5 observations and things that matter after the 2020 recruiting season and National Signing Day are over.
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2020 Recruiting Analysis, Team Rankings, Top Players
AAC | ACC | Big Ten | Big 12 | Pac-12 | SEC
There are still a few storylines in the 2020 recruiting season – like RB Zachary Evans not deciding on a school yet – even though National Signing Day came and went, but for the most part, it’s on to 2021.
Here are five observations and things that matter now that it’s over.
5. National Signing Day is Blockbuster …
And the Early Signing Period is Netflix.
I used to hate National Signing Day.
The lead-up required weeks and weeks of research and discussion and speculation all for one silly day when older men made a really big deal about where a bunch of kids were going to college.
The worst part about it all was the lack of a true payoff. It was all speculation about how good the undeveloped talents could be three or more years – for the most part – after they signed.
NSD took on a life of its own outside of the normal college football world. It became an occasionally creepy time with message board threats, genuine anger, and a whole lot of pressure. It was also a celebration.
And I sort of miss it.
The first Wednesday in February used to be the one big day of the college football offseason.
The NBA has its free agency period and trade deadline, the NFL has its draft, and baseball has its hot stove league. National Signing Day was a chance for college football fans to look ahead to what might be happening with their respective programs, and it was a time to talk college football before settling in for a big snooze over the following six months.
Now, most top players are all but locked in several months, if not years, in advance. The Early Signing Period in late December is when everyone of note signs on – which totally gets blown off nationally because the bowl season is in full gear – and the transfer portal has become more important than either of the two signing days.
Not all that long ago, National Signing Day was wall-to-wall all-day TV coverage on at least two of the all-sports station. Every major web site treated it like Christmas because of all the page views and traffic, and it was a major, major thing.
This year? It was an hour-long wrap-up show – if that – on one of the ESPN networks or conference-only channels, because nothing really happened.
Anecdotally, I used to be hit up for at least 15 radio appearances across the country on NSD. This year, I was had the same 15+ requests, but the talk was 95% about Mark Dantonio.
National Signing Day just isn’t a thing anymore. The hype and craziness around recruiting has peaked, and now it’s more business-like and subdued.
It’s just another day in the college football offseason.
However, there are parts of this that really do matter, starting with …
NEXT: New coaches get a whole lot of talent to work with
4. Some new coaches have never had this type of talent before
What would happen if Mike Leach got to coach a team full of really good college football players?
While the new Mississippi State head coach made the most noise this week over his tweet about Mitt Romney, and he didn’t have a whole lot to do with the new Bulldogs coming in, this is technically his best recruiting class in 19 years has a head coach.
Depending on what brand of recruiting rankings you believe in, this 2020 MSU class and the 2006 Texas Tech recruiting class – which didn’t turn out to be any big whoop – were both generally ranked around the mid-20s nationally. No other Leach class at Texas Tech or Wazzu was able to bust past the 30s, and most of them were around the mid-50s or worse.
Forgetting the first-time new head coaches at several places, or the ones who went from movies to TV after going from a Power Five school to a Group of Fiver, it’s a nice boost when a new coach walks into a situation with talent he couldn’t get at his old job.
Leach wasn’t exactly a killer on the recruiting trail at Washington State, but the guys he brought in for this year are way, way more talented – at least according to the various rankings – than any group Nick Rolovich ever got to coach at Hawaii.
Lane Kiffin certainly knows what it’s like to put together a class of great talents from his brief time at Tennessee and USC, but he couldn’t get the players at Florida Atlantic like he’s getting at Ole Miss.
Missouri probably had the worst recruiting class in the SEC, but it’s still miles better than any class Eliah Drinkwitz could’ve landed at Appalachian State.
And then there’s Willie Taggart.
The new Florida Atlantic head coach is rallying to get a slew of transfers to go along with the pieces Kiffin put together, but his real effect this recruiting season was at Florida State, where the class wasn’t among the elite, but it was special compared to what Mike Norvell had at Memphis.
A few years removed, Taggart had an even bigger effect overall on …
NEXT: The Oregon situation
3. Oregon has upgraded its talent in a huge way
The guts of the Oregon teams that ripped through the Pac-10 and later the Pac-12 in the late 2000s and early-to-mid-2010s – and played for the national title in 2010 and 2014 – were built on solid recruiting base. Oregon’s classes weren’t among the elite of the elite, but they were more than good enough.
The good talent – with classes usually ranking around the mid-teens, but always in the top 25 – combined with the system that no one could seem to figure out turned the program into one of the powerhouses of college football.
And it’s not like things slipped all that far. The recruiting classes stayed at roughly the same level once the wins weren’t there like they were in the heyday, but the overall formula didn’t work.
Enter Willie Taggart, a builder of programs who never won a bowl game or a conference championship, but was known as the guy who could bring in the talent. He cranked up the recruiting during his short time at Oregon, left to be the rebuilder of Florida State – and, arguably, didn’t get enough time to really show what he could put together – and Mario Cristobal took over the reigns.
Now, Oregon isn’t just putting together nice recruiting classes, it’s coming up with whoppers as good as any in America.
Last year, landing DE Kayvon Thibodeaux and CB Mykael Wright set a tone that the program was going to be a player when it came to grabbing every and any superstar prospect from the West Coast. Players who were usually a lock for USC, or possibly UCLA or Washington, were suddenly giving Eugene a harder look.
