Amazing coverage by @Caleb Jones and @BryanMatthews these past couple of weeks with surely more to come, culminating with BCW. I still see some having doubts about landing a top 5 class (looking at you @bprockman_100) and putting aside @Docdumpsta insisting that the INTANET LIZZZZTTZZ don't matter, wanted to break it down why the path to a top 5, or even top 3 class is pretty clear. I know @BruceAu40 and @cowboy2224 are in on this, feel free to add some sunshine.
QB - None committed, 1 spot to fill. We have two top targets in Juju Lewis or KJ Lacy. I am a believer in flipping Lewis, possibly as a big splash at BCW. Of his finalists we are by far the closest to home by a measure in the thousands of miles. We have rolled out the red carpet for him on multiple visits with BCW still left to come. He has felt the love and its not like we are competing against the USC of old who is a playoff mainstay. I think we will know coming out of his OV's how strong of a chance we have and we will have the option to turn a full court press to KJ if needed. Either way we are committed to putting a massive NIL package in the hands of a QB for 2025 - if we miss on both it will go to a top tier transfer. My guess is if we land one of these guys we still look to the transfer portal to bring in a 5th year guy from a smaller school who raises the floor and helps bridge the gap if the young guys aren't ready yet.
RB - None committed, 2 spots to fill. This one is pretty straight forward. 3 guys - Alvin Henderson, Osumane Kromah and Shakai Mills-Knight for 2 spots. I think the staff secretly feels good about Henderson but he is too much of a wildcard to put complete faith in which is where Mills-Knight comes in. Regardless of what Henderson does, we have been showing Kromah the love and it has been paying off. I'll be surprised if he isn't part of this class. Either way I see us ending up with two 4 stars for our two RB spots.
WR - None committed, 2-3 spots to fill. First, one of these spots belongs to 5-star Caleb Cunningham - he will be a part of this class. Then we have 1-2 remaining spots to go to a group of 4 4-star receivers that each have us in their top 3. Travis Smith Jr made a pretty strong hint that he may commit before or at BCW saying he wants to return for BCW but will only do so as a commit. Derrick Smith will require a flip from bama but we know Hugh & Co won't give up. CJ Wiley is teammates with TE commit Ryan Ghea but we will still have to fend off Georgia here. Cortez Mills will be a tough pull from Miami but we have a shot here as well. In the end, after we lock in Cunningham, we will have 3 guys left for 1-2 spots and they are all 4-stars.
TE - 1 committed (Ryan Ghea), 1 spot to fill. There was talk of taking 3 TE in this class but I just don't think we can commit that many slots considering the other guys on the board. Kiotti Armstrong and Emaree Winston, both 4-stars, are probably our top two targets.
OL - 5 committed, 1-3 spots to fill. Broderick Shull's commitment got a little lost in the recruiting shuffle of these past two weeks. He #19 overall and #5 OT on On3 and will likely make a big jump in the next ratings cycles (in spite of his AU commitment). To round out what will be possibly our best OL class ever, OL Jacobe Ward has had us as a strong leader now for a while - we only have 1 interior spot left and we may be holding off on taking his commitment until we are certain we are out of it with Dontrell Glover. Our top OT target on the board is Andrew Babaloa who, like Shull, is shooting up the rankings and is a composite 5 star on On3, ranked in the top 15 overall for both On3 and 247. Behind him we have 4-stars Malachi Goodman and Mal Waldrep. Babalola takes this class to another level, but either way we are setting our OL up for a strong future.
DL - 2 committed, 1-2 spots to fill. Between Malik Autry and Jourdin Crawford, we already have 2 beasts for the future of our interior DL. After last year's strong class, there isn't a need for volume like we have on the OL, but getting 4-star Kalen Edwards back on board would be welcome and we will continue the flip flop battle with 4-star Antonio Coleman. High 4-star Michigan commit Nathanial Marshall came off his visit recently saying it will be AU or Michigan (thanks @ricedp105).
Edge - 1 committed, 1 spot to fill. We only lose 1 off the roster next year but we learned our lesson about the risks of being thin on pass rushers. Faulk is a 4-star locking down 1 of those spots and we have in-state battles for Zion Grady and Jared Smith to fill out the other spot. Both of those guys are top 150 players.
