2027 South Dakota Winter Rankings Preview

We are stoked to annouce we have released our 2027 South Dakota rankings for this winter update! We spent several hours and days diving deep into the tape that makes this class great as this class is one of our biggest classes we have ever had in a January cycle, with over 230 prospects ranked, 80+ on the watchlist, and more. Let's dive into what is always our first piece of content that goes out, our 2027 South Dakota Rankings Preview.   How We Rank   To those that I have been around our PRZ website you all should see the tab <a href="https://prepredzone.com/how-we-rank/">How We Rank</a> in the about us page however I always will dish out personal approach to how we rank here in the Dakotas. We take a "No Prospect is Off Limits" approach at Prep Redzone regardless if x prospect is going to be playing Division I football or any division of college football that's out there. With that being said, we know that these every prospect on our lists are not finished products heading into their senior year and we want to make that clear from the jump. Our rakings and waitlists is gathered from muliple areas that I'll go thru one by one.   1) Athletic Data   We have always been blessed to be able to attend more and more college camps all over the Dakotas over the years and this year we had an "all gas, no brakes" approach to getting out to college camps. What comes with that is more access to athletic data by athlete than we have ever had as we have certain benchmarks that prospects needed to hit with their athletic data to make our rankings or waitlists. We know that these young men are only going to progress over the years with their athletic data they put up at college camps so the benchmarks we set are realistic to in our eyes what makes a great college prospect in the near future. Just about every prospect that is in our database has athletic data from college camps or have been referred to by their high school or other coaches in our network.   2) Social Media   I've learned this about the Dakotas for over the last five years we have been in this market and will tell any young athlete that the sooner you get on social media and post your highlights from whatever you are doing football wise, the earlier the eyes will get on you. That applies with us too and we get it, not every young man has a Twitter account yet or is comfortable yet with posting their football highlights, lifting videos, etc. but the statement here is true that is around 90% of how you get recruited to play at the next-level is how you promote yourself in front of college coaches.. We are obviously big into what we find on Twitter, but over the last several months we have grown with utilzing Instagram as another avenue to find prospects, video clips, etc. so with that being said, there are muliple ways to get your tape, social media in front of us at Prep Redzone Dakotas   3) Rankings and Tiers   To those that are new to us in this 2027 class, I want to make it clear that we update our rankings 3-4 times per year and even from one update we have seen prospects skyrocket up our rankings,, prospects that show gradual movement upwards, some that go down, etc. No way of how we rank you is ever personal or has any sort of biased whatsoever. Again, we have benchmarks that we look for every rankings update. Did you hit a growth spurt since last update? Are you more present on Twitter promoting your highlights or do you have new highlights we can review? Can we tell that you have been in the weight room? Those are three of a handful of questions we need to answer when evlauating you as we follow a similar method as the college coaches do with our evaluation process. If college coaches can find you on social media and they can get to your highlights quickly and like what they see, that's how you get on their radar at this age.   The last part I wnated to touch on is our tier system for rankings. Prospects will be tiered with other prospects that we feel have similar traits level wise when we grade them and our tiering system is simple. Division 1 grades-prospects we feel can play at the Division I feel will be ranked first accordingly, usually is the smallest group within our rankings as on average over the years, the Dakotas in toal sees roughly 20-30 prospects play at the Division I level. Division II, NAIA, Division III, JUCO grades- These next couple tiers will fill the rest of our rankings the most. At PRZ, we have a heavy focus on this group due to this is the volume of athletes of where most will play.   4) Our Rankings are Based on Potential, not Stats   We said it earlier, no one is a finished prospect in this 2027 class as far their football potential. The way we have always ranked in every