Rivals QB Week: Mike Farrell's five biggest QB ranking regrets

Rankings regrets are a part of life at Rivals.com and, having done this job for nearly 20 years, I have more than most. But it’s Rivals QB Week, so I’ll focus on five rankings decisions I regret over the years without focusing on the two-stars who made it or the five-stars who busted. These are the five guys I evaluated closely and wish I had handled better.

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Luck was ranked as the No. 68 prospect overall and No. 4 in the nation as a pro-style signal-caller in 2008 behind Blaine Gabbert, Dayne Crist and Mike Glennon. And while rankings are a group effort and in 2008 I did not have final say, I was one of those who felt Luck wasn’t a five-star and liked Glennon better. Obviously Crist busted out but he had a ton of talent coming out of high school, Gabbert is still having a solid career and Glennon is an NFL starter, but Luck had an amazing run at Stanford and turned into the No. 1 pick in the draft.

So what didn’t I like about him? I felt his arm strength was average, his decision-making was okay but not great and despite being 215 pounds he didn’t look like he had a great frame and was a bit skinny. What I failed to realize was how smart he was and how quickly he could adapt to different offenses and schemes. He also didn’t look as mobile as I expected. Oops.

Heaps was well known by the time I first saw him during his junior year for having a Notre Dame offer and being high on the board for quarterback gurus such as Steve Spurrier and Charlie Weis. So when I saw him and he looked to be about 6-foot at best and 175 pounds with average arm strength, I should have stuck with my first instinct and not allowed him to be the top quarterback in his class. Yes, his film was impressive and he was impressive during Army Bowl week, but I just feel we overshot on him and perhaps bought into the hype more than our eyeballs. It was a very down year for quarterbacks overall and maybe we were reaching for a few guys.

Sims was No. 2 in the same class as Heaps in what I consider to be the worst quarterback year I’ve scouted. I should have known better on this one as well. I saw Sims many times, felt he was a system quarterback who put up huge numbers for a team that ran up the score and dominated everyone, but I didn’t fight his high ranking enough.

I also knew there were some attitude issues and he didn’t take the biggest step in the world from his junior to senior year. The 2010 class was the first in my career we didn’t have a five-star quarterback and I’m glad we didn’t push Heaps or Sims to that level, but I also think we were forcing the issue a bit to have these two guys so high.

The 2011 class was the second year we didn’t have a five-star quarterback, but my regret on Driskel is not that we had him rated too high. It’s actually that I pushed hard for him to be a five-star and was luckily voted down.

Driskel was a guy I saw quite often and his performance at the Under Armour All-America Game made me push for five-stars because he was not only big with a strong arm but he could run. Driskel had all the offers but he didn’t have a lot of experience out of high school and ran as much as he threw his senior year. I fell in love with his frame and raw abilities as well as his mobility, but looking back I overlooked his accuracy issues and lack of production on the field.

The tweet is now famous but let’s show it again…

I was the one who pushed for Harris to be a top 75 player in the class of 2014 and No. 3 at dual-threat quarterback behind DeShaun Watson and Will Grier, although luckily I never pushed for him to be a five-star. Despite his 5-foot-11 size (could have been closer to 5-foot-10), I loved the way he worked in the pocket and could throw downfield without having to create his own passing lanes as most short quarterbacks do. He threw a beautiful ball but also had that ability to run and create.

But now I can see I was too enamored with a short quarterback’s ability to throw and see over the line of scrimmage, and perhaps too caught up in the success of Russell Wilson and Johnny Manziel at the time. The odd thing is, everyone knows I am tough on short quarterbacks in general with my sometimes old-school thinking, so it puzzles me that I let my guard down on this one.