A Guide to How We Evaluate
Prep Redzone North Carolina has over 400 ranked players. For many of them, we will have in-depth scouting evaluations. This article explains our process and some of the terms we use in these evaluations.
Each evaluation has seven parts:
- Player Info
- Length of Scouting
- College Projection
- Strengths
- Areas of Improvement
- Analysis
- Most Recent Film
Some of these are self-explanatory, but in this article we’ll break down the scouting process of each part.
Player Info
Here, we simply list the player’s name, verified height and weight, projected college position and high school. We do our due diligence to verify height to the nearest inch and weight to the nearest five pounds. Occasionally, the player’s projected college position differs from their current position, if so, we make note of that in our evaluation.
Length of Scouting
Before going into any in-depth information, we try to give readers an idea of how long a player has been on our radar. We still evaluate players based on the same criteria, but it helps to know how long we’ve known of a player. This can also help us track a player’s development.
College Projection
This part of the evaluation is key to understanding the rest. Using our scouting experience, we look at film, measurables, conversations with college and high school coaches and other methods to project the college level at which the player might play — all the way from fringe college player to Power Five starter. This is important because this is how we will determine a player’s strengths and weaknesses. If the player has a wide range of possible outcomes, a high ceiling or anything else worth noting, we will point that out in our analysis.
Strengths
After determining a player’s projected college level, we consider their strengths relative to players and prospects at that level. This is important because I may talk about a single player in two different ways to college coaches at two different levels. A player that may need to put on some weight to play at the Power Five level might possess good size for the FCS level. Our goal is to find 2-4 strengths for each player based on the many different parts of a player’s game that we evaluate. If we struggle to find many strengths relative to other players at that projected level, we may decide to lower a player’s projected level. If we find we have too many, we may decide to move a player’s projection up a level.
Areas of Improvement
This part of the evaluation is subject to change. These can be aspects of a player’s game that fall a bit short of other players with a similar college projection or simply parts of a player’s game that haven’t really shown up yet (For example, a player might not be asked to run certain routes or make certain throws). Over time, a player’s development may cause us to add, delete or change areas of improvement. We strive to find 2-3 areas of improvement for each prospect. If we cannot find that many, we may bump a prospect’s projection up a level. If we find too many, we may decide to lower a player’s projected level.
Analysis
Here is where we do the heavy lifting. Taking into account the player’s projected level, strengths and areas of improvement we provide an in-depth scouting report. Here, we further explain a player’s strengths and give context for our reasoning. We aim to use any pertinent numbers and measurables here, but try to steer clear of high school stats unless absolutely necessary to tell the whole story of a prospect’s true abilities. Instead, we focus on what we think will most likely translate to the next level.
Most Recent Film
While we utilize any practice, game, workout or All 22 film we can get our hands on in our evaluations, here we like to link the prospect’s most recent full season highlight tape, to give readers an opportunity to see the best the prospect has to offer.
After we complete each evaluation, we link as much information as we can to the player’s Prep Redzone profile page and keep the evaluations on file, ready to access any time we’re asked about prospects by college coaches.