Now, while recruiting rankings are all over the map, Steele’s rankings (or PS# as he calls them) interest me because he takes a very mathematical approach to the situation:

I compile my PS#’s based on the many different recruiting services across the country. I not only use all of the biggest but use regional reports as well…When we receive a recruiting magazine, we translate each player’s ranking into a point system from 1-100. [My employees,] Brandon, Christy and Logan then log each and every player into the computer and give them a point total from each source…The more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated in each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by each position and by total points.

While Steele doesn’t go into the specifics of his point system (after all, he still wants you to buy his magazine), in the subjective realm of recruiting rankings, his approach is as non-biased as it gets . By using so many recruiting services, Steele’s method allows him to average out some of the biases and oddities that tend to arise in rankings. For instance, some services will raise/lower a recruits ranking based on the schools that offer–the more prestigious the list, the higher the ranking rises.

In Neal’s case, these variations were even more pronounced:

The services can’t even really settle on what Neal’s position is, something that definitely affected his position rankings and possibly even his national ranking for those that provided it.

In comparison, take a look at how Greenberry stacked up:

While the rankings are again rather varied (especially on ESPN’s part), there is no doubt that Greenberry was definitely considered one of the elite WRs in the nation. The only service that had both Neal and Greenberry as WRs, Rivals, didn’t even put Neal in the same league as Greenberry. Save for ESPN, the national rankings of Neal and Greenberry aren’t in the same ballpark as well.

This makes Steele’s final ranking all the more fascinating. Did Arizona regional services boost Neal’s rankings far higher than California services did for Greenberry? Are the major services severely underestimating Neal? Did questioning Neal’s primary position further muddy the waters for some?

Whatever the case, it is clear that Neal got enough print and high enough rankings from many recruiting services to boost him over Greenberry in Steele’s formulas. Of course, rankings don’t always equate to on field performance guarantees, something Steele himself readily admits in his magazine.

After all, Dayne Crist was a PS#5 QB.

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