Ronald Powell, from Rancho Verde High School in Moreno Valley, Calif., poses during part of the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in January. Powell was a top football recruit and made news by choosing the University of Florida. (Photo courtesy of Rivals.com)

When college football season ended recently, Ronald Powell was one of the most talked-about football players on college campuses.  At 6 feet 4 inches tall and 250 pounds, with blazing speed, Powell is a dominating defensive end who has been interviewed on ESPN and written about in Sports Illustrated.  Yet Powell is still just a high school senior.

Considered by many analysts to be the best high school football player in the country, Powell made big news in February by announcing that he would attend the University of Florida.  Sports writers responded by crowning Florida’s recruiting class — the group of high school seniors who have decided to attend Florida — as the nation’s best or second best.  They also predicted that Florida will be competing for a national championship in a few years, when these recruits come of age.

Only a few years ago, Powell’s name would have been unknown until he proved himself in college, but the national buzz surrounding his recruitment by Florida is now typical.  High school recruiting has emerged as the be-all and end-all of preseason college football commentary.  There are now two major services — one owned by Yahoo and the other by News Corp. — that provide detailed rankings of high school players online and in monthly magazines.  Universities with large football programs have coaches who focus almost exclusively on recruiting.

But despite the growing focus on drafting the top high school players, many college football teams continue to win without blue chip recruits like Ronald Powell.  This year, dark horses Boise State and Texas Christian University finished in the top six of the national rankings, yet none of their players were top high school recruits.

“It really comes down to having a tight-knit group that believes in each other and believes in the system you’re using,” said Julius Brown, the director of player personnel who heads the recruiting program for the Boise State football team.

But the success of such low-ranked teams hasn’t seemed to slow the hype around recruiting, which has been fueled by the explosion of sports news on cable TV and the Internet. National signing day, when high school recruits announce their college of choice, comes in the first week of February, just in time to keep up interest in college football after the season’s end.

“Coverage of recruiting without question has grown,” said Jeremy Crabtree, an analyst and editor of Rivals.com, one of the most widely used recruiting ranking services.  “It has transformed into this monster.”

To be sure, recruiting top players often increases the chances of success on the field.  “You tend to do pretty well if you have highly regarded recruits,” said Bruce Feldman, a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine who wrote a book in 2007 about college recruiting.  “Teams that are in the top five of recruiting rankings usually are in the top 20 of the polls.”

The Boise State football team takes the field against Oregon on Sept. 3, part of Boise State's undefeated 2009 season. (Photo courtesy of Boise State University)

But it is by no means a guarantee of success. Boise State is one of the best examples of how a team can win without big-name recruits.  Its teams have a reputation for being very well coached, often relying on elaborate trick plays that require players to be completely in sync.

From 2005 to 2007, the years that recruits would have had the biggest impact on the 2009 season, Boise State’s recruiting classes had an average ranking of 67th in the country, according to Rivals.com.  During those three years, they managed to attract only one “four-star” player — someone considered a very good prospect by analysts — and no “five star” players, which are the elite recruits.

By contrast, the University of Southern California bagged 15 “five-star” and 35 “four-star” recruits during that same period, and USC’s recruiting class was ranked first or second each year.  Yet Boise State finished the 2009 season ranked fourth in the country with a 14-0 record, while USC was way back at 22nd with a 9-4 record.

There are myriad reasons why top-rated recruits do not perform as expected.  One is that their raw talent may not be as remarkable as touted.  A lot of the data that goes into recruiting rankings — height, weight, 40-yard dash times — are provided by high school coaches, or parents, who have a vested interest in seeing the kid become a top recruit, said Feldman, the sports writer who follows recruiting closely.  And even when the data is accurate, the level of play is so much lower in high school that it can be hard to accurately predict how a player will perform at the college level.

Some players may have the raw talent but turn out to be missing the intangibles necessary to be a true star.  They are unable to decipher more complex offensive or defensive schemes, or they cannot operate well as a member of a team.  Others get distracted by the temptations that come with being a big man on campus, or simply crack under the pressure of high expectations.  “A lot of four- and five-star kids, they’re not really savvy, or tough, or they’re having character issues,” Feldman said.

It is not that teams like Boise State intentionally avoid the top prospects.  Coaches at smaller schools invariably talk about the importance of recruiting just as often as their competitors at bigger programs.  It’s just that they can’t compete against the glamor and resources of larger schools in bigger conferences.

“Eighty percent of your success is tied to your recruiting efforts,” said Kyle Whittingham, head coach at the University of Utah.  Utah, like Boise State, has managed to have incredible success in recent years without big-name recruits, beating football powerhouses Michigan and Alabama in 2008 to finish the season ranked second in the polls of sportswriters.

Coaches like Whittingham therefore must figure out how to make do with less desirable recruits.  Sometimes they can find a diamond in the rough, a player who is not highly rated, perhaps because he is undersized or slower than his competitors, but has the intangibles that make him a winner at the college level.

Boise State’s superstar quarterback Kellen Moore is a perfect example.  Moore was not highly recruited out of high school in 2007.  Rivals.com gave him only three stars, making him an average recruit.  Moore was small, only 6 feet and 175 pounds, and did not fit the prototype of a college quarterback.  Yet he has blown away the competition in his two years at Boise State, throwing for 39 touchdowns and only 3 interceptions in 2009.

“Here’s a kid who’s very intelligent, very smart, a football junkie, student of the game,” said Brown, Boise State’s director of player personnel, recalling why the coaching staff recruited him.

Some coaches are also particularly good at developing players who may lack obvious physical talent.  Coach Whittingham of Utah remembered Sean Smith, who had only a “two-star” rating when recruited out of high school in California back in 2005.  Smith, recruited as a running back, played that position for only a few weeks at Utah, said Whittingham.  The coaching staff then moved him to wide receiver and finally to defensive back, where he flourished.  Smith was picked in the second round of the NFL draft and now starts for the Miami Dolphins.

Not bad for a guy who was not supposed to be any good, even in college.