Robert Nkemdiche became an Ole Miss Rebel a few minutes before 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning, but months before that he became the consensus top high school football prospect in the country.  ESPN, Scout and Rivals all decided that an 18-year old defensive end from Grayson High School in Loganville, Ga. showed the greatest potential to be a college star.  But what are the chances they’re all right?

The skepticism for National Signing Day builds each year.  It’s a ton of unsettling drama for just a bunch of kids (though in most cases, big, terrifying kids) who have had few or no opportunities to prove they are worth national adulation.  And the national adulation comes from fans decades older than them.  We worry it builds the players up too much; makes them too self-important (Isaiah Crowell).

The progenitors of the hype are lists like the ESPN 150, the Rivals 100 and the Scout 300.  They start what culminated a couple days ago.  In my position it’s impossible to evaluate parts of the decision making processes for these lists.  I don’t have access to scouts.  But I can try to determine if particular positions deserve to be as highly valued as they are in a poor man’s, data-light version of what Ed Fang thoroughly does with recruiting rankings at The Power Rank.

For four years in a row, and five of the past six years, the high school kid on the top of ESPN’s list has been a defensive end.  Their previous five top-ranked recruits: Mario Edwards, Jadaveon Clowney, Ronald Powell, Matt Barkely and Da’Quan Bowers.  Barkely is a quarterback, but the rest line up on the outside of the defensive line.

Maybe the value traces back to the tired adage that “defense wins championships.”  While that certainly isn’t true in the NFL these days, it does hold merit in college football.  Alabama allowed the least points per game of any division one team in the country last year.  In the past five years, only the 2009 Auburn Tigers were a championship team without a top 20 defense in points allowed.

The Crimson Tide’s top four defensive ends on their depth chart last year combined for 21.5 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks, accounting for exactly one out of every four tackles for loss and 27 percent of all sacks.  Not particularly gaudy numbers, but they are hindered by Alabama’s 3-4 defense.  That means just three defensive lineman and four big, quick linebackers that work like the big, quick defensive ends on the tops of recruiting boards.

Let’s look at ESPN’s five-star defensive ends of the past three years.  They are:

• Mario Edwards (Florida State, 2012)
• Noah Spence (Ohio State, 2012)
• Jadaveon Clowney (South Carolina, 2011)
• Ray Drew (Georgia, 2011)
• Ronald Powell (Florida, 2010)
• Jackson Jeffcoat (Texas, 2010)

Now look at the top two running backs in each class:

• Johnathan Gray (Texas, 2012)
• Keith Marshall (Georgia, 2012)
• Isaiah Crowell (Georgia, 2011)
• Malcolm Brown (Texas, 2011)
• Michael Dyer (Auburn, 2010)
• Marcus Lattimore (South Carolina, 2010)

In football it’s hard to formulate a reliable way to compare success between positions, especially on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.  It’s not like basketball. The eye test sees equal amounts of success (Clowney, Spence, Lattimore, Marshall) and injury (Powell, Jeffcoat, and Lattimore again).  The talented washouts (Crowell and Dyer) are on the running back side.  But overall an even success distribution of yes, no and wait and see.  With a lot of success.  It’s no surprise the early top two recruits of 2014 are a defensive end and a running back.

So why might defensive ends be the highest valued players?  They can’t change a game the same way a quarterback or a running back can, but defensive end is a position where skill is more easily quantified.  Size, speed and strength contribute more to overall performance than they do at quarterback, running back or even cornerback.  Because it’s a position on the defensive line, success hinges less on other players (i.e. a running back and his offensive line or a cornerback and his pass rush).  When you have to evaluate talent so young, you want to recruit a position where the information you’ve charted means the most.  Recruiters go after players who have the best chance to excel.  The past four years those factors have helped four high school defensive ends get voted most likely to succeed.