LB - 1 committed, 1-2 spots to fill. Tyler Lockhart gives us 1 4-star and newly minted 4-star from Fyffe, Logan Anderson could be the next. Christian Jones out of Nebraska and Miami commit Elijah Mendez are two other targets, both rated as high 4-stars, could be tough pulls but are definitely giving us strong consideration.
CB - 3 committed, 1-2 spots to fill. Crime Dog has done a great job with this group getting Williams, Core and Starr committed, giving us a nice floor for the quality of this DB class. Now we can turn our attention to the elite targets. Blake Woodby is a high 4-star who just decommitted from Ohio State and subsequently has taken 2 trips to AU over the past 2 weeks and all indication seems to be that he will be a part of this class sooner than later. That would be more than suffient for a CB haul, but we won't give up on in-state 5-star Na'eem Offord. Hugh seems hell bent on getting Offord in this class and it would be a massive splash if he does.
S - None committed, 2 spots to fill. We have two spots, and as far as I can tell, 2 targets getting our attention. Anquan Fegans and Eric Winters, both in-state 4-star Top 150 players. Fegans seems to be leaning more heavily AU with his brother on board as a walk on, while Winters is a tighter battle but most seem to believe we have the lead here. Adding this pair to the DB class would be huge.
Of our current 13 commitments we have 8 4-stars. We have a strong lead for at least 5 more guys that are 4-star or higher (Cunningham). We are going to sign over 25 in this class which will give us an edge in the rivals rankings which only counts the top 20, so any of our lower ranked recruits will fall off the points system in favor of a higher rated player. We have at least 22 players left on the board who we are in a legit battle for with us in their top 3, all of whom are rated 4- or 5-star. We obviously won't land all of them, we don't have room for all of them, but if we end up with 27 in this class and you take who we lead for and who has us in the top 3, we are going to be adding 14+ players rated 4-star or higher. That will be more than enough to get us into the top 5. The difference in us getting to the top 3 will be landing guys like Ju Ju, Babalola and Offord. We have a legit shot at signing 3 5-stars off the current rankings (Ju Ju, Cunningham, Offord) with 3 more (Shull, Babalola, Autry) all on the cusp depending on re-rankings.
tl;dr - Buckle up.
QB - None committed, 1 spot to fill. We have two top targets in Juju Lewis or KJ Lacy. I am a believer in flipping Lewis, possibly as a big splash at BCW. Of his finalists we are by far the closest to home by a measure in the thousands of miles. We have rolled out the red carpet for him on multiple visits with BCW still left to come. He has felt the love and its not like we are competing against the USC of old who is a playoff mainstay. I think we will know coming out of his OV's how strong of a chance we have and we will have the option to turn a full court press to KJ if needed. Either way we are committed to putting a massive NIL package in the hands of a QB for 2025 - if we miss on both it will go to a top tier transfer. My guess is if we land one of these guys we still look to the transfer portal to bring in a 5th year guy from a smaller school who raises the floor and helps bridge the gap if the young guys aren't ready yet.
RB - None committed, 2 spots to fill. This one is pretty straight forward. 3 guys - Alvin Henderson, Osumane Kromah and Shakai Mills-Knight for 2 spots. I think the staff secretly feels good about Henderson but he is too much of a wildcard to put complete faith in which is where Mills-Knight comes in. Regardless of what Henderson does, we have been showing Kromah the love and it has been paying off. I'll be surprised if he isn't part of this class. Either way I see us ending up with two 4 stars for our two RB spots.
WR - None committed, 2-3 spots to fill. First, one of these spots belongs to 5-star Caleb Cunningham - he will be a part of this class. Then we have 1-2 remaining spots to go to a group of 4 4-star receivers that each have us in their top 3. Travis Smith Jr made a pretty strong hint that he may commit before or at BCW saying he wants to return for BCW but will only do so as a commit. Derrick Smith will require a flip from bama but we know Hugh & Co won't give up. CJ Wiley is teammates with TE commit Ryan Ghea but we will still have to fend off Georgia here. Cortez Mills will be a tough pull from Miami but we have a shot here as well. In the end, after we lock in Cunningham, we will have 3 guys left for 1-2 spots and they are all 4-stars.
