A couple corrections:
Ivie: 4 stars
Hardin: 2 stars
I don't think any kicker in the history of recruiting has been five stars.
That is part of what I find so stupid about the whole star rankings phenomenon! I got these from an article which clearly used a different ranking service than the one you referenced (though admittedly I realized afterward that Hardin's rating used in that article came from a kicker specific rating service). Turns out there is a pretty wide range of scoring evaluations per service and on all of them there tends to be a pretty wide ranging of scoring that is assigned to each star level especially at the 3 and 4 start level. A quick spot check of some of these values shows that the actual scores show that a lot of three stars are just a few points short of a 4 star rating and a lot of 4 stars are just over that threshold. Therefore without further digging to get the actual evaluation numbers and methodologies involved, these star ratings can end up being pretty misleading since all 3s and all 4s are not even remotely created equally.
That's why no coach in his right mind is going to be reviewing these recruiting sites for anything but quick stats gathering and film viewing and even then I doubt they need anything to supplement the data they are already collecting for themselves especially once they get locked in on a potential player. The good coaches pride themselves on their formula for evaluating talent and I get the sense that some of the criteria most important to Coach Mac are not focused on physical stats at all (though he definitely cares about those too!) because they are related to the mental and psychological make up of these kids. I think that is wise too because at the end of the day these kids are just that - kids - and attributes like character, integrity and passion are much better indicators for determining how well a kid will fare when leaving home to come into a large college environment complete with the myriad of demands and temptations that come with being an athletic recruit at a major university.
These rankings also do not fully take into account the varying levels of competition across the high school spectrum which is clearly different depending on where they happen to live. They also don't fully take into account the competitiveness of a particular team which, for instance, can lead to stat stuffing with the few capable skill players on a bad team. The whole stars evaluation deal is therefore even less dependable as an evaluation criteria than the Mel Kiper Big Board phenomenon in he NFL and we all know how accurate those can be.
Bottom Line: I don't believe you can make any significant conclusions on the quality of a recruiting class based on just a recruiting board's definition of "blue chip" players since their rating criteria is not really standardized across services, is focused largely on physical traits verses character traits, and include game stats and team success related evaluations that do really account for talent disparities across schools and regions.
the bed right at the worst times. Part of that I'm sure is due to them being on the field constantly due to offensive suckage but still.
