to play the position at a high level. There's a reason 5 star kids are rated 5 stars.

Then, once you have your pool of potential targets made up of top players (BYU rarely gets 5 stars, so let's stay 4 and high 3-star players), you sift those for those with "upside" based on how coachable they are and whether you feel you can coach them up based on high athletic potential or high work ethic. Sometimes, it's worth taking a short player, like Fouss Traore for bball who is abnormally short for a center, or Ty Detmer, who was a skinny kid that many didn't think would last in college football. They don't have the prototypical body for their positions, but you can tell there's something extra there you can work with.