S
ShivaIrish
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Question: Between Rivals and Scout, which one do you think does a better job of evaluating talent and ranking prospects?
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To be fair, when evaluating Rivals vs Scout, I don't think it is fair to just compare evaluating talent and ranking prospects into the equation.
Site Design/Functionality: This is a huge factor to me, and Rivals wins this matchup hands down. I feel like I'm stuck in the mid 90s whenever I hit up the Scout websites, from the design, to the layouts used, to the backwards message boards system. On top of it, some of their internal sites (Scout Combines, for instance) are horrible to look at... go check it out just to experience that visual eyesore. Rivals sites tend to be more visually appealing, the layout is smoother and just easier to use.
Winner: Rivals
Writing (Content and Depth): While this can really vary from site-to-site within the brands, I'll only look at the Notre Dame versions. That said, Scout blows Rivals out of the water. The articles on Scout are more in-depth and you really get to know more about the recruit whereas Rivals seems to have a skeleton framework they write from. Also, the replication of articles on Rivals is pitifully slow and sometimes the content is aged so much that it is no longer relevant.
One thing I noticed about both organizations that is troubling is the accuracy of offers. There have been at least 5 (this year) or so occurences where players were listed with a scholarship offer from Notre Dame only to find out that they did not have one. Oops.
Winner: Scout
Multimedia (Pictures and Video): Rivals takes this one... by a landslide. The video production on Rivals is much more clean and I find the video on Scout to be downright awful to watch sometimes. Rivals does get pretty bad occasionally, too. Where Rivals really wipes Scout up is in the AMP footage, which is always well done and timely. For as much as these companies charge it's members, the video should be crystal clear and they should have multiple images on all recruits... there really is no excuse.
Winner: Rivals
Talent Evaluation: I don't really think you can claim one organization is better than another in this area because talent evaluation is very subjective and in the end, it's just the opinion of a couple people. That said, you can definitely see regional/school biases coming through in rankings.
Rivals, based in the South, tends to heavily favor Southern talent. I believe just over 1/3 of the Rivals 100 came from Florida, Texas and California, and a majority of the players come from the South overall. Scout, on the other hand, tends to have a more balanced approach, with top recruits from all over the map. However, Scout seems to upgrade/downgrade players more on where they seem to verbal too, which I find absolutely ridiculous as well as downgrading players that suffered injury without seeing how they recovered first.
Winner: Push
Summing it all up, Rivals is the better service if you are wanting to see the multimedia aspect of recruiting (video, images) whereas Scout seems to be better if you want to read in-depth reporting, feature articles on recruiting.
Site Design/Functionality: This is a huge factor to me, and Rivals wins this matchup hands down. I feel like I'm stuck in the mid 90s whenever I hit up the Scout websites, from the design, to the layouts used, to the backwards message boards system. On top of it, some of their internal sites (Scout Combines, for instance) are horrible to look at... go check it out just to experience that visual eyesore. Rivals sites tend to be more visually appealing, the layout is smoother and just easier to use.
Winner: Rivals
Writing (Content and Depth): While this can really vary from site-to-site within the brands, I'll only look at the Notre Dame versions. That said, Scout blows Rivals out of the water. The articles on Scout are more in-depth and you really get to know more about the recruit whereas Rivals seems to have a skeleton framework they write from. Also, the replication of articles on Rivals is pitifully slow and sometimes the content is aged so much that it is no longer relevant.
One thing I noticed about both organizations that is troubling is the accuracy of offers. There have been at least 5 (this year) or so occurences where players were listed with a scholarship offer from Notre Dame only to find out that they did not have one. Oops.
Winner: Scout
Multimedia (Pictures and Video): Rivals takes this one... by a landslide. The video production on Rivals is much more clean and I find the video on Scout to be downright awful to watch sometimes. Rivals does get pretty bad occasionally, too. Where Rivals really wipes Scout up is in the AMP footage, which is always well done and timely. For as much as these companies charge it's members, the video should be crystal clear and they should have multiple images on all recruits... there really is no excuse.
Winner: Rivals
Talent Evaluation: I don't really think you can claim one organization is better than another in this area because talent evaluation is very subjective and in the end, it's just the opinion of a couple people. That said, you can definitely see regional/school biases coming through in rankings.
Rivals, based in the South, tends to heavily favor Southern talent. I believe just over 1/3 of the Rivals 100 came from Florida, Texas and California, and a majority of the players come from the South overall. Scout, on the other hand, tends to have a more balanced approach, with top recruits from all over the map. However, Scout seems to upgrade/downgrade players more on where they seem to verbal too, which I find absolutely ridiculous as well as downgrading players that suffered injury without seeing how they recovered first.
Winner: Push
Summing it all up, Rivals is the better service if you are wanting to see the multimedia aspect of recruiting (video, images) whereas Scout seems to be better if you want to read in-depth reporting, feature articles on recruiting.
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AlbuquerqueIrishFan
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Seems like a lot of guess work. Lots of discrepancies between the two.
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iloveirish_12
Guest
I like Rivals better. Scout is a jacked up website.
As far as their respective top 100's break down, I think I trust rivals more. I found the scout list to have some major questionmarks. The huge one for me was Barksdale being listed as an OL.
You're right svoboda, they could be right on the mark since talent evaluation is very subjective - but for this class at least, I'm putting more faith in what rivals has to say.
You're right svoboda, they could be right on the mark since talent evaluation is very subjective - but for this class at least, I'm putting more faith in what rivals has to say.
Óglaigh_na_hÉireann
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In terms of writing, both are incredibly sloppy. It's clear that neither site has real editors. So it pisses me off a bit when the 'writer' makes obvious grammatical mistakes and sometimes they even manage to make recruits seem stupid by messing up their quotes. In that sense, they're amateur journalists, and I doubt any of them came close to majoring in the field in college.
But in the end, that's not the stuff that matters. I agree with almost everything Svoboda said. Scout's website interface is needlessly unprofessional and that casts doubt on the entire organization. But I think they go more in-depth, which might be because of guys like Mike Frank. But that said, I take Rivals a lot more seriously. The biggest difference is probably that Rivals is much, much more structured.
I also like the master-lists on ND's Rivals site.
But in the end, that's not the stuff that matters. I agree with almost everything Svoboda said. Scout's website interface is needlessly unprofessional and that casts doubt on the entire organization. But I think they go more in-depth, which might be because of guys like Mike Frank. But that said, I take Rivals a lot more seriously. The biggest difference is probably that Rivals is much, much more structured.
I also like the master-lists on ND's Rivals site.
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iloveirish_12
Guest
The only thing is I think Rivals hates on Notre Dame and loves USC.
jiggafini19
The Pope
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Rivals would get the nod over Scout, but Blue and Gold Illustrated has become the way of the gun for me.
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Guest
Guest
Max Emfinger!!! na just kidding that site sucks bigtime.....
I'd have to go with rivals, just more professional IMO...
I'd have to go with rivals, just more professional IMO...