Absolutely do have evidence. For instance, we see recruit after recruit having NO RANKING, and then suddenly they get a 3 or 4 star evaluation five minutes after a top program offers them. Again, the resources that P5 schools currently have DWARF that of the diluted "national services", which are overwhelmed by the number of guys they must evaluate. It's easy to pick out the Top 50 or Top 100, but after that, it's sketchy as **** with the recruiting services, and they heavily rely on what they hear from P5 coaches as to the players they are targeting.
All you have to do is analyze the changes to the calendar and you can see what else contributes to the human-centipede process that is the "national services". It was one thing when 95% of kids signed in February, and a massive number of official visits took place in January. You could use the entire fall football season to evaluate kids AS SENIORS and get a better sense of the evaluation of both measurables (height-weight-speed) and production.
But now, everything is fvcked up. 85 to 90 percent of these kids either sign in December or are verbally committed and just waiting until February to finalize the signature. As has been described elsewhere, now most of the visits (by percentage) are taking place in the spring/summer, many of them being "unofficials", and with the "official" largely becoming a fall formality. As a result, offers (and verbals) are happening earlier and earlier than ever. And as a direct result of THAT, the "national services" are already tipped off to who the best players are, by virtue of SEC/Big 10 offer lists.
And we have seen OVER AND OVER AGAIN that a majority of Rivals/247/on3 "rankings updates" after the summer before senior year are HEAVILY impacted by "SEC/Big 10 fans whining about their verbals not being ranked high enough and demanding bumps, otherwise their subscribers are going to stop paying for annual subscriptions, because WAAAAAAAHHHH". If you honestly believe that the last 4 or 5 "recruiting updates" are the product of intrepid reporters and evaluators going out on Friday nights to reevaluate certain players...well, I have some beautiful swampland in Florida to sell to you. The reality is that (a) the Rivals/247/on3 writers don't like to admit they were wrong, and (b) they only grant "rankings updates" when the various fanbases pressure them to do so.
Finally, to the extent that you have been deluded into believing "the ranking services have become more accurate", it's because you don't grasp what has been happening. Because the ORDER of things has been reversed. The ranking services have become so beholden to the horse-race aspect of recruiting, that they are now basing their rankings on what all the coaches tell them off-the-record about particular recruits. The rule of "coaches can't comment on recruits prior to signing" is fine for press conferences, but it is routinely violated in private comments. Thus, all of these "reporter/evaluator" types are not ranking these kids off of independent evaluation of film and camps and stats...they are building their lists by what P5 coaches tell them about their targeted recruits. Thus the whole **** thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So is it any wonder why the biggest and best schools end up with the best classes? Sure, you can get a handful of movers/shakers who can buck the trend by outrecruiting their slot in life, and you can have programs that **** the bed for numerous years with highly-ranked classes that they fail to develop...
But other than that, let's not pretend that Rivals and 247 and on3 are some kind of magical influence-free independent thinkers who have superior access and/or knowledge with which to accurately assess hundreds and hundreds of recruits every year.
