success? Is it All-American? All-Conference? Their Pro Football Focus grade? There are scheme limitations. College success is in the eye of the beholder.”
“The best players in college football are also usually the ones walking across the stage and shaking hands with the NFL commissioner every year. And it’s not just the ones from the traditional powers. Look at Tulane two years ago when the Green Wave took down USC in the Cotton Bowl Classic. They had two players selected in the third-round of the NFL Draft last year and could have four more players selected this year. That’s a prime example of NFL-caliber talent elevating a team.”
***** What is unique about how 247Sports approaches the rankings process?
IVINS: “We have a ton of different eyes getting on prospects. The way we have it set up now, by the time most prospects sign with their school of choice, there will have been at least four different analysts that have studied his tape, written out an evaluation, and given that player a grade. I think that is very unique in our space. For me, I love all the debates behind the scenes. I actually encourage it. I want our analysts to have conviction about how they feel on a certain prospect – and no one is going to hold it against them. There isn’t any finger pointing if we miss. I want someone to tell me what this kid can do and what they think he can be. If someone disagrees, awesome. That’s healthy. And that’s what we as evaluators should want. We have tried to create an environment where information and opinion is constantly being presented and we make a decision as a group from there.”
***** 247Sports is the first company in the industry to fully draw a line between its scouting personnel and the reporting personnel, something done most recently. Why?
IVINS: “We’re in a new era of college football. With the transfer portal, player movement and coaching movement is at an all-time high. I think for us to have a team of individuals that doesn’t need to lean on contacts for information and then have to return some favor in the process is cutting edge. These are our rankings and not steered by some promise that has been made or a hand-shake deal. I think with just how crazy the college football calendar has gotten, I often wonder how many coaches are really watching 100 high school quarterbacks around the country? These staffs are so busy these days playing roster defense, looking to add guys in the transfer portal, and then most importantly, trying to win football games. Do not get me wrong, all information is valuable, but we’re scouting with our eyes and not ranking with our ears.”
247Sports’ Recruiting Team:
Director of Scouting – Ivins
National Scouting Analysts – Greg Biggins, Gabe Brooks, Cooper Petagna, Hudson Standish
National Recruiting Editor – Brandon Huffman
National Recruiting Analysts – Adams, Blair Angulo, Brian Dohn, Tom Loy, Mike Roach, Allen Trieu
***** What goes into the rankings process?
IVINS: “The testing numbers are great and the in-person evaluations are great, but at the end of the day film is extremely important. What are these prospects able to do in pads and under the lights? We grind through the tape. That’s the baseline.
“I think the other thing people need to understand is that it’s not just one singular event driving a prospect’s rankings. It’s a very fluid process. We scout each class from their freshman season all the way to the end of the senior season after the postseason all-star events. For a lot of kids, that’s three to four years of different data points. It’s easy for someone that’s not in the space to make a snap judgment on a prospect, but we invest a lot of time into these rankings, and there are a lot of cases where sometimes we are waiting to make a move because we want to see something or learn about something on a particular prospect. Remember, we are projecting success to the next level. Not just trying to rank the best high school football players.”
“It’s also an endless pool of prospects. It’s non-stop. There is always someone to watch and grade as we juggle three different cycles at a time. One of the biggest things we have done recently is invest in NextGen, which is the same software that multiple NFL organizations and College Football Playoff contenders use. Jim Nagy, who heads up the Senior Bowl, is the first one that put this product on our radar and it has been an absolute game-changer for us behind the scenes as we are able to store literally everything on a prospect. The team is now able to write and archive notes on prospects from their 9th-grade year all the way up to 12th-grade year and match that up with all of the data we receive from the UC Report, which is a third-party service that almost every school in the country uses. No longer is a kid getting buried on a piece of paper somewhere or lost on a spreadsheet. We have streamlined our process and made it very easy to build an extensive evaluation on a prospect while also being able to look at the entire board.
“I joke about this all the time, but we are information sponges. We are always trying to learn and get around as many voices as possible to uncover the latest trends and see what’s working at the game’s highest levels. We want to soak up as much as we can and then apply that to our process to make it better.”
