This is the first in a series called Recruiting Moneyball, which is a look at how the realities of talent acquisition in college football differ drastically from the perception in the media.â€¨â€¨

Blake Bortles had a 247Sports Composite rating of 0.8282 coming out of high school. That's a low three-star.

First thing is first. I am not talking about Alabama, Florida State, USC, Ohio State, Notre Dame or any of the so-called “blue bloods” of college football here. Any program that recruits across the board at an elite level nearly always does so. Sure, they make mistakes and there are times when a program goes through the wilderness (Michigan, Florida), but nearly always a new staff ends up arriving and loading up on the talent and they compete for championships again.

That’s how it works if you are one of the top 15-20 programs in college football.But what about the rest?

You can be Clemson or Ole Miss and recruit your butt off against the big boys and win your share of battles. Those programs both do an outstanding job, but they are outliers and to be honest, it’s not a given that the Tigers aren’t at least somewhat of a college football blue blood and the Rebels have great tradition.

Or you can do it a different way.

I am going to say something honest here that most of my peers in the recruiting industry will not tell you- it is a myth that you can’t win at the Power 5 level in college football recruiting classes with up to 90 percent of your class rated three stars.

I mean, it’s absolute hogwash. It’s recruiting industry Pravda and anyone who says otherwise really hasn’t looked at the facts. â€¨â€¨

â€¨â€¨Not all three-stars are created equal

First and foremost, the recruiting industry is not as detailed when it comes to three-star rated prospects. Of all of the ratings given out to major college football prospects, none vary as much as the three-star. There are prospects with dozens of offers that have that rating. There are prospects with one offer that have that rating. Offers are not indicative of talent, but are an example of how the opinions of analysts and college coaches alike are not as in consensus with the three-star.

There are three-stars that are “value” threes who many really feel could end up being great at the college level and playing in the NFL, there are “in-between” threes who end up being role players in college (that should be two stars, which these days is wrongfully interpreted as being “bad” or “average” by prospects, parents and even the media) and there are “get you fired” three stars- guys that are good high school players that may have impressed someone somewhere at a camp or something, but who lack the ability to play college football.

Recruit too many “get you fired” three stars and if you are a coaching staff, that’s exactly what is going to happen. But that doesn’t need to occur. Coaches just have to recruit smarter and many do, but many don’t.

Looking at the 2014 NFL Draft, half of the 32 first-round picks in the 2014 NFL Draft were of players who were rated three (or two as there were a pair) stars coming out of high school.â€¨â€¨What college football program in the southeast would not have wanted Kahlil Mack (Buffalo) and Marcus Smith (Louisville) at linebacker? Or out west, Brandin Crooks (Oregon State) at receiver and Deone Buchannon (Washington State) at safety?â€¨â€¨

The Checklist

So how do you recruit smarter on the three-star level if you are a college program that can’t just go out and sign anybody you want? How do you recruit smarter at the three-star level to reap the benefits of these types of prospects?

There’s a formula provided by a simple checklist.

There are always going to be “no-brainers” on a college football recruiting board. The “no-brainers” that actually exist in a given class usually total at about 150 overall. The rest is subjective. This formula applies to those who aren’t “no-brainers” and thus you need to have criteria in order to order these prospects on your board, thus the use of a checklist is needed.

There are three types of questions to ask when considering if a three-star prospect is a “definite take”, a “possible take with further evaluation” or a “back-up plan”.

1- Does the prospect have some sort of elite measurable?

Is he a 6-foot-7 offensive tackle or defensive end with a monster frame? Is he a track athlete that is a sub-4.4 second 40-yard dash guy? Is he a quarterback that is 6-foot-4 with a big arm? These are all examples of “elite measurables. Typically you find these guys on the track (at the skill positions) or at times in another sport like basketball (you can recruit a lot of potential defensive end talent by evaluating the 6-foot-4 power forward on the high school basketball court properly) or even in a situation with a quarterback where a kid is behind another prospect.

