The Curious Case of Davone Bess

Briefly, you don’t have to dismiss performance against weak competition. It’s informative as long as you discount it by factoring in all the appropriate variables. But Ruskell dismisses performance against weaker competition outright. Had Lofa Tatupu stayed at Maine he’d have had no shot with Ruskell, even in the 6th or 7th round. Sure, SC’s staff made him a more complete LB but but the talent was the same at Maine.
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(For a more long-winded treatise, because like Doug, Ruskell’s small school bias really bothers me a lot, read on…)

First, it’s a fair generalization to say “big FBS conference schools produce the most talent,” but it’s an overgeneralization to the point of stereotyping to take a “FBS school or bust” approach. Especially fourth round onward. The thing is, it’s fairly straightforward (though not easy) to make opponent adjustments in scouting—easiest on defense, which Ruskell privileges in the draft. Opponent adjustments in football may not be as formulaic as in baseball and basketball, but people do it all the time—just not Ruskell.

Second, so much of defense is athleticism, technique, and play recognition, which mostly show up live, on film, or both regardless of opponent. Athleticism can be misleading on film, but traditional scouting is good for getting at that. Pass rushing, for instance, is one area where if you have certain skills (namely moves and countermoves), and have the requisite athleticism, you can play in the league. Lots of the league’s great contemporary pass rushers went to small schools. Just sticking to the post-LT period I can think of Michael Strahan (Texas Southern), DeMarcus Ware and Osi Umenyiora (Troy), and Jared Allen (Idaho State) without trying hard. This guy I saw at Richmond, Sidbury, has moves and countermoves; he’s not just doing it with a quick first step or just a hustle guy. He will be able to rush the passer in the NFL. I don’t if know he can do anything else, but NFL caliber pass rush skill was apparent; not because he beat some stiff RT but because of how he did it.

Now, I could see where opponent adjustments are probably super important for QBs. You almost have to see a QB play against NFL caliber defenders to get a clue of how he might react to NFL game speed. Not surprisingly, good QBs rarely hail from outside the traditional top 50-type programs. But most positions I don’t think require all that. It helps, but it’s not absolutely necessary to see a prospect OT play head up against another prospect DT to evaluate him. Tennessee and Baltimore have made a good living getting guys from small schools to step in and play right away, on defense especially.
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(Okay now I’m just thinking out loud…)
My big point is that school size (or conference strength) isn’t necessarily a great indicator of quality once you get past the VERY best players. That’s the big logical flaw in Ruskell’s unwillingness to entertain FCS/small college players. Virtually all the top recruits go to the football factories. Check out the table in this analysis (http://www.rockmnation.com/2008/12/16/688385/gary-pinkel-vs-ou-texas-do). You’ll see that since 2002 almost 65% of the Rivals five-star recruits—the people most likely to become first round picks—are soaked up by just 10 programs. Everybody else is fighting for the table scraps. Caveat: just because Rivals rates a kid five-star doesn’t mean he becomes a superstar or that some two- and three-star kids don’t turn out to be studs. But that’s kinda the point. Unless you’re one of those ten super-schools you’re generally trying to find diamonds in the rough. Scholarship limits and the imperfect nature of recruiting itself insures that a reasonable number of the three- and two-star recruits that fashion themselves into NFL caliber talent, like Tatupu, will play at FCS and lower-tier FBS programs.

I just can’t see ignoring them the way Ruskell does.