Annual Reminder: 26 First Round NFL Draft Picks Were 4-Star and 5-Star Recruits Because Recruiting Is Incredibly Predictive and Actually Matters a Lot

I feel like we've gotten a little bit better as a football-watching society at acknowledging the importance and remarkable predictiveness of recruiting rankings, but every year, there are people who point to the six non-blue chip recruits drafted in the first round as evidence that stars don't matter. And that was exacerbated a little bit this year by Cam Ward going No. 1 overall in the NFL Draft after being an unranked recruit who started his collegiate career at Incarnate Word.

But please remember, those six players (19 percent of the first round) came from 90 percent of the recruiting pool. The 4- and 5-stars that made up 81 percent of the first round picks made up just 10 percent of their recruiting classes. It's a minor miracle that people are able to identify high school football players this well and somehow, there are still those who don't get it. 

Of the top 10 recruits in the 2022 class, six were selected in the first round last night and the other four are still in college — three of whom could very well be first round picks next year. I get college football programs who can't get big-time recruits trying to spin the "recruiting doesn't matter" narrative, but I'm always shocked at the people who see these numbers during the NFL Draft and think getting 26 out of 32 isn't a scientific marvel.

But again, it does feel like we've gotten better about this in the last few years. I would like to see that improvement continue until we reach the point where everyone acknowledges maybe there might be something to the highest-ranked guys out of high school going to the best colleges and then being almost all of the first players picked in the NFL Draft.