class we have ever done is based on a prospect's potential, not their stat line. Why you might ask? There's plenty of 5'7 150 pound running backs that might rush for several 1000 yards seasons in their high school career, but that usually doesn't correlate that they always will play at the Division I level. The demands of college football wants size, speed, and several other skillsets that x prospect needs to have to play at the next-level. Every college program has their benchmarks they are looking for at x position just like we do. With that being said, more times than not the 6'6 270 pound offensive linemen will get more looks than the 6'0 265 pounder because a lot of college coaches I know understand that the 6'6 270 pounder probably has a higher ceiling than the 6'0 265 pounder. That's not always the case, but over the years, the educated guesses we have made tell us that that is the case based on several college coaches at all levels of the college football.   New Top 5   #5 [player_tooltip player_id='1617596' first='Austin' last='Dowd'], DL/TE, Brandon Valley <a href="https://x.com/AustinDowd_20">Twitter</a>   #4 [player_tooltip player_id='1621132' first='Seth' last='Reinhardt'], DL/OL, Dakota Valley <a href="https://x.com/SethReinhardt64">Twitter</a>   #3 [player_tooltip player_id='1212272' first='Drake' last='Mikkelsen'], WR, Lennox Twitter   #2 [player_tooltip player_id='1263883' first='Brody' last='Schafer'], QB, Sioux Falls Lincoln <a href="https://x.com/Brody4Schafer">Twitter</a>   #1 [player_tooltip player_id='1027999' first='Cooper' last='Terwilliger'], TE, Pierre T.F. Riggs <a href="https://x.com/CooperTerwilli1">Twitter</a>   Who Could Rise Even Higher by Next Update?   These are ten names that I like early as potential stockrisers in this 2027 class as we are just getting started with our newest 2027 rankings update.   [player_tooltip player_id='1273539' first='Beckett' last='Nelson'], OL, Dell Rapids <a href="https://x.com/Beckett_Nelson1">Twitter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='1293089' first='Boden' last='Stevenson'], WR, Hamlin <a href="https://x.com/bodenstevenson1">Twitter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='1300031' first='Thomas' last='Hughes'], ATH, Spearfish <a href="https://x.com/thomas_hughes27">Twitter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='2110136' first='Andrew' last='Dahl'], OL, Watertown <a href="https://x.com/AndrewDahl29630">Twitter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='2105228' first='Aidan' last='Sievers'], ATH, Deuel <a href="https://x.com/aidansievers27">Twitter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='2110256' first='Trevor' last='Smit'], OL, Harrisburg <a href="https://x.com/SmitTrever9950">Twitter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='1319706' first='Logan' last='Mohn'], RB, Sioux Valley <a href="https://x.com/mohnlog">Twitter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='1264217' first='Jeremy' last='Hofer'], DB, Huron <a href="https://x.com/JeremyHofer22">Twitter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='1320967' first='Gage' last='Schoellerman'], ATH, Viborg-Hurley <a href="https://x.com/Gage_schoe">Twiiter</a>   [player_tooltip player_id='2103779' first='Micah' last='Pelzel'], DL/OL, Wilmot <a href="https://x.com/MicahPelzel">Twitter</a>   What is on tap with our newest 2027 rankings release?   Outside of this preview, we will uncork the rest of this 2029 class with plenty of content to go around with the following content series.   Newcomers   We will try to unpeel what we found from the bulk of this 2027 South Dakota class that has one of our biggest lists since our launch back in 2020, as we take a look at a ton of newcomers that cracked our rankings.   Stockrisers   Who saw their stock rise in this 2027 South Dakota class from last update? We will do several break downs on who moved the needle upwards in class.   Position Breakdowns   We will break down every position group and tell you "our why" of why they are ranked where they are, where we could see movement and how much movement could be coming up by next update.   Small Town Sleepers   Which prospects caught our attention from small towns under 5000 people across South Dakota? This is one of my favorite content series we do evey rankings update!

We are stoked to annouce we have released our 2027 South Dakota rankings for this winter update! We spent several hours and days diving deep into the tape that makes this class great as this class is one of our biggest classes we have ever had in a January cycle, with over 230 prospects ranked, 80+ on the watchlist, and more. Let's dive into what is always our first piece of content that goes out, our 2027 South Dakota Rankings Preview.