2026 Recruiting Thread

[osubuckeye89]

I'll try to find the article, but last year, if you compared the number of top 100 that Bama, UGA, and tOSU landed in 2022 and compared to last year, it's way different. There is still a lot of time to go in recruiting, but I am already seeing lower top 100 rankings for UGA. And, it looks like this is going to be a killer year for UGA.

I do an article for Rivals every year. Here are the last 3 years compared:

As of today, Top 100 - Class of 2026 - 5; 2025 - 4; 2024 - 8 - this changes rapidly ... UGA added a couple since I wrote that article. However, the days of UGA, Bama, and tOSU accounting for 30-35% of the top 100 are gone.

Recruiting has undergone several indirect changes. Some players are committing earlier now. NSD is totally irrelevant, and even ESD is a nothingburger. Most teams are entirely wrapped up by October or November.

I just did some quick napkin comparisons. I used 2025 and 2020, which was right before COVID.

2020 - Top 100 players:
UGA - 11
Bama - 10
tOSU - 7
Clemson - 10
LSU - 9

That's 47 of the top 100 going to the top 5 teams.

Then look at the point totals for the top 5, then the 10th:
313
310
309
299
295
10th - 263

Now, forward to 2025.

Top 100 players:
Bama - 8
UGA - 8
tOSU - 7
Texas - 10
Oregon - 6

That's 39 (compared to 47 in 2020) in the top 5 teams in 2025.

Now look at the point distribution of the top 5 teams and the 10th (2020 numbers are in parens):
312 (313)
304 (310)
298 (309)
297 (299)
292 (295)
10th - 281 (263)

Notice that the top teams are far lower in 2025 than 2020, meaning that they aren't getting as many high-end players.

Comparing the 1st and 10th is always interesting:
2020 - 313 - 263 - 50 points
2025 - 312 - 281 - 31 points

So, the gap between the top 10 teams has shrunk considerably. To me that says that some players are getting spread out. I never expected the top teams to lose their recruiting juju. Just that they wouldn't get all the top players.

Overall team recruiting rankings, while they still matter at the same team mean less than ever.

How good is a top 5ish class for a team now if half the class transfers after a year or two because things didn't go as expected (Looking at the USC, A&M and Miami's of the world especially here)?

As you mentioned before the teams that can best evaluate the next tiers of players down will be the true winners going forward. Player retention is going to be a big thing too, the programs that can do the best at keeping guys around and actually develop them instead of losing a ton yearly to the portal are also going to thrive.

 

[WhosYourDawggy]

Overall team recruiting rankings, while they still matter at the same team mean less than ever.

How good is a top 5ish class for a team now if half the class transfers after a year or two because things didn't go as expected (Looking at the USC, A&M and Miami's of the world especially here)?

As you mentioned before the teams that can best evaluate the next tiers of players down will be the true winners going forward. Player retention is going to be a big thing too, the programs that can do the best at keeping guys around and actually develop them instead of losing a ton yearly to the portal are also going to thrive.

Totally disagree ... team recruiting will always be important. The team with the best players win far more often than not. Stars matter and it's not really a debatable point.

As for transferring, you are looking at it wrong. If you have your top players leaving, that is a team problem. You want many of the class to transfer because they got recruited over and won have PT. Then you replace them with a few transfers and better high school prospects.

Look at where the players transfer to. This is since 2003 of UGA:
Sacramento State
Miami
Georgia State
Jacksonville State
Purdue
Memphis
South Florida
Syracuse
Purdue
Mississippi State
Troy
Purdue
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
Maryland
Syracuse
North Carolina
Appalachian State
UCF
Nicholls
Nebraska
Purdue
SMU
Oregon
LSU
USC
Oklahoma
Purdue
Missouri
Missouri
Texas A&M
Arkansas
Georgia Tech
Oregon State
Michigan
Syracuse
Charlotte
Texas A&M
Arizona State
Penn State
Syracuse
Arkansas
UNLC
Nebraska
Troy
Texas A&M

Most of the have dropped down to lesser schools, meaning they weren't as good as people thought.

 

[osubuckeye89]

Totally disagree ... team recruiting will always be important. The team with the best players win far more often than not. Stars matter and it's not really a debatable point.

As for transferring, you are looking at it wrong. If you have your top players leaving, that is a team problem. You want many of the class to transfer because they got recruited over and won have PT. Then you replace them with a few transfers and better high school prospects.

Look at where the players transfer to. This is since 2003 of UGA:
Sacramento State
Miami
Georgia State
Jacksonville State
Purdue
Memphis
South Florida
Syracuse
Purdue
Mississippi State
Troy
Purdue
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
Maryland
Syracuse
North Carolina
Appalachian State
UCF
Nicholls
Nebraska
Purdue
SMU
Oregon
LSU
USC
Oklahoma
Purdue
Missouri
Missouri
Texas A&M
Arkansas
Georgia Tech
Oregon State
Michigan
Syracuse
Charlotte
Texas A&M
Arizona State
Penn State
Syracuse
Arkansas
UNLC
Nebraska
Troy
Texas A&M

Most of the have dropped down to lesser schools, meaning they weren't as good as people thought.

I guess it depends on the situation. Maybe guys aren't good enough, but also maybe guys are leaving some places because their NIL promises and other promises fell short of what they were actually promised, there's so many added variables now compared to the past. I think there's the potential problem of guys getting NIL checks and then not wanting to work as hard as well, this is something teams need to get good at scoping out, that sort of attitude.

I'm not saying a team is going to compete for titles year after year finishing like 22nd in the recruiting rankings. I think top 10 gets you in a very good position now though, where in the past you really needed to be at least top 5 every year. Of course the expanded playoff has a lot to do with this too. The days of a couple of teams stacking up all the truly elite talent are over though that's for sure.

I suspect the usual powers will continue to figure out the landscape and navigate it the best. Ohio State/UGA type teams aren't going anywhere. Despite how much some of our fans want to whine about losing recruits because some USC or Cryami type team tossed a crazy last second bag at them.

 

[osubuckeye89]

I guess my main point is that the bought and paid for insane NIL classes have yet to really work out for anyone yet. You can almost just ignore those teams in the recruiting rankings until they can actually get it to translate on the field.