Recruiting rankings vary by each publication to a certain degree and generally a decent indicator of how each star rated player will turn out for the next level.  BYU fans -- as they should be -- are very excited for Jake Heaps who is all ready on campus and is all ready impressing coaches.  Heaps was able to bring in other top recruits such as WR Ross Apo, RB Joshua Quezada and other.  Heaps also enrolled early in January to battle Riley Nelson for the open starter spot with Max Hall leaving BYU. 

He is the number one quarterback rated by Rivals and Scout; however ESPNU has him as the seventh rated passer.  Nationally Heaps is first by Scout, 63rd by Rivals, and not ranked in the ESPNU 150.  A side note on ESPNU, they have zero quarterbacks in the top 150 and this quarterback crop seems to be one of the weakest in years.

More evidence that this class is not up to par with the past eight is that zero quarterbacks have a five star rating by Rivals compared to three in '09, three in '08, four in '07, three in '06,two in '05, five in '04, one in '03, and five in '02.  Also, in that span every class had at least one quarterback in the top ten.  These stats only go back to what Rivals has in their online database.

This is not to scare BYU fans in to thinking that Heaps is not going to pan out or that a Ben Olson situation could reoccur.  Yes, Olson was the number one quarterback recruit and number four in the country, but his situation was different in that promises were broken and he just happened to come do BYU during their worst seasons in nearly twenty years.  The list of top quarterbacks to fail who were five stars are a good amount, but so are the non-descript two star quarterbacks that just happen to develop late.

The main concern to me about Jake Heaps is that there is a wide range in evaluations of him starting with being compared to Chad Pennington.  Now, being compared to a guy who had a solid career at Marshall and made a decent career to the NFL is good.  His rating out of high school was not too great to have gone to Marshall who at the time was in the MAC.

Also, what does Scout see that has him the number one overall player and five quarterbacks in their top 100 compared to zero from ESPNU, and only two for Rivals.  Now, I am not clear how Scout historically ranks their quarterbacks but the discrepancy seems to be large between the three main services to believe that the quarterback class might be overvalued at Scout just because they are the glamor positions.  

The perceived lower level of quarterback play could be the reason that Heaps was not as heavily recruited or by as many schools.  He did receive offers from Cal, Notre Dame, Washington, and Tennessee.  Those are power schools in name, but a closer look shows that Cal has been the best of the bunch over the past five years, Notre Dame has been a mess, Washington had zero wins in 2008, and Tennessee who was only average in the SEC. It could be that the 2011 class has a better set of quarterbacks, so not all of the big schools kept after Heaps.

This is not meant to be a bashing of a kid who has yet to play a single down for BYU and who knows if he will be the next Ty Detmer and win a Heisman trophy or a flop like Ben Olson was who transferred after he served a Mormon mission, and ended up being injury prone at UCLA. 

BYU fans need to be realistic with this kid -- yes kid he is only 18 years old -- and not expect the world just because he is the top quarterback in the country and dreaming of BCS bowls, national titles, or a Heisman Trophy.  Even if his ranking happens to be overvalued and ends up a top ten quarterback when the 2010 class is done with their career.  That should be a good enough career to continue what BYU has expected from their quarterback play and fans should be happy with that.