The 2022 recruiting cycle isn’t quite over yet as the All-Star games coming up this weekend will bring us a batch of more commitments that will more or less close the door on the top of the national rankings. It’s been a weird year full of massive coaching turnover, the top recruit shocking the entire world, and a numbers game still working itself out at many campuses across the country.
Here’s a macro-level review of the national recruiting scene.
Teams Under 20 Commits: 40
One of the big things that jumps out right now is just how small some of these classes are for 2022. Amazingly, among the Power 5 programs there are 40 teams with fewer than 20 commits. Here are some of the low numbers from the more prominent schools:
Oklahoma – 16
Florida State – 16
LSU – 13
Wisconsin – 14
Nebraska – 14
NC State – 13
Louisville – 13
Clemson – 12
UCLA – 12
Pitt – 12
Oregon – 11
Florida – 10
Miami – 9
Arizona State – 8
USC – 7
Washington – 6
Some of these numbers are completely insane! What gives?
One thing that I’m curious about is how many of these schools are keeping around more upper-classmen than usual due to the 2020 Covid rules while at the same time biding their time in the larger-than-ever transfer portal.
Blue-Chips Available: 27
5-stars: 4
Texas A&M is projected to pick up 2 more of these 5-stars and is definitely not one of the teams going light on the numbers this year. A couple more recruits takes them to 29 for the cycle and 7 players total with Composite 5-star status. Seven!
4-stars: 23
There are 6 more 4-stars in the Top 100 overall who are still to announce. This includes our old friend C.J. Williams who is doing the completely lame thing of waiting until the All-American Bowl even though the entire world knows he’s set to sign with USC. Can’t wait to see all the hats on the table, buddy!
Of the 3-star players in the top 600 nationally, only 24 have yet to commit.
Conference Leaders
ACC – North Carolina
UNC is trying to hold on to the top spot in the ACC for the first time in the Mack Brown era, and I’m assuming quite a long time overall. They were helped out by Florida State losing the country’s top recruit (see below!) but beware all 3 of the Tar Heels, Seminoles, plus Clemson have just 45 combined recruits right now so a few more signings could swing the league’s top spot.
Big 12 – Texas
This race was over once Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC. Since then, the Sooners have lost 6 commits from the 2022 class, including a pair of 5-stars and an additional Top 100 recruit.
Big Ten – Ohio State
Beared Ryan Day lost the battle but continues to win the war vs. Michigan.
No surprise as the Buckeyes top the Big Ten again with quality over quantity. Despite just 18 commits, Ohio State is carrying an insane 94.04 player average with only a pair of 3-stars and the rest all blue-chip prospects.
Pac-12 – Stanford
What the hell? The Pac-12 remains in absolute shambles. Good on Stanford for leading the way and being 16th nationally, although their class only features a pair of Top 200 recruits. The gap is pretty wide with the rest of the league with Utah (3rd in the league) sitting in 34th place nationally. Good job by Arizona’s Jedd Fisch for finishing 2nd in the league and 23rd nationally coming off a 1-11 season.
Oregon likely would’ve taken the league’s top spot if not for their coaching change and losing 10 commits since Mario Cristobal took the Miami job.
SEC – Texas A&M
Ohio State is in the mix in terms of player average but A&M, Alabama, and Georgia really are a class apart as the top 3 teams in the country all battling it out for No. 1 overall in the country and SEC. We should probably expect the Crimson Tide to come through with a surprise or two to finish this cycle although the betting odds have the Aggies holding on here.
*Notable G5 team national rankings:
Cincinnati 37th
UCF 41st
Boise State 55th
BYU 56th
Marshall 58th
Houston 59th
Memphis 63rd
San Diego State 65th
Given their status in the playoffs you would probably expect this to be the case as Cincinnati has out-recruited 29 other Power 5 programs.
Best at Each Position
Quarterback – Cade Klubnik, Clemson
Klubnik is technically tied with Texas A&M’s Conner Weigman as both have a 0.9901 Composite score, although the Clemson commit gets the nod one spot higher as the country’s top quarterback. He committed to the Tigers back in March just a few days after receiving an offer. Tough blow for Texas as Klubnik is from Austin.
Running Back – Emmanuel Henderson, Alabama
Auburn offered first but this was an easy one for the Crimson Tide to keep the in-state product home at Alabama. Henderson (30th overall) had been challenged by USC commit Raleek Brown (33rd overall) as the top running back in the nation.
