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College Football

How were the 2015 NFL draft first-round picks ranked as recruits?

Kevin Duffey

By Kevin Duffey

Published:

One of the most interesting aspects of every NFL draft is to look at the first-round picks and see how they were ranked as recruits exiting high school.

Much like last year, the No. 1 overall pick Jameis Winston was a former five-star prospect. Last year’s No. 1 pick in Jadeveon Clowney was the unanimous No. 1 player in the country exiting high school.

Here’s a look at how the first-round picks were rated as high school prospects:

Pick Team Player Pos. College Stars Conference
1 Tampa Bay Jameis Winston QB Florida State ***** ACC
2 Tennessee Marcus Mariota QB Oregon *** Pac-12
3 Jacksonville Dante Fowler, Jr. OLB Florida **** SEC
4 Oakland Amari Cooper WR Alabama **** SEC
5 Washington Brandon Scherff OT Iowa *** Big Ten
6 New York Jets Leonard Williams DT USC **** Pac-12
7 Chicago Kevin White WR WVU *** Big 12
8 Atlanta Vic Beasley OLB Clemson *** ACC
9 New York Giants Ereck Flowers OT Miami **** ACC
10 St. Louis Rams Todd Gurley RB Georgia **** SEC
11 Minnesota Trae Waynes CB Michigan St. *** Big Ten
12 Cleveland Danny Shelton DT Washington *** Pac-12
13 New Orleans Andrus Peat OT Stanford ***** Pac-12
14 Miami DeVante Parker WR Louisville *** ACC
15 San Diego Melvin Gordon RB Wisconsin **** Big Ten
16 Houston Kevin Johnson CB Wake Forest *** ACC
17 San Francisco Arik Armstead DT Oregon ***** Pac-12
18 Kansas City Marcus Peters CB Washington *** Pac-12
19 Cleveland Cameron Erving OL Florida State *** ACC
20 Philadelphia Nelson Agholor WR USC ***** Pac-12
21 Cincinnati Cedric Ogbuehi OT Texas A&M **** SEC
22 PIttsburgh Bud Dupree OLB Kentucky *** SEC
23 Denver Shane Ray OLB Missouri *** SEC
24 Arizona DJ Humphries OT Florida ***** SEC
25 Carolina Shaq Thompson LB Washington ***** Pac-12
26 Baltimore Breshad Perriman WR UCF ** AAC
27 Dallas Byron Jones CB UConn *** AAC
28 Detroit Laken Tomlinson OG Duke *** ACC
29 Indianapolis Phillip Dorsett WR Miami *** ACC
30 Green Bay Damarious Randall DB Arizona State *** Pac-12
31 New Orleans Stephone Anthony LB Clemson ***** ACC
32 New England Malcom Brown DT Texas ***** Big 12

*Star rankings based on 247Sports’ Composite rankings

Here are the picks broken down by star ranking:

Five-stars: 8 (25%)
Four-stars: 7 (21.9%)
Three-stars: 16 (50%)
Two-stars: 1 (3.1%)

Few takeaways:

  • The three stars took over this first round. Largely, there are more three stars rated by recruiting agencies than four or five stars.
  • Eight five stars in the first round is quite an accomplishment. The first overall pick was a five star in QB Jameis Winston. It’s safe to say the recruiting agencies rated these prospects well.
  • The biggest miss was UCF WR Breshad Perriman, ranked as the only two star in the first round, and Rivals.com recruiting coordinator Mike Farrell commented on Perriman’s low star ranking:

Kevin Duffey

A graduate of the University of Florida and founder of Saturday Down South, Kevin is a college football enthusiast.

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