National Recruiting Report | No Cinderellas in CFB

People like Cinderella stories in college sports, which is one reason why the NCAA tournament is popular every year. Sure, people like the gambling part of it and picking their bracket, but a lot of people are fine with having their bracket busted if they get to witness Loyola make it to the Final Four as an 11 seed or see Virginia lose to a 16th seeded UMBC.

Upsets make sports more fun and what’s more fun than seeing loaded teams like Duke and Kentucky get taken out in the tournament?

If you’re all about upsets, then it can be difficult to be a college football fan. There is a wide gap between the haves and the have-nots in football. And the have-nots never seem to be able to breakthrough.

Is it as simple as elite talent mattering more in football than basketball? There is a strong argument for that being the case based on recent results.

The best teams in college football are the ones who recruit better than everyone else. There are some exceptions from time to time when it comes to the top-15 on a given year, but look at the teams who have won championships in the last decade.

They are all blue-blood programs: Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Florida State.

Some other traditional blue-blood program might win it (Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Georgia, etc) in the near future, but we won’t be seeing Wake Forest come out of nowhere to make the College Football Playoff or see a Group of 5 team go on a run out of nowhere.

It doesn’t work that way in college football and it’s not going to change any time soon. The main reason why it won’t? The same teams are signing the top prospects year after year.

Out of the 30 recruits in the ISD Fab 50 who have committed to a school, 23 of them are committed to six programs. Clemson has a ridiculous eight of that group. LSU has three. Notre Dame has three. Ohio State has four. Alabama has three. Georgia has two.

All of them, not coincidentally, fit into the category of a blue-blood program. Fairy tales don’t exist in college football when it comes to national championships. That’s because elite recruits almost always choose the rich girl their parents want them to marry instead of the one who left her glass slipper behind.

On to other stray national recruiting thoughts…

- Texas and Texas A&M have put together solid starts to their classes, but it’s definitely a blow that 5-star running back Zach Evans‍ has no interest in staying in-state. One of the top players in Texas announced his top-5 schools and UT as well as A&M didn’t make the cut.

Throw in 5-star athlete Drew Sanders‍ going out of state to Alabama, safety RJ Mickens‍ going to Clemson, and running back Jase McClellan‍ going to Oklahoma and it’s a bit surprising that Tom Herman and Jimbo Fisher didn’t land at least one the top four recruits from Texas.

Both programs did pick up important commitments this week with A&M landing 4-star receiver Muhsin Muhammad III‍ (son of former Carolina Panthers star Muhsin Muhammad) and UT picking up a commitment from Ja’quinden Jack He’s an elite athlete who could project to another position, but I think his potential as a dynamic dual-threat quarterback is sky high.

I don’t think either are going to have top-5 classes in this cycle, but there is still so much talent available in Texas alone that they’ll likely finish with better than good classes.

- At one time defensive back Major Burns‍ was an A&M commit. He de-committed and has now settled on staying home in Baton Rouge to play for LSU. Burns could play safety or corner, but like a lot of guys Ed Orgeron targets, he’s a physical tackler and fits the description of a pure football player.

With 16 commitments already, the majority of them blue-chip prospects, it’s almost at the point where LSU is going to turn away studs who want to go there. For that, you have to give Orgeron a ton of credit when they’ve only been good and not great on the field the last two years.

- I was thinking the other day that Ohio State seemed a bit down in recruiting from previous years and that maybe Urban Meyer leaving would start a drop off. Maybe that will be the case in the long term, but right now they still are bringing in the best of the best like 5-star receiver Julian Fleming‍, who committed to them last week. That’s their fourth Fab 50 commit this cycle.

The program underachieved relative to the talent level they had on the roster last season. The talent level looks like it will continue to be similar to what it was with Meyer so it’s going to be interesting to see if Ryan Day can get them over the hump and into the Alabama/Clemson tier as a program.

- Chris Tyree‍ elected to commit to Notre Dame and not Oklahoma, but bringing in running back Seth McGowan‍ to pair with McClellan could almost make everyone forget about who they missed out on. McGowan is one of my favorite runners to watch in this class with his vision and cut back ability in the open field.

For all the production they’ve had at the quarterback position the last four years, their backs have been as good as any program in the nation in my opinion. That’s not going to change any time soon with the way they’re recruiting.