The Super Bowl is the pinnacle of American football. Every player in it has taken a long road to get there. Some of those roads have been rougher than others, but there’s no easy way to get onto an NFL roster and to a Super Bowl afterward.

With the help of the 247Sports Composite, we’ve got a time machine that tells us how almost every player in Sunday’s Falcons-Patriots game was rated coming out of high school. Not counting special teams players (who’ve rarely been rated), each team has a handful of starters who didn’t get ranked before college, either because they weren’t scouted well enough, developed late, or came through high school before the modern recruiting industry. Recruits have only been ranked, as we understand it today, since about 2000.

Patriots Pos. Player Stars College Pos. Player Stars College CB Malcolm Butler Unranked West Alabama LG Joe Thuney Unranked NC State QB Tom Brady 4* Michigan WR Chris Hogan Unranked Monmouth DT Malcom Brown 5 Texas TE Martellus Bennett 5 Texas A&M RB LeGarrette Blount 4 Oregon LB Dont'a Hightower 4 Alabama C David Andrews 3 Georgia CB Logan Ryan 3 Rutgers FS Devin McCourty 3 Rutgers DE Chris Long 3 Virginia DT Alan Branch 3 Michigan LT Nate Solder 3 Colorado LB Rob Ninkovich 3 Purdue RB James White 3 Wisconsin DE Trey Flowers 3 Arkansas RG Shaquille Mason 3 Georgia Tech RT Marcus Cannon 3 TCU WR Julian Edelman 3 Kent State SS Patrick Chung 2 Oregon LB Shea McClellin 2 Boise State

* Tom Brady was around before recruiting rankings, but we’ve retroactively made him a four-star with an asterisk. He was a Michigan signee with offers from other national powers and attention in national media outlets. In today’s landscape, he would’ve unquestionably been rated well.

The Falcons are a slightly different story at the top. All-world receiver Julio Jones was can’t-miss, five-star recruit when he committed to Alabama in 2008, and he’s been whatever the equivalent to a five-star is in the NFL. But Matt Ryan was only a three-star recruit before he developed at Boston College and became a top pick, which is kind of Boston College’s thing.

Falcons Pos. Player Stars College Pos. Player Stars College C Alex Mack 2 Cal FB Patrick DiMarco 2 South Carolina LG Andy Levitre 2 Oregon State CB Jalen Collins 3 LSU FS Ricardo Allen 3 Purdue DE Brooks Reed 3 Arizona LB Deion Jones 3 LSU QB Matt Ryan 3 Boston College DE Tyson Jackson 3 LSU DT Grady Jarrett 3 Clemson LB De'Vondre Campbell 3 Minnesota TE Austin Hooper 3 Stanford LB Vic Beasley Jr. 3 Clemson WR Mohamed Sanu 3 Rutgers LT Jake Matthews 4 Texas A&M RB Devonta Freeman 4 Florida State SS Keanu Neal 4 Florida WR Julio Jones 5 Alabama CB Robert Alford Unranked Southeastern Louisiana DT Jonathan Babineaux Unranked Iowa RG Chris Chester Unranked Oklahoma RT Ryan Schraeder Unranked Valdosta State

The overall breakdown is almost identical between the two teams.

Three or four unranked starters for each.

Two five-stars for New England, one for Atlanta.

Three four-stars for New England, two for Atlanta.

12 three-stars for New England, 11 for Atlanta.

Two two-stars for New England, three for Atlanta.

The average star rating of a Patriots starter: 2.8 out of five, compared to 2.5 for the average Falcons starter.

About 53 percent of the Super Bowl’s starters were three-star recruits, and just 18 percent were blue-chips (four- or five-stars).

But this is your periodic reminder that it’s way harder to be a five-star than a three-star and that a higher percentage of five-stars get here than three-stars. In most recruiting cycles, there are 35 three-stars for every five-star; in this game, it’s more like seven to one. This has been a trend in Super Bowls over the years, suggesting five-stars are scarce in number, but individually more likely to have NFL careers. They’re far more likely to get drafted, after all.

Super Bowl LI preview