2- Is he a quick-twitch athlete?

This is often determined in a camp setting or through live evaluation, but you can tell on film at times. These are the guys that just move with quickness. It’s violent hands on a defensive end. It’s elite lateral movement and change-of-direction for a linebacker. It’s the ability to break on the football at defensive back position or a receiver that can jump up and snatch it. Quick-twitch athletes are what sets the game apart for the great programs. You can never have too many of them and if you are trying to hit the jackpot at the three-star level, this is important.

3- Does he love football?

This is the third thing listed, but is perhaps the most important. In today’s society, people generally get too caught up in “if x, then y” when it comes to football. In other words, if you recruit a bunch of four and five stars, you have a bunch of talent and therefore should win games. That’s not necessarily the case in football. Football is a talent-maximization game. The star ratings are just raw scores based on a number of factors. If a player loves football, then his chances of maximizing his talent in your program increase ten fold. He’s not going to miss offseason workouts. He’s not going to take plays off during games. He’s going to learn his assignments within your scheme because he loves the game. The amazing thing that I’ve learned in covering recruiting for over a decade is that a lot of players don’t actually love football. They love the attention that it has brought them. They love 7-on-7 (which is vastly different than the actual sport of football and is basically a different sport), they love Friday nights and being a part of their high school team and they are pretty dog gone good at it. But going up to a level that requires work to continue their glory or to even see the field? Colliding with guys who are bigger and faster than in high school? Being challenged in an environment where they aren’t physically superior to the vast majority of players any longer? That’s a big no thank you. It’s more prevalent in today’s culture than at any other time and should be the cornerstone of any “non no-brainer” evaluation by a coaching staff.

â€¨

What to do now?

-If the answer is yes to any combination of the two questions that includes No. 3, then he’s a borderline “definite take” and at the very least a “camp eval, take and get him committed in the summer” type of guy.

-If the answer is yes to No. 1 and No. 2, but not No. 3, you need to hold on him and watch his senior film. Continue to recruit him and keep him on the board, but he’s a good back-up plan. Maybe you can change his mind. Maybe he matures during his senior year. You never know and don’t want to close the door on anybody just yet based on the ever-changing mind and heart of a high school kid. That being said, you can’t afford to take the risk on him early. If he commits elsewhere, another staff can deal with it. He may work out for them, but the probability is low.

-If the answer is yes to No. 3 only. For example, the guy who is a 5-foot-11, 200 pound linebacker, who is not a gifted athlete, a liability in pass coverage, but a big-time thumper who had more than 100 tackles at the high school level or any fullback if you have some I formation in your offense, immediately offer them a preferred walk-on spot if you have room. These guys can help at dying positions (like fullback) and on special teams and some end up working so hard that they earn scholarships and starting jobs.

-If the answer is yes to only No. 1 or only No. 2, they are back-up plans. When it gets to crunch time if you have space and you can live with what’s on the senior film, it’s better to have a quick-twitch prospect or a guy with elite measureables than a “get you fired” three star prospect.

-If the answer is no to all three, then drop him off the board immediately and stop recruiting him. There are outliers in football always, but this is the definition of a “get you fired” three-star. It doesn’t matter what other schools have offered or what he’s rated by the recruiting industry. Don’t take him.

Where to Look

There are all sorts of places to find value three-star prospects, but the best states to go and look are the ones that produce the most talent. It’s a given that when there is more talent in one place, more gets overlooked by the blue bloods of college football and thus there’s greater opportunity. Consider that of the 16 first-round NFL picks that were rated three (or two) stars, 12 of those came from the top four talent-producing states of Florida (3), Texas (3), California (3) and Georgia (3).

If you are in the Midwest or East or even some schools in the West- you don’t just have to go fight the foot traffic in Georgia (it’s a crowded state to recruit these days and while there’s plenty of value threes, there are plenty of get-you-fired threes as well), Florida or Texas.

