Buccaneers high school recruiting ratings

It's national signing day: the day when everyone gets hyped up about recruits who will go on to do very little in college, and even less in the NFL. Of all those five-star recruits, only a handful will turn out to be any good in the NFL, as a quick glance at the list of Buccaneers and their recruiting ratings below should show you: just four of the Bucs' players were five-star recruits, and only one of them has been actually good in the NFL.

The four five-star recruits in the list are interesting. Three of them are defensive linemen: Da'Quan Bowers, William Gholston and Gerald McCoy. One of them has lived up to that promise, becoming one of the best defensive tackles in the NFL. Gholston had a somewhat disappointing college career, but showed some promise as a base defensive end last year. Da'Quan Bowers, though, has had a very disappointing NFL career -- but he still has the athletic talent to turn it around.

As for Russell Shepard, he was a special teamer only last year -- but a very good one. That should earn him a roster spot for another year, while I'm sure Jeff Tedford will find some way to use his athletic talents on offense as well.

Here's the table of recruits. All the recruiting class and rating data comes from Rivals.com, while the rest comes from Buccaneers.com.