Oregon isn’t getting everyone – losing QB DJ Uiagalelei to Clemson hurt – but now the classes that used to be very, very good, are very, very good with a few five-star types helping take the classes to great.
It helps a bit to be in the Pac-12.
This year’s class is fantastic, but it’s not quite as strong as Georgia’s, or Florida’s, or LSU’s, or Alabama’s – it’s a holding-serve class for the SEC. In the Pac-12, in a year when USC just didn’t do much of anything after it’s outstanding 2019 class – and when Chip Kelly is recruiting to a type at UCLA, and with Washington going through a coaching change – this latest class cements Oregon as the star of stars for the next few years.
A great recruiting class doesn’t mean everything – just ask Tennessee, Michigan and Texas – but landing the linebacking 1-2 punch of Noah Sewell and Justin Flowe, taking CB Dontae Manning out of Missouri, and locking in star prospect after star prospect showed off Oregon’s recruiting staying power.
NEXT: The one difference-making position
2. Defensive tackles, defensive tackles, defensive tackles
Everyone has a quarterback, and if a team doesn’t have one, it’ll get a statistical star in the transfer portal.
Offensive tackles are tough finds, and every team is looking for a killer pass rusher, but the difference between the great teams and the truly elite is always in the defensive interior.
Why is the SEC so much better than every other conference?
Defensive tackles, defensive tackles, defensive tackles.
It’s not just about having a few good ones. It’s about creating the rotation of big guys who can move in the middle of a defensive front, or pulling an Alabama and running a 3-4 with ends the size of a house.
Clemson might be known for Trevor and Deshaun and all the flash, but the rise to the penthouse of college football came partly by having the lines to make everything else work. Clemson and Ohio State always have the defensive tackles. The SEC seems to take the rest.
Look at this year’s draft. TCU’s Ross Blacklock and Oklahoma’s Neville Gallimore will go early, but most of the top defensive tackles are from the SEC: South Carolina’s Javon Kinlaw, Auburn’s Derrick Brown, Texas A&M’s Justin Madubuike, Missouri’s Jordan Elliott, Alabama’s Raekwon Davis and LSU’s Rashard Lawrence.
Okay, some will be used as ends, but they’re all 300+ pounds, and they’re all built for the inside.
Who got the star defensive tackles this recruiting season? Clemson went Clemson with Bryan Bresee and Demonte Capehart, but it’s almost all SEC.
South Carolina finally landed the plane with Jordan Burch, Georgia got Jalen Carter, Florida signed Gervon Dexter, Kentucky scored with Justin Rogers and Josaih Hayes, Alabama signed Timothy Smith, LSU got Jaquelin Roy and Jacobian Guillory, Auburn signed Jay Hardy, Tennessee signed Omari Thomas, and …
These are just names to most college football fans, but depending on which recruiting service you like, as many as 25 of the top 30 defensive tackles are going to the SEC – and Clemson got 2-to-3 of the others.
The next time someone wants to argue with you about which college football conference is the best, in terms of talent-level, this is a main reason why.
NEXT: If you hate the status quo, you’re not going to be happy
1. The elite teams just got better
Ask any random sports fan on the street who got the best recruiting classes this year. Reflexively, the answer will be Alabama, LSU, Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State, just because those five are the biggest names in college football – with all due respect to Oklahoma.
And there’s your top five this year in some order.
Oh sure, we can all nitpick and quibble about which class is the best of the entire bunch, but horseshoes, hand grenades, and your Chick-fil-A drive-through order – just get it close, and you’re fine.
As long as you’re somewhere in the top ten in everyone’s recruiting rankings, you’ve done your job.
And that’s why it’s so maddening for most college football fans – it’s impossible for their teams to compete for the whole ball of wax.
Oklahoma has been phenomenal with Big 12 championship after Big 12 championship, along with three straight College Football Playoff appearances and four overall. It got to the top of the mountain, and then it couldn’t get that extra few feet to the summit because it didn’t have the players that Clemson, Georgia, Alabama and LSU had in the respective seasons.
Wisconsin has been amazing for the better part of the last 25 years. It’s played in and won Big Ten titles, it’s been able to go to Rose Bowls, and it’s been wildly successful in so many ways. But when it’s time to rise up, it hits a rock-hard ceiling because it doesn’t have the talent of, say, an Ohio State.
It sucks SO hard to be in the SEC.
2020 Recruiting Analysis, Team Rankings, Top Players
AAC | ACC | Big Ten | Big 12 | Pac-12 | SEC
You can have a top 20 recruiting class, and it doesn’t even register a blip because of what Georgia, Alabama and LSU are doing.
Seven of the top ten recruiting classes according to Rivals this year come from the SEC. The SEC also landed six of the top eight and 11 of the top 30 according to 24/7.
And don’t even start with the Group of Five programs when it comes to talent level and recruiting classes.
Of course it’s possible to have a great year without a top ten class – ask Minnesota and Baylor how much fun this year was. And sure it’s possible to get into the College Football Playoff without a slew of elite recruiting classes, but all that buys you is the right to be eaten alive.
So if you’re looking for a change, maybe a Texas A&M or a Texas could rise up into the national title picture after the recruiting classes they put together over the last few years, but realistically, your College Football Playoff for the 2020, 2021, and 2022 seasons …
Clemson, Ohio State, SEC Champion, and SEC team No. 2 unless it’s a random Power Five conference champ that will lose in the semi-final.
Yay.