Wide Receiver – Luther Burden, Missouri
Ten years after Dorial Green-Beckham stayed home at Missouri as the top receiver and overall player in the country we have Burden (3rd overall) nearly pulling off the same feat as a kid from East St. Louis. He was originally committed to Oklahoma for 10 months but left the Sooners class during the summer, ultimately committing to Missouri in late October this year.
Tight End – Jake Johnson, Texas A&M
Tight ends just can’t get any respect as Johnson comes in as the 83rd overall best player. Johnson was originally committed to LSU where his brother Max Johnson played quarterback. Jake left LSU’s class earlier this month with Max entering the Portal, as well. Now, they’re both headed to College Station.
Offensive Tackle – Zach Rice, North Carolina
Voluntarily choosing UNC for offensive line is certainly a decision.
You’d think Rice would be UNC’s highest-rated commit but he’s edged out by 7 spots nationally by defensive lineman Travis Show who just barely missed out on being the top defensive lineman of 2022. These two represent the 2nd and 3rd highest rated Tar Heels ever in the modern recruiting era.
Interior Offensive Line – Devon Campbell, TBD
Most expect Campbell to sign with Texas. His 5 official visits included the Longhorns along with Georgia, LSU, Alabama, and Oklahoma.
Edge Rusher – Jeremiah Alexander, Alabama
Alexander committed to Alabama shortly after their Junior Day back in 2020 only later to leave their class that fall. He took a couple official visits this summer only to re-commit to Alabama anyway.
Defensive Line – Walter Nolen, Texas A&M
The country’s No. 2 overall prospect was down to Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas A&M but spurned his in-state Vols to sign with the Aggies.
Linebacker – Harold Perkins, TBD
The Cypress, Texas native has driven the 290 up to the 6 to College Station a whole bunch of times and not so much other places. Do the math.
Cornerback – Travis Hunter, Jackson State
I found it odd all cycle how a 165-pound corner remained the top recruit in the country and then he goes and ditches Florida State on ESD–after being a verbal since March–for FSU alum Deion Sanders and FCS Jackson State. I’m sure the drama isn’t over with this one yet.
Safety – Sonny Styles, Ohio State
How good is Sonny Styles, brother to Notre Dame’s Lorenzo Styles? He was once a 2023 recruit who re-classified for 2022 and immediately became the top safety in the older age bracket.
Athlete – Malaki Starks, Georgia
The Dawgs kept Starks in-state without much drama. He’s expected to play safety for Georgia.
I wonder how long college football is going to last, though I do love following it so.
A comparison could be made between college football and baseball’s minor leagues. The thing that distinguishes college football and makes it so compelling, is the tradition and the rivalries, neither of which exists in minor league baseball to the same extent. With so much of the talent aggregating in the $EC, how long before college football ceases to be as compelling in every part of the country except for the southeastern portion (I wonder about how popular it is on the West Coast as it stands now).
My guess is that the only thing that’s keeping its popularity going right now is the insane amount of TV money propping up conferences like the PAC 12. But with the bowl games starting to wane in significance (a phenomenon that will only continue once the playoffs expand), there’s going to be less and less to play for. Who really cares who wins the PAC 12 or Big 12 title games (I don’t know who won the PAC 12, and the only reason I know who won the Big 12 is because ND’s opponent got partially chosen through that process). The Big 10 is hanging in there only because of 1.5 teams (we’ll see how long Michigan lasts as a meaningful national player). And the ACC was only relevant because of Clemson.
ND’s relevance is tied up in its history and tradition, and the loathing with which much of the country regards us. The only thing that’s kept us in the spotlight is our national TV contract, and our closeness to the playoffs these past few years.
To repeat, I wonder how long it will all last. 🙁 Something needs to be done in order to prevent talent from concentrating in one part of the country, though damned if I know what that would be.
