It’s always the four and five stars that get the love in recruiting. It’s those uber-talented guys that are most likely to lead teams to the promised land and hear their name called first overall on draft night.
But more often than not, a class is not going to be consist of just blue-chip recruits. There will always be three-stars in there, too.
Some of these guys make it because the school missed on a bigger target. Some are diamonds in the rough a coach takes a gamble on because they think the talent is there.
As you get deeper and deeper into the recruiting pool each year, it becomes more difficult to separate players. It’s easy to spot a freak pass rusher or a wide receiver who catches everything. But the closer we get to the mean, the obvious traits are fewer and farther between.
Over the years, LSU has found its fair share of three-stars. Some of these guys ended up being solid contributors. Others ended up being first-round picks, and some even have been Pro Bowlers.
These players are critical to rounding out a recruiting class. To compete in the SEC, you have to hit on quite a few. Let’s take a look at which gambles paid off for LSU.