***** What’s the rhyme and reason behind when the rankings debut or receive updates?
IVINS: “We are not racing to put out player rankings and that’s in large part because we want to be as accurate and as calculated as possible. For example, with this current 2025 wave of recruits, we put a ton of work into the late-junior season update because we knew just based on how things have changed in college football that as soon as we got into the spring months, there would be a big push from schools to get prospects on campus and committed. We ended up rolling the dice on some guys that we truly believed in behind the scenes. Those moves have been good to us. Some of the prospects that we put inside the Top247 didn’t even have a single Power 4 offer next to their name. Now, they are being courted by College Football Playoffs regulars. We aren’t trying to jigsaw kids up and down the board. Of course, there are some cases where that’s going to happen, but we’re trying to take a more methodical approach and work towards the finish line, which is at the end of a prospect’s senior season. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Typical rankings schedule for a class:
August after freshman season: Initial top 100 released
Spring after sophomore season: Rankings expand to a full Top247
Summer before junior season: Top247 update
Late fall of junior season: Top247 update
Early spring before senior season: Top247 update
May before senior season: Full 32-player five-star field revealed
Summer before senior season: Top247 update after Elite 11 Finals
September of senior season: Top247 update
November of senior season: Top247 update in advance of Signing Day
January after senior season: Top247 finalized following all-star events
Note: The scouting team is constantly making front-facing, year-round tweaks to the rankings.
***** The multi-sport and track emphasis has been well-documented as valuable data points. What about other data that 247Sports has begun valuing?
IVINS: “We are always looking to gain an edge and constantly studying the NFL Draft and NFL rosters. If you look at some of the top rookies from this past season, a lot of them got significant snaps on both sides of the ball at the prep level. You will see the same thing in the upcoming NFL Draft. Favorable bloodlines are also notable. It’s certainly not the end-all and be-all certainly in any way, but if a family member has done it before then there is a chance the relative can do the same.
“Another thing for us is birthdays and this is something I actually picked up while talking with some front office personnel and scouts in the NHL. When you are trying to rank a senior in high school and one kid in the class is 15 months older than the other kid, that’s a big deal. Kids grow at different times. We are trying to find who has the most potential and if you can uncover something like that, we’ll take it into account.”
***** What about camps and 7-on-7?
IVINS: “I want to be clear here. 247Sports does not run any camps. So no one is paying to get ranked. You will see our logo on a ton of fliers (usually without our permission), but we can only be in so many places. I mean, there’s literally an event every single weekend. In the current landscape, we are going to send people to every stop on the Under Armour Next Camp series. Those folks do an excellent job of inviting prospects and then getting them to go through laser-timed testing and relevant positional drills. We also invest resources in the Elite 11 Finals and the Elite 11 regionals and staff the annual National Combine as we are partnered with the All-American Bowl. Outside of that, we will pick and choose events that we feel are worth our time in a year-round business.
“I’d also like to put it out there that there is no such thing as a bad testing time. We live in this era where so many kids are afraid of the laser. For us it’s just another data point. I mean yes, it will certainly be discussed, but the fastest guy at the 2023 Scouting Combine was DJ Turner, who ran a blazing 4.26 effort in the 40-yard dash. His fastest time out of high school was 4.73 seconds. Guys can get faster. We know that. If you’re scratching numbers, there is a reason why.
“As 7-on-7 tournaments and leagues, that space has gotten so commercialized. We like it because it’s going to usually bring a collection of deep athletes from all different pockets of the country together for one weekend. It’s more body-typing, seeing movement patterns, and honestly scouting and interacting with the athlete in a competitive environment. We don’t get sit-down interviews like the NFL does. We don’t get prospect visits or an hour of one-on-one time.”
***** What’s one change you’d make to the recruiting calendar?
IVINS: “By potentially adding a summer signing window, schools are eliminating the evaluation of the senior season, which I think is dangerous. Having prospects sign with colleges before their senior year is like turning in the scorecard at the turn. What does the back nine look like?
“Now, I completely get the need for some type of change to the current college football recruiting calendar, but as someone that is constantly evaluating prospects across all different classes, I think that accelerating the process even more would be essentially dumping gasoline on the transfer portal. I hear it all the time now from college contacts about how an early enrollee isn’t who they thought he would be after just a few spring practices and usually that player is someone that committed to the school well before his senior season. A summer signing window is only going to lead to more mis-evaluations. It also closes the door even more on late-bloomers. Not every recruit is starting on varsity as a freshman or sophomore. Let’s also not forget, they’re teenagers. Kids can grow two, three inches and add 20, 30 pounds.
“I would also be in favor of restructuring the process on how scholarship offers are extended. It will never happen, but if schools had to wait until after sophomore seasons or the summer before junior seasons, I believe it would ultimately lead to a better on-field product. We see it every cycle. A lot of promising underclassmen take their foot off the pedal once they receive their first few big offers, and they never reach their full potential.”
