Alabama, Texas haul in top classes
It’s national signing day in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Your team just: A) Got better
B) Took a step in the right direction C) Brought in high-quality players and people
D) Found players who fit the system E) All of the above
(The answer is E, as always.)
College football’s early signing period has dramatically influenced the recruiting landscape by speeding up the pace of verbal commitments and leading schools to make staffing changes earlier and earlier in the regular season.
At the same time, rule changes related to name, image and likeness already have made an impact, potentially playing a crucial role in a stunning signingday flip involving one of the biggest programs in the country.
Yet some things haven’t changed. New rules, new coaches, new conferences, whatever: The top teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision continue to sign the top recruiting classes.
The biggest winners and losers from the early signing date:
Winners
Texas: Fresh off a horrible debut season, coach Steve Sarkisian has started shifting the narrative around Texas with a superb class capped by three signingday flips: athlete Xavion Brice from Oklahoma, edge rusher Ethan Burke from Michigan and cornerback Terrance Brooks from Ohio State. Brooks is a plug-and-play newcomer who will fill a void in the Longhorns’ secondary. Texas also received a late commitment from five-star offensive tackle Kelvin Banks and brought in the nation’s most coveted transfer in quarterback Quinn Ewers, the top-ranked player in the 2021 class who spent this past season at Ohio State.
Texas A&M: The Aggies made a run at the nation’s top-ranked class, according to the rankings compiled by 247Sports.com, but came up just short to Southeastern Conference behemoths Georgia and Alabama. But this year’s group is so good it might’ve played a major role in convincing Jimbo Fisher to turn down any overtures from LSU to remain at A&M – since leaving for Baton Rouge meant he’d have to face these recruits for the next four or five years. Fisher will say the star of the class is five-star quarterback Conner Weigman, who will compete for the starting job as a freshman. But he’s just one of four five-star signees, including two players ranked in the top six of all recruits regardless of position.
Boston College: The Eagles’ recruiting efforts have taken an enormous step forward under coach Jeff Hafley, who has signed top-40 classes in each of his two complete recruiting cycles after the program had done so just once in the previous decade. As of Wednesday afternoon, this year’s group ranked 30th in the FBS and fifth in the Atlantic Coast Conference behind a successful in-state haul – the Eagles signed four of the top nine recruits in Massachusetts, led by four-star receiver Joseph Griffin Jr. – and several nice wins in Maryland.
Cincinnati: Capitalizing on this year’s playoff berth and several years of national contention under coach Luke Fickell, the Bearcats brought in the top class in the Group of Five by a wide margin. Ranked No. 33 in the country, Cincinnati’s defense-centered group includes a pair of four-star prospects among 20 signees and is eight spots ahead of the second-place class in the Group of Five, signed by Central Florida and coach Gus Malzahn.
SEC: The top three classes in the country. Twelve classes out of 14 member schools ranked in the top 25 nationally. The SEC continues to stockpile talent at a rate not even challenged by the rest of the Power Five. For example, Mississippi State’s class came in 12th in the SEC but would’ve ranked third in the Big 12; the two current Big 12 teams above the Bulldogs in the class rankings, Texas and Oklahoma, are future members of the SEC. The news is good and bad for the bottom third of the conference: Vanderbilt may have signed a tremendous group under Clark Lea, but a haul ranked 31st nationally sits second-to-last in the SEC.
Losers
Florida State: The Seminoles were on the wrong end of one of the biggest shockers in modern recruiting history: Travis Hunter, the top prospect in this cycle and a longtime Florida State verbal commitment, flipped to Jackson State on signing day, joining coach Deion Sanders and one of the top teams in the Football Championship Subdivision. Besides a breakthrough moment for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hunter’s decision is a reflection of Sanders’ recruiting prowess and an indication of how NIL legislation has evened the playing field for programs chasing individual recruits, even as the nation’s best programs continue to sign the top classes.
Big Ten West Division: The split between the two Big Ten divisions is right on the nose. Led by Ohio State and Penn State, teams from the Big Ten East finished first through seventh in the conference recruiting rankings – Buckeyes, Nittany Lions, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Rutgers and Maryland, in that order. Then came the entire Big Ten West, from Purdue through lastplace Nebraska. The talent gap between the two divisions explains why teams from the East have won every Big Ten championship since the current alignment was created in 2014.
New head coaches: There are exceptions: Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire made the most of his month-plus on the job, not just putting the touches on a solid collection for the Red Raiders but making big inroads with players in the 2023 class. But most newly hired coaches will have to do major lifting in the second signing period to add players and maintain roster balance. That includes Mario Cristobal at Miami, which had signed seven players as of Wednesday afternoon, along with Tony Elliott at Virginia (nine signees), Sonny Dykes at TCU (nine), Kalen DeBoer at Washington (six) and Billy Napier at Florida (eight).