It used to be easy to determine which teams had the most talent.
You could go to a recruiting website, add up the standout players from the previous four transfer classes and do the math. The era of the transfer portal ruined all that.
Some teams bring in and out as many as 40 players during the offseason, and recruiting classes from just two years earlier look very different.
Remember that monster 30-man class No. 1-ranked Jimbo Fisher signed at Texas A&M in 2022 that included 18 top-100 prospects? Ten of those top-100 players are gone, and only 16 members of the class remain on the Aggies’ roster heading into this fall.
Nick Saban’s 2022 class finished one spot behind the Aggies, but only 11 members of that 25-man class remain in Tuscaloosa.
Are Texas A&M and Alabama simply bad examples because of coaching changes at both schools? Hardly. Georgia’s 2022 recruiting class — the one that Kirby Smart signed in the midst of winning back-to-back national championships — ranked just behind Texas A&M and Alabama. Only 16 of the Bulldogs’ 30 signees from that class are still in Athens.
It is not an anomaly. Today is college football. The lists change quickly.
There are 61 players among a group of 341 who signed with the current 17 ACC programs in the 2023 cycle who are no longer with their respective schools. Going back to the 2022 cycle, a combined 40 percent of the ACC’s signing classes are gone. In the 2021 cycle, that number is 57 percent.
This doesn’t mean we should stop tracking recruiting classes. We just need to change our perspective on what it means and what we should value. Talent accumulation is still important. It just comes in different forms, and sometimes just being involved with a recruit in their first experience is huge because you never know when they’ll be looking for a new home.
And now some thoughts and conclusions on what has happened along the way to this point:
1. Ohio State sits atop the 247Sports Composite rankings with 10 players in the top 100 (four more than any other team) among its 19 commitments. That’s impressive and a testament to the program’s effort to get back to the top of the Big Ten after watching Jim Harbaugh and Michigan dominate the league the past three seasons.
But as my editor, Mitch Light, pointed out in a recent Until Saturday podcast, what’s really noteworthy about the Buckeyes’ journey to this point is that it’s not just focused on the receiver.
In the past two signing classes, three of the Buckeyes’ five five-star players were receivers. This year’s talent haul is comprised of five-star cornerbacks Devin Sanchez and Na’eem Offord, from Texas and Alabama respectively, and five-star Ohio-born quarterback Tavien St. Clair, who many considered the best player in the Elite 11 finals last week.
The next notable player the Buckeyes are expected to select is four-star defensive lineman Trajen Odom of North Carolina. There are already two edge rushers in the top 100 in the class: Zahir Mathis and Zion Grady.
Let’s go Bucks 🌰 #familyR2X #Rushmen #Fraternity @R2X_Rushmen1 @R2X_Rushmen1 @Hayesfawcett3 pic.twitter.com/KQIOUzpNLG
— Zion (Ziggy) Grady🦍 (@GradyZion) June 24, 2024
2. Kalen DeBoer is making $10 million a season at Alabama to replace Saban, and so far, I’d say it’s been worth it. Yes, he hasn’t coached a game yet, but the fact that the Crimson Tide is ranked No. 2 in the team rankings and has six games in the top 100 (and another ranked No. 104) is tremendously impressive.
Remember, DeBoer helped convince five-star receiver Ryan Williams to stay home late in the recruiting cycle after the coaching change, and the Tide hasn’t missed a beat with this year’s haul. Earlier this month, they traded Elite 11 MVP Keelon Russell, a Texas native, from his commitment to SMU. And on Wednesday, the Tide landed their ninth commitment this month in four-star linebacker Dawson Merritt, a top-100 recruit from Kansas who had been to Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska on visits.
I thought DeBoer, who is from South Dakota and had not trained in the South up to that point, would have some difficulties along the way. It just hasn’t happened yet.
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3. There were over 480 commitments in June for all 70 Power 4 programs (I’m still including Oregon State and Washington State), and Notre Dame is the only school yet to take on a pledge this month.
