247 has a link showing all the Michigan 5 stars

To counter that Green kid out of Virginia, i’ll raise you Najee or Damien Harris at Bama. Stars do matter.

It's not a scam. It's an inexact science.

These sites are still in business partly because of the accuracy of their rankings. If all the 5-stars and high 4-stars bombed, they would be out of business. If all the elite college players were 2-stars as recruits, they would be out of business.

The NFL Draft isn't a scam, but there are still a lot of busts. It's the nature of the beast.

Ugh. The “stars don’t matter” diatribe has been proven false on a number of occasions. Obviously there are going to be 5*’s that are busts and 2*3*’s that turn out to be pro bowlers. The top 247’s and whatnot are there to serve as a general guide into how players and classes in general will play out.

If you are truly who you say you are (and I have no reason not to believe you) then you're an extremely biased person to be making that claim. Every coach thinks their star player is the best player anywhere. It's like asking a parent to rate his kid's abilities. Also tons of objective studies have proven you wrong time and time again.

This narrative has been proven wrong time and time again. I just went through the 37 5*'s from the 2012 class (most recent to all have either graduated out or gone to the NFL). 81% of those 5*'s had at least a cup of coffee in the NFL. 5 of the 7 players who did not make the NFL had their careers shortened due to injury or legal trouble. 

If it is just a money scam, that doesn't matter to me because these services do a damn good job at predicting who is going to be good.

Rashan Gary would disagree with you, but instead he's just going to continue dominating and getting better. 

To be sure some five stars have more growth potential than others. 

And I’ve lived in California and now Texas and I can assure you high school football in Cali and Texas is far superior than in Michigan. I said this before: Allen High School won the Texas 6A title this season - a high school all-star team from Michigan couldn’t beat Allen

Are butthurt fanbases that don’t get enough of them. Recruiting the best kids matters in any and every sport. How the sports marketing world has tried to reduce it to a pseudo-science is definitely silly at times. But you need the best Jimmies and Joes you can get. And the analysis and predictions of exactly who those fellas might be are stronger than ever. ‘Bama isn’t ‘Bama due to dumb luck or better Xs and Os. And OSU isn’t kicking UM’s butt because it’s just a cyclical rivalry. They are winning on the trail. This all seems like “duh” to me.

Scout used to rank the NFL draft prospects by stars. Don't know if that is available anymore.

"be interesting to see what programs do the best job at development."

 

Not sure how this part can be truly accurate. In ranking that, for example, I wouldn't penalize Bama if their 5* DT that leaves as a Junior is ranked below Michigan's 3* Mo Hurst which is leaving after his fifth year. No telling where that 5* would have been ranked if he stayed at Bama and developed his game for two more years.  Might work if they account for how many years the player was developed at the school though.

but in a way, that's what the NFL draft is.

Also there is going to be some fluctuation when looking at college careers simply because some players (running back in this example) get to play behind 5* O-lines, and others get to play behind Michigan's.  

I would imagine overall offensive scheme & coaching has a huge impact as well.  Two very similar HS 5* can have VERY different careers and it isn't necessarily that the recruiting sites "mis-evaluated" them.