A never-ending flow of transfers has certainly changed roster construction, but the best programs still rely on high school recruiting to build out the core of their teams.
Take Ohio State for example. The Buckeyes certainly leaned heavily on some key veteran additions down the stretch this past season, but Ryan Day and his staff still started 18 homegrown high school signees in the national title game against Notre Dame.
Ohio State is once again reloading with the addition of 16 prospects that finished as five or four-star recruits, but Oregon and Georgia tied for the most blue-chip signees in our rankings with 20 a piece.
Dan Lanning‘s haul is notably historic as the Ducks didn’t sign a single three-star prospect. That’s right. All 20 members of Oregon’s recruiting class were either graded as five or four-star recruits.
USC is the only program in the 247Sports era that put together a class that didn’t include a three-star prospect and that came back in 2013 when Lane Kiffin was in Los Angeles.
Blue-Chip Conference Breakdown:
SEC – 171
Big Ten – 106
ACC – 57
Big 12 – 36
Five-Star Breakdown:
SEC – 17 (Georgia – 4, Texas – 4, Alabama – 3, Texas A&M – 2, Tennessee -1, Auburn – 1, Oklahoma – 1, LSU – 1)
Big Ten – 10 (Ohio State – 3, Oregon – 2, Michigan – 2, Penn State – 1, Iowa – 1, USC – 1)
ACC – 4 (Clemson – 1, Miami – 1, SMU – 1, Georgia Tech – 1)
Big 12 – 1 (Kansas State – 1)
Gabe Brooks, Hudson Standish, Greg Biggins, Cooper Petagna and Clint Brewster of the scouting department at 247Sports all contributed to this story.
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