I propose a 24 team playoff. As the current system is setup only 3%!!! of all D1 CFB teams make the playoffs. 19% of all D1 Basketball teams make the NCAA Tourney. A 24 team playoff would equal 19% of the current 125 FCS teams. 40% of NFL teams makes the playoffs for reference as well. Here’s the format that I would propose: Top 8 seeds get a bye. First 3 rounds are held on campus of the higher seed Semi-final and final are rotated among the Rose, Cotton, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta bowls. I’m also ok getting rid of these and just picking cities like the NCAAB Final Four. No conference champ AQ’s Playoffs start the Saturday following the CCG’s I would be ok with getting rid of CCG’s, but TV/Conferences won’t let that happen because of the money they generate Top 24 is decided by an average of AP, Committee, and Vegas/advanced stats. These are rolled out after week 1 results (no-preseason rankings). Kickoff times for the first 2 rounds Eastern time could be: 12pm, 1pm 2:30pm, 3:30pm 5pm, 6pm 7:30pm 8:30pm Goal of this is to maximize meaningful games in November for the multiple programs across multiple parts of the country. This will also create unique on-campus matchups, imagine Wisconsin going down to Ole Miss in December or Florida travelling to South Bend a week before Christmas for spot in the semi-finals. Arguments against and counter points: This would be too many games for college kids. Teams currently play a maximum of 15 games. Under my proposal the most they would play is 18 games and in that scenario you would to play in a CCG and be ranked outside of the top 8 and make it to the NC game. Odds are long of that happening and most teams will play 17 games max. I would suggest eliminating all FCS games and going with 11 regular season games for all programs. Also would like to eliminate CCG games, but don’t see that happening. 11 regular season games would mean 16 games and 17 games for the Cinderella runs. FCS champion currently could play a maximum of 16 games These other games wouldn’t matter, it would still just be Bama and blowouts as evidenced by the current playoff format. I think we all love Saturdays with multiple top 25 matchups during the season and a lot of those don’t even matter under the current setup. I personally think some of the blowouts are from teams playing 12 out of 13 weeks and then taking 3 to 4 weeks off between the final regular season game and the playoff. No other sport does this but in CFB we think of it as normal. Games will be on campus. Southern teams will have to go north, northern teams will have to go south, and east to west and west to east. Look at what happened with Bama and Auburn. Weird stuff happens in CFB especially the more games are played… Read more »
I don’t know about all these details but anything to get the top 20 or 30 teams playing each other more often is going to be more fun and meaningful for everyone involved.
My issue with the CBB tournament is that, as exciting as it is, the best team does not win 95% of the time. It comes down to who plays the best in March. Maybe no one else has an issue with that, but I think the overall body of work should really determine who is “the best/champion”–though I understand there is disagreement there and voting for the champion is not as exciting as watching a buzzer-beater, etc… Maybe I am partial to how the European soccer leagues determine champions (which actually does provide plenty of intense and exciting matchups in the final months). I do understand that those leagues are only possible because there are typically 20 teams and not 120+. Idk how I feel about your proposal. To me, the college football season prior to the playoffs being introduced was itself a giant playoff, and the early BCS was “peak” college football (before the money really came flooding in and causing the conference realignment in the late 2000s). Because scheduling was always years ahead, there was of course the chance top teams would get unlucky, but it did force the top teams to schedule other good teams in order to have a great resume. There was always the issue that 70+ teams didn’t have a chance starting from day one, but we also knew that 99-100% of those teams couldn’t really compete for a championship anyway. The big upside was that outside of the top matchups, the rest of the games were bitter rivalry games (or games between longstanding conference foes). The rivalry games were just WAY more compelling. Even if Kansas knew they would go 5-7, they would still play up to beat Mizzou, so it was still a fun year and that game was fun as hell! I know the BCS had issues, but there were actually very few times where an argument could be made that the best 2 teams weren’t playing each other in the Championship game. 2007 is probably the only year where someone could have argued that the #4 or #5 ranked team was just as good as the top 2. And really, there were only 2 other years I can think of where a #3 team had an argument. Also, the controversy was what made it exciting as well, and what helped make college football unique. As Cubfansince1957 said, the sport has continued to just move towards the money, and it appears it has forsaken the things that made it great in the first place. I honestly don’t believe that anyone outside the top 8 could win a championship, so for me, I don’t see a reason to include those teams in a tournament. I know there are disagreements there, and I am not claiming that my view is correct. Perhaps I am seriously waxing nostalgia, but my enthusiasm for the sport is waning. An expanded playoff will only accelerate its transformation into a minor league for… Read more »