The most crowded programs on the road in June? Rutgers (20 commitments), Georgia Tech (16), Arizona (15), Minnesota (15), Mississippi State (14), West Virginia (13), Boston College (13), Duke (12) and Indiana (11). However, none of those programs had a top-100 player among those pledges.
You have to give credit to Rutgers and Greg Schiano. Their 2025 class includes six standout players (they signed only four in 2024). Among them are four top 250 players: safety Tariq Hayer of Washington DC and three New Jersey natives: receiver Michael Thomas III, linebacker DJ McClary and offensive tackle Jaelyne Matthews.
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4. Clemson has the best class among ACC schools, and Dabo Swinney deserves some praise for landing five top-100 players to this point. The Tigers signed five in the 2024 cycle but finished outside the top 10 of the rankings for the second straight year.
This cycle, Swinney has signed the top two players in the state of Virginia in four-star defensive back Ari Watford and four-star running back Gideon Davidson (Georgia signed Virginia’s top two players in 2024). And the Tigers have North Carolina’s No. 2 player committed in four-star defensive lineman Isaiah Campbell and are favorites to land five-star offensive tackle David Sanders Jr., the top player in the state.
5. Ole Miss had three players decommit this week — four-star receivers Jerome Myles (No. 182 overall) and Dillon Alfred (No. 357) and three-star linebacker Corey Amos (No. 422) — and fell to 50th in the team rankings.
This is not out of the ordinary for this program. In the 2024 cycle, the Rebels had 10 players cut starting in June, and still signed a top-25 class. Lane Kiffin shuffles the deck quite a bit.
6. It’s not exactly a crime anymore to not Draft a quarterback every recruiting cycle, but failing to draft a high school quarterback two cycles in a row probably isn’t a good idea.
That makes the battle between USC and Colorado for five-star quarterback Julian Lewis intriguing. Neither signed a high school quarterback in 2024. Lewis has been committed to USC since August, but visited the Buffaloes last weekend after making stops at Auburn, USC and Indiana before that .
There are 28 top-ranked quarterbacks in the 247Sports Composite, and only one remains uncommitted: four-star Malik Washington of Severn (Md.) Archbishop Spalding. The Elite 11 finalist is set to announce his commitment on Friday, and Maryland is considered the favorite over Virginia Tech, UCF and Syracuse.
Auburn, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Ole Miss, SMU and UCF are the only P4 schools that do not have a quarterback commitment in their 2025 classes.
7. Miami, Florida State and Florida finished fourth, twelfth and thirteenth, respectively, in the 2024 cycle, but are off to relatively slow starts in the 2025 cycle. There’s no reason to panic just yet.
On Thursday, the Hurricanes landed their 13th commitment in four-star cornerback Chris Ewald, who moved up to No. 16 in the rankings. He’s the Canes’ eighth star player. Mario Cristobal will surely add more star power to their 2025 class.
Florida also added to its class on Wednesday, adding four-star receiver Joshua Moore from West Broward High School in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The Gators have just seven commitments, but four are ranked in the top 400 nationally. They are trying to use DJ Lagway, the five-star quarterback who headlined their 2024 class, to attract elite receivers and other offensive weapons.
Florida State sits at No. 64 with just six commitments, but it hopes to get on a roll soon. The reigning ACC champions received most of their top targets in the final weekend of recruiting. They also have an average player rating of 94.1, second only to Ohio State. That’s high-quality recruiting.
8. Who will make the biggest jump up the rankings in the coming weeks and months? The safe bet is Texas.
The Longhorns are currently ranked 17th, but they are very interested in a number of five-star players: receivers Dakorien Moore, Jaime Ffrench and Kaliq Lockett, safety Jonah Williams and offensive tackle Michael Fasusi. There are also plenty of uncommitted recruits in the state who are interested in the Longhorns. I would be very surprised if the Longhorns didn’t sign a top-six class for the fourth consecutive cycle.
(Ryan Day photo: Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch/USA Today Network)
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