For the entire country, but mostly schools in the Midwest, East and Southeast, there are areas to go and find prospects outside of Florida-Georgia-Texas. Here are some.

-Mobile, Alabama- It sounds strange to say because it’s in Alabama and truth be told the two in-state programs are dominant here, but the area also produces a ton of talent. In fact, Mobile produced the most draft picks per capita in the last three drafts of any draft. Specific example- Jimmie Ward from Northern Illinois was a first-round pick at safety. He is from Mobile.

-The 757- The Tidewater area of Virginia produces elite talent each and every recruiting cycle, but there are always guys in the region that get overlooked, particularly at the skill positions. Also, this is an area of the country where the majority of prospects love football. You don’t have to worry about a 757 kid not working hard most of the time. The sport is ingrained in the fabric of the area.

-Louisiana- LSU takes what LSU wants in Louisiana, but the Tigers don’t have enough scholarships annually to take everybody. For a blueprint on how to recruit Louisiana effectively, look at what Arizona State has very quietly done down there. Todd Graham and his staff are among the most resourceful recruiters in the country and the Sun Devils signed three quality prospects out of the Pelican State in 2015 after laying groundwork there for years.

-New Jersey- Every single recruiting cycle, there are players who are not rated very highly in New Jersey that end up blowing up in the college level. This is an underrated football state with deep numbers, you just have to find them. South Jersey in particular- the area between Philadelphia and Atlantic City- is good for a handful of sleepers every cycle.

If you are school in the West, the dynamic is a little different, though you can certainly go east and find more success these days (the country is getting smaller in so many ways) than previously.

In the West, it’s paramount that you recruit California with vigor and mine this vast state for the talent treasure trove that it is. California is a great place really for any school to spot recruit because there are always players that are missed (the recruiting cycle operates approximately 3-6 months behind the rest of the country- call it the Pacific Recruiting Time Zone or the PRTZ) and there are athletes everywhere.

Furthermore, California’s junior college system is outstanding and yet another gold mine for talent acquisition. It’s time consuming for sure, but worth it. Aaron Rodgers was a California JUCO. TCU found Jason Verrett at a California JUCO. The list goes on and on.

But speaking of Rodgers and Verrett- both were first-round draft picks after starring in Power 5 football after junior college in California. Neither had a scholarship offer out of high school, which brings me to what I consider to be the “land of the forgotten player” on the West coast- Northern California.

Rodgers is from Chico. Verrett is from Fairfield. There are plenty of others. A West Coast program must recruit Los Angeles to San Diego with vigor, but that program can also find plenty of “value three star” type of talent in this region.

Please note that these are general guidelines and not position-specific. In a future piece in this series, we will dig into the best places to .

Wrapping this up, it’s a myth that programs can’t rank in the 50s on national signing day and rank in the top 25 during the regular season. If you were a program in the south that had Mack (from Florida), Blake Bortles (Florida), Marcus Smith (Georgia), Darquezze Denard (of Michigan State, from Georgia) and Calvin Pryor (Florida) on your roster (and to credit Louisville, the Cardinals had three of those guys) and you spot recruited Mobile and found Ward, that’s four first-round picks on your roster, you had an All-American at quarterback, and a great back seven on defense and you did not sign a single prospect rated four stars or higher and while you would have had competition, it’s not like you had to beat Alabama or Florida State for their services.

There are some perceptional pitfalls to doing this. Fans are going to grumble about the talent level, especially the diehards who follow the program, including recruiting, 365 days-a-year. But, to be honest, if you have high-caliber players on Saturdays and win games on Saturdays and compete for championships, they won’t care.

Making great evaluations at the three-star level and making sure your roster has players each and every year is a safe way to ensure that and thus ensure longevity at a program or opportunity at a better job.

And longevity and opportunity for any staff is the goal.