I would argue that, in the NCAA tournament (and in the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA etc playoffs/super bowl/world series/championship), the best team (whatever the hell that means) wins 100% of the time. To me, that’s the point, in fact. A playoff is just a system to determine the “best team.” There are certainly other ways to do it: the team with the best regular season record, the team with the most impressive wins all year, the best team on paper, the team that the most people think are awesome, the eye test, the team with the coolest unis. But they are all equally flawed, because the phrase “best team” kinda means little to nothing outside of the strictures of the system that’s in place to determine it. The local team where I live is in the Ivy League. Trust me, THAT system of determining a champion is about as fun as getting fruit on Halloween. The playoff/tournament system, by contrast, seems like the most fun in no small part because it takes each of our different and irrelevant opinions on who is the “best” and pits them against each other. And it’s the very prospect of the “best team” NOT winning that makes watching exciting (and the more teams involved, the more upsets possible, and the more fun it is). Otherwise, what’s the point? If you knew the “best team” beforehand and knew that they were gonna win 95% of the time, why would you watch? I hate Michigan, but watching them beat tOSU this year was fun. I hate the Patriots, and watching David Tyree catch a ball with his head was even more fun. “That’s why they play the games,” as they say
This is all true and you are correct in that one can argue what it even means to be the best team. I guess that definition is where we disagree. I think to be considered the best, especially after a season in which you’ve spent 5-8 months playing, you need to prove it on a repeatable basis (i.e. win a series). For the NCAA BBall tourney, the team that wins is typically only the “hottest team” in the month of March. They certainly deserve credit for winning an incredibly difficult tournament, but it’s also likely that a ton of luck was needed, and they had flukey wins on the way. Regardless, I am not advocating for change, just arguing what it means to be the best.
Of course, this is sports and we want to be entertained, and the BBall tourney is definitely the most compelling and exciting sporting event around. It just comes down to what the actual goal is. Is it 100% fan entertainment? 100% “most deserving” over the overall body of work? Or somewhere in between? I guess we fall on different ends of the spectrum. I think I tend to fall on the end that wants the most deserving to be crowned. But that’s just me.
A bad analogy: It’d be like if you consistently outperform your co-worker for a year, but then for whatever reason (you’re sick, you have a newborn baby and aren’t getting enough sleep, personal issues going on etc…), there’s a week where your co-worker outperforms you, and then your boss decides to give them a promotion over you based on that week alone.
I believe the overall body of work is what really matters, and what is more analogous to daily life.
I can’t help but have a wry smile when it comes to TAMU and it’s boosters/bagmen throwing all of this cash at players thinking they will win the SEC. No non-original SEC school has ever won an SEC championship. (South Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, TAMU). I just don’t get the feeling that the powers that be in the SEC care about TAMU and their success so while they are loading up on talent, I don’t see it going the way many would think. The SEC already ignored them with the expansion invite to Texas and didn’t really fight to get them into the playoffs last year over ND.
Disclaimer: Some of this is probably tin-foil hat territory, but I just don’t see them ever getting over the hump. I also don’t see OU and Texas being taken care of either by the SEC. I predict a Tennessee SEC championship before an OU/Texas/TAMU one.
If A&M keeps recruiting like this, they certainly will make it to a championship game.
And no army had been able to breach the walls of helms deep….
Ah, but I hope kevinnd21 is correct (I have family in Texas that worship A&M in an unholy way).
THEY SHALL NOT PASS!!!
Y’all see that OLine depth chart for this weekend???
Apparently Lugg with an injury. It’ll be interesting to see how Fisher does at RT and maybe an insight into next year’s lineup with Alt coming on strong this year at LT.
Sounds like he had surgery. Man, 2 freshman at tackle against that defense is 😬. Especially considering one hasn’t played all year. How can he be expected to go a whole game?
At this point, I just hope everyone is healthy enough to play…and that my flight to AZ doesn’t get cancelled 😔
Good luck sleepy, hope it’s a good trip!
The two freshmen tackles are concerning against this talent level of the Ok St defense for various reasons (and the guard play isn’t sky high either). Then we’ve got Coan’s lack of ability to evade any pressure. I would like to see them play Buchner more to have an effective offense against this matchup, hopefully that Rees is planning on that.
Thanks Hooks. I’m really looking forward to it. My first bowl game. The OL + Coan situation – Kyren makes me pretty nervous. Guess we’ll see how much the line has really improved. More Buchner might be a necessity.