TE - 1 committed (Ryan Ghea), 1 spot to fill. There was talk of taking 3 TE in this class but I just don't think we can commit that many slots considering the other guys on the board. Kiotti Armstrong and Emaree Winston, both 4-stars, are probably our top two targets.
OL - 5 committed, 1-3 spots to fill. Broderick Shull's commitment got a little lost in the recruiting shuffle of these past two weeks. He #19 overall and #5 OT on On3 and will likely make a big jump in the next ratings cycles (in spite of his AU commitment). To round out what will be possibly our best OL class ever, OL Jacobe Ward has had us as a strong leader now for a while - we only have 1 interior spot left and we may be holding off on taking his commitment until we are certain we are out of it with Dontrell Glover. Our top OT target on the board is Andrew Babaloa who, like Shull, is shooting up the rankings and is a composite 5 star on On3, ranked in the top 15 overall for both On3 and 247. Behind him we have 4-stars Malachi Goodman and Mal Waldrep. Babalola takes this class to another level, but either way we are setting our OL up for a strong future.
DL - 2 committed, 1-2 spots to fill. Between Malik Autry and Jourdin Crawford, we already have 2 beasts for the future of our interior DL. After last year's strong class, there isn't a need for volume like we have on the OL, but getting 4-star Kalen Edwards back on board would be welcome and we will continue the flip flop battle with 4-star Antonio Coleman. High 4-star Michigan commit Nathanial Marshall came off his visit recently saying it will be AU or Michigan (thanks @ricedp105).
Edge - 1 committed, 1 spot to fill. We only lose 1 off the roster next year but we learned our lesson about the risks of being thin on pass rushers. Faulk is a 4-star locking down 1 of those spots and we have in-state battles for Zion Grady and Jared Smith to fill out the other spot. Both of those guys are top 150 players.
LB - 1 committed, 1-2 spots to fill. Tyler Lockhart gives us 1 4-star and newly minted 4-star from Fyffe, Logan Anderson could be the next. Christian Jones out of Nebraska and Miami commit Elijah Mendez are two other targets, both rated as high 4-stars, could be tough pulls but are definitely giving us strong consideration.
CB - 3 committed, 1-2 spots to fill. Crime Dog has done a great job with this group getting Williams, Core and Starr committed, giving us a nice floor for the quality of this DB class. Now we can turn our attention to the elite targets. Blake Woodby is a high 4-star who just decommitted from Ohio State and subsequently has taken 2 trips to AU over the past 2 weeks and all indication seems to be that he will be a part of this class sooner than later. That would be more than suffient for a CB haul, but we won't give up on in-state 5-star Na'eem Offord. Hugh seems hell bent on getting Offord in this class and it would be a massive splash if he does.
S - None committed, 2 spots to fill. We have two spots, and as far as I can tell, 2 targets getting our attention. Anquan Fegans and Eric Winters, both in-state 4-star Top 150 players. Fegans seems to be leaning more heavily AU with his brother on board as a walk on, while Winters is a tighter battle but most seem to believe we have the lead here. Adding this pair to the DB class would be huge.
Of our current 13 commitments we have 8 4-stars. We have a strong lead for at least 5 more guys that are 4-star or higher (Cunningham). We are going to sign over 25 in this class which will give us an edge in the rivals rankings which only counts the top 20, so any of our lower ranked recruits will fall off the points system in favor of a higher rated player. We have at least 22 players left on the board who we are in a legit battle for with us in their top 3, all of whom are rated 4- or 5-star. We obviously won't land all of them, we don't have room for all of them, but if we end up with 27 in this class and you take who we lead for and who has us in the top 3, we are going to be adding 14+ players rated 4-star or higher. That will be more than enough to get us into the top 5. The difference in us getting to the top 3 will be landing guys like Ju Ju, Babalola and Offord. We have a legit shot at signing 3 5-stars off the current rankings (Ju Ju, Cunningham, Offord) with 3 more (Shull, Babalola, Autry) all on the cusp depending on re-rankings.
tl;dr - Buckle up.
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