It's an intriguing time around football: there were two entertaining games in the NFL conference title weekend; the countdown to the signing day is in full swing and the Senior Bowl week is about to kick off. Keep the Colts in mind if your favorite college team doesn't sound like it is cleaning up on signing day next week because the AFC champions are a very interesting study about what a group of mostly unheralded or off-the-radar recruits can become. (Or maybe they are a testament to what can happen to an NFL team if you have one for-the-ages, all-time great running the show.)
Anyhow, I went back to check their depth chart to see how the guys who start for the Colts were rated as recruits. Of those ones who have come through in the online recruiting era marked by the "star" system, it's pretty interesting.
Starting left tackle Charlie Johnson was deemed a two-star tight end prospect; left guard Ryan Lilja was a three-star O-lineman; RG Kyle DeVan was a three-star; Austin Collie was a three-star receiver.
Of the remaining starters on the Colts' offense, you either have guys who entered college before the boom of the Internet recruiting era -- QB Peyton Manning (who would've had to have been a five-star); center Jeff Saturday, WR Reggie Wayne, RB Joseph Addai, RT Ryan Diem -- or guys like TE Dallas Clark, WR Pierre Garcon and H-back Gijon Robinson, all of whom were around the two-star range.
On defense, the lone starter ranked above the three-star level is startling left cornerback Kelvin Hayden, who was labeled as a four-star ... but at wide receiver. After that it was DT Antonio Johnson, a three-star JC recruit; LB Philip Wheeler, a three-star; LB Clint Session, a three-star; DB Melvin Bullitt, a three-star, and the same for CB Jacob Lacey.
To read Bruce's breakdown of the rest of the "stars" of the Super Bowl, plus a mountain of recruiting notes on Notre Dame, Stanford, Texas and others, you must be an ESPN Insider.
Bruce Feldman | email
College FootballBruce Feldman is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He joined ESPN in July 1994 as a writer for ESPNET (now ESPN.com) and in May 1998 came to ESPN The Magazine.
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Bruce Feldman
Bruce Feldman is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He started at ESPN in 1994. He spent a good portion of two years in the South working on his book, "Meat Market: Inside the Smash-Mouth World of College Football Recruiting."
His first book, "Cane Mutiny: How the Miami Hurricanes Overturned the Football Establishment," made it to No. 1 among sports titles in the fall of 2004.
Bruce can be reached via Twitter at @BFeldmanESPN. and his full ESPN.Com archives are located here.
