I like the stories about the kids that "no one had ever heard of" and then they break on the scene at 16u. The real story is their parents saw no need to spend 5K for a 12u travel team so the kid played local stuff until 10th grade. it wasn't that he wasn't ALWAYS good it's just that his parents kept the kid hidden.
CaCO3Girl posted:I like the stories about the kids that "no one had ever heard of" and then they break on the scene at 16u. The real story is their parents saw no need to spend 5K for a 12u travel team so the kid played local stuff until 10th grade. it wasn't that he wasn't ALWAYS good it's just that his parents kept the kid hidden.
Yes. We have a kid in a 2A school here in Colorado. He actually did play youth travel ball but then his freshman year he moved to the town where his youth ball coach had taken the head coaching job, so he was ineligible to play varsity ball for a year. he also didn't play much with showcase teams. Then he pops up in high school last year throwing 93 as a sophomore as well as hitting 18 home runs in 18 games. Still, because it's a small school, he's not on anyone's radar. However, he gets an Area Code tryout and - Bam! His recruiting is off and running late in his junior summer out of nowhere.
d-mac posted:A lot of the blame should placed on Clarkson. There are a lot of QB "gurus" out there that use the kids they are training to hype their own brand. Most of them aren't even very good, they just find talented QB's at a young age at their camps and latch on to them. Then it becomes more about hype than substance over the next few years. For every Andrew Luck there are 20 David Sills.
I'll bet the ratio is more like 1:100 than 1:20.
roothog66 posted:I make that joke all the time. I'm 5' 11" (when I stretch it a little) and 190 lbs (after losing 60 lbs since February). My wife is 5' 10". Son is over 6' 4" / 235 lbs. When he went to the PG Junior Nationals, I couldn't be there. I made sure to have my 6' 10" father-in-law come down and hang out.
Edit: Whoops. That's 235 lbs, not 135 lbs.
Your son falls in the 6-8 inches taller than his mother range. Very normal.
BishopLeftiesDad posted:PGStaff posted:Of course the younger they are the more difficult it is to predict the future. Mostly due to physical things, size, strength, injury, ect. But that 13 year old that can hit, run, field and throw better than other 13 year olds will most often become a very good high school player. It doesn't mean that others won't develop and pass him. But we seldom talk about the best 13 year old that is still the best when he is 18 and that happens a lot.
I always seem to hear the stories about the stud 13 year old that got cut in high school. For every one of those stories I could give 10 where the stud 13 year old became the star of his high school team. In fact, I could tell stories where the stud 13 year old ended up playing in the Major Leagues and becoming an All Star.
Point is there is more than one way to look at most things. I will bet on the best 13s to become among the best 14s, the best 14s to become among the best 15s and so on. That is what the recruiters are doing and they will be right much more than they are wrong because they know what they are looking for. The problem is that they can correct things when they are wrong and that often creates a big problem for the player when that happens.
I think what PGStaff posted is generally true. But I think it is more true on the national, or even the regional stage. Those players at 13U and 14U that are studs at that level are generally studs when they get to HS, and maybe even college. When you start talking on more of a local level city, county etc.. That is when you see the kids that are studs at 13 or 14, may be the kids who developed early and may not progress as well as others.
I believe that is why we see the two different perspectives. All of us have stories about the local 13 year old that never progressed. But we do not generally see the kids who are studs at the higher levels.
I agree. I used to say some of the (local) 13yos, and/or their dads are going to pee their pants when they find out what's waiting for them once they look outside their current boundaries.
The way I see this story, the early commitment part is pretty much immaterial. What happened was that the next coach decided this quarterback didn't fit his system and pulled the offer and, in fact, did so with plenty of time for further recruiting. His injury which cost him his entire senior season didn't help, but he did end up with another big D1 scholarship. The offer wasn't pulled because he didn't develop as planned - it was pulled because his style was wrong for the new system. This could have just as easily happened if he committed as a junior and then had an offer pulled. The fact he committed as an eight-grader really has nothing to do with what happened.
RJM posted:roothog66 posted:I make that joke all the time. I'm 5' 11" (when I stretch it a little) and 190 lbs (after losing 60 lbs since February). My wife is 5' 10". Son is over 6' 4" / 235 lbs. When he went to the PG Junior Nationals, I couldn't be there. I made sure to have my 6' 10" father-in-law come down and hang out.
Edit: Whoops. That's 235 lbs, not 135 lbs.
Your son falls in the 6-8 inches taller than his mother range. Very normal.
I'm 6'2, maybe I should invest in basketball in that case!
CaCO3Girl posted:RJM posted:roothog66 posted:I make that joke all the time. I'm 5' 11" (when I stretch it a little) and 190 lbs (after losing 60 lbs since February). My wife is 5' 10". Son is over 6' 4" / 235 lbs. When he went to the PG Junior Nationals, I couldn't be there. I made sure to have my 6' 10" father-in-law come down and hang out.
Edit: Whoops. That's 235 lbs, not 135 lbs.
Your son falls in the 6-8 inches taller than his mother range. Very normal.
I'm 6'2, maybe I should invest in basketball in that case!
You never know. I had a stud basketball player in 10-12u travel. He was tall relative to his age. Both parents were 6'2. I figured the kid would be 6'7, 6'8". He was the state's Gatorage player of the year in high school. He was a top college prospect by soph year of high school when he was all state. This was one of those kids you just knew would play college ball. He did play basketball in the ACC until he tore up his knee and transferred. But he stopped growing after his soph year of high school at 6'2". Had he grown to 6'7" and not been injured I believe he would have played in the NBA.
Should also note some colleges in the Pac-12 which are "guaranteed" scholarships involve guarantees of:
Year One: 50%
Year Two: 0%
Year Three: 0%
Year Four: 0%
Understand this happens on at least one campus in the Pac-12. Guarantee my butt.
Coda to this thread -- this definitely falls under the category of, in the immortal words of Joaquin Andujar, "youneverknow":
www.espn.com/college-football/...ed-qb-elite-receiver
Through 4 games, 26 catches, 15.2 ypc, 7 TDs.
The only thing about this story is that the fact he committed early didn't hurt him at all. He still ended up with a Power 5 scholly and a shot at QB. If he had not signed early, what would have been different?
roothog66 posted:The only thing about this story is that the fact he committed early didn't hurt him at all. He still ended up with a Power 5 scholly and a shot at QB. If he had not signed early, what would have been different?
Not germane to the general topic, but for this specific kid, I can say with some degree of confidence that he would have had a happier childhood, and maybe even been a better QB in college. This soap opera played out in my neck of the woods.