All Pro Scouting is off and running in football recruiting

Many high school athletes plan to sign national letters of intent during college football’s early signing period this week, completing a process fueled by recruiting services that identify top players and promote them publicly.

A group of NFL greats is adding a new twist to the recruiting industry.

Twelve Pro Football Hall of Famers, including legendary running back Marshall Faulk, have banded together to form a fee-based ratings service: All Pro Scouting. Warren Moon, the only Black quarterback enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, legendary Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and wide receiver Tim Brown, a longtime star for the Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, are among the founders listed on the group’s website. For $199, evaluators rate high school football players at positions the evaluators played in the pros.

To determine a letter grade, evaluators consider a player’s game film, measurables such as height and weight, times in speed tests and marks in agility drills, football IQ, academic aptitude, and off-field reputation. Once players are assigned grades, All Pro Scouting’s staff assists them and their families in identifying colleges that would be good landing spots.

Faulk is passionate about the new venture, which launches to the public Tuesday, a day before the three-day early signing window (Wednesday through Friday) opens. Foremost, Faulk said, he wants to help players navigate recruiting after being rated accurately.

And with All Pro Scouting’s evaluation criteria established by NFL Hall of Famers, Faulk added, it’ll be second to none in the recruiting business.

“Our raters had to play a minimum of two years” in the NFL, Faulk told Andscape in a recent phone interview. “Some people call them scouts, but I like to say raters and rankers. Two years in the league gives our raters and rankers credibility to watch film.

“And we’ve taken each position, the criteria for [success at] each position, from a Hall of Famer. Hall of Famers created it. We also take into account how NFL scouts rate [NFL] players. And we teach our raters and rankers, our former players, how to scout players.”

The expectation, Faulk said, is that All Pro Scouting will provide high school football players with the most detailed assessments of their abilities that they’ve ever received.

As Faulk can attest, players are often evaluated incorrectly.

A prep standout in New Orleans, Faulk, 51, was recruited more heavily as a cornerback than a running back. But Faulk wanted to play on offense in college. Confident his future was at running back, he accepted a scholarship to San Diego State.

As it turned out, Faulk was prescient.

As a running back, he had an outstanding career with the Aztecs, becoming a two-time consensus All-American and finishing second in voting for the 1992 Heisman Trophy. In 2017, Faulk was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

“People saw me as a defensive back. That’s just the way they looked at me, and that was it,” Faulk recalled. “They didn’t take [the time] to watch me with the football. They didn’t take the time to watch me as a I played running back, running with the ball.

“So understanding that when you are in those arenas, some of these companies are not looking at you the way, let’s say, I would analyze a guy. They’re not thinking, let’s say, maybe there’s another way to look at this guy [as a running back]. Like, no, this guy can play.”

The perceived snub from recruiting services fueled Faulk.

Selected by the Indianapolis Colts in the first round (second overall) of the 1994 NFL draft, Faulk was highly decorated during a pro career that culminated with his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011. Among Faulk’s many honors, he was the 1994 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year, the AP NFL MVP in 2000 and 2001 and a three-time (1999-2001) NFL Offensive Player of the Year.

Not bad for a player who many evaluators believed was ill-suited to be a running back in college, let alone become one of the most complete running backs in NFL history.

Faulk’s experience with endorsements, as well as that of All Pro Scouting’s other Hall of Famers, could benefit prep and college players in that area, too. As athletes and their families navigate the fast-paced world of NIL, All Pro Scouting plans to provide resources to assist them in its new recruiting ecosystem.

“If they want to know things on the NIL side, like how some other kid’s family handled something, we’re going to try to bridge that gap,” Faulk said. “We’re going to connect the families to try to help the kid. This is going to be a place where everybody can come to get the information they need to [succeed].

“When I say ecosystem, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about getting answers to the questions kids and their families need. They’re going to get it from people who have played the game at the highest level. We want everybody to win. We want everyone to prosper. But you need the right information to do that.”

With Faulk leading the way, All Pro Scouting is off and running. And as history has shown, the new recruiting service has the right guy carrying the ball.