function of coaches' assessments of the recruit, too, not just the lack of a hype machine. People complain on here all of the time that ratings are heavily influenced by who has offered - the offers are a function of coaches having looked at a guy and determined they were worth staking their career and reputation on. So I think it's silly to pretend that recruiting rankings aren't heavily influenced by the kind of assessments from coaches that GBBB says he puts more stock in.
I'm hopeful this kid pans out, but being the 5A player of the year for the state, it seems unlikely that he just flew under the radar. But if he did, great job by our coaches in seeing what others did not.