After a day full of hats on the head and socially distant ads, the National Signing Day of 2021 is in the books – and with it, the Class of 2021 is almost complete. The 2021 recruiting rankings were established with Alabama not only at the top, but also in the highest rated class of all time.
It was a year of uncertainty in almost all walks of life, and so did recruiting for the 2021 class. NCAA rules due to the pandemic limited the personal contact that is often used by coaches and players to help finalize the decision-making process, so Zoom calls and unofficial campus visits had to be sufficient for players and coaches.
Now that the National Signature Day is over, let’s take a look at who came out on top and who stayed behind on Wednesday.
Winners
Alabama: Crimson Tide ended the No. 1 recruiting class of all time, surpassing Florida in 2010. There was little drama in that, as 25 of Alabama’s 27 players in the class signed in early December, and even the 26th member was verbally committed with Camar Wheaton, who made things official at his school before lunch. The Alabama class has 16 of the 91 best players in the country. There are seven incredible five-star prospects. This includes the country’s two main offensive tackles: JC Latham and Tommy Brockermeyer.
Tide also has guard number 2 at Terrence Ferguson and center number 1 at James Brockermeyer. They also have four of the 10 largest wide receivers at JaCorey Brooks, Agiye Hall, Christian Leary and JoJo Earl. Ah, besides number 2 running back Wheaton. Nick Saban has participated in six of the ten most highly rated recruitment classes of all time during his tenure in Alabama. Each class that Bama signed with Saban won at least one national championship.
Established coaches: Recruitment in the pandemic was quite difficult. There were no visits to university campuses or secondary schools. There were no face-to-face evaluations. No summer camps. No official visits. This gave a great advantage to the team that had pre-existing relationship perspectives. Of the 15 main classes in the 247Sports Composite team ranking, none hired a coach in 2019 or 2020.
Texas A&M: The Aggies held Texas by the commitment of four-star runner LJ Johnson. Texas A&M is rebuilding on the scrimmage line with this lot and, in total, it has a five star and 16 four star, according to 247Sports Composite. The Aggies are fourth in the SEC and may not be considered the number one offensive attack by junior colleges, Jordan Moko commits Friday.
Oregon and USC: Parity can be fun on a weekly basis. Pac-12 urgently needs some teams to emerge as elites. A year after finishing 64th in recruiting, Clay Helton reorganized his technical team and found his No. 8 Trojans in the country. Linebacker Raesjon Davis, a former LSU pledge, chose USC over Ohio State and Oregon on National Signing Day.
Speaking of Oregon, the Ducks outperformed the USC by signing the nation’s sixth class. This is the third consecutive year that Oregon has the best class in the Pac-12, and the top three classes in the history of the Ducks were led by coach Mario Cristobal. Pac-12 and SEC are the only two conferences to have two teams in the top eight.
Michigan: After a bad year on the pitch, which included a lot of drama surrounding the future of coach Jim Harbaugh, Michigan reshaped his defensive coaching staff and went out on a run, launching a Michigan State Rayshaun Benny defensive tackle and defeating several important schools for George Rooks. Wolverines have 2nd class in Big Ten and 10th overall.
Wisconsin: Don’t look now, but Wisconsin may be turning its decade-long victory into something better on the recruiting trail. The Badgers signed their class with the best rating ever – by a wide margin. The country’s 15th class includes five-star striker Nolan Rucci and five other four-star players. Wisconsin’s previous watermark was the 2020 class, which finished 26th. The Badgers are trying to move from Big Ten West contenders to Big Ten contenders.
Losers
New coaching teams: Unlike their entrenched counterparts, most of the new teams had a hard time. Those whose first season was in 2020 – or even worse, those who have just been hired – ended up hiring many players they never met. None of them got a class in the top 15. None had an average recruitment rating of 90+. Most were well below the recruitment standard of the past decade, although Ole Miss and Rutgers have reached or exceeded the average for the past decade.
Some, however, basically bet, choosing to leave open space for future countdown classes or for transfers. The state of Florida hired only 17 players. Washington took 15. Auburn has only 16 signatories. South Carolina has only 13 under new coach Shane Beamer.
High school students who were not highlighted: The numbers are still deceiving, and players can sign up for the next few months, but early data suggests that there was a couple one hundred fewer players signed up for FBS scholarships this year. The reasons are quite obvious: the transfer portal and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many schools preferred to retain scholarships for university players on the transfer portal that schools know they can play, as opposed to high school students who had little or no repetition this fall due to the pandemic. The staff simply never got a chance to see them play in person.
“If you are a borderline recruit for us, we prefer to accept a transfer that we know can physically decrease at the university level,” said an official. Read more about the transfer situation here.
Another limiting factor was money. While all 2020 seniors have been given the ability to return to school for a bonus year and not have a maximum scholarship of 85 due to the pandemic, many schools in the Group of Five and even some of the Power Five are not willing to finance grants above and beyond the normal 85 max. This means that many schools will play at age 85 and, if they accept some last-year bonuses back in 2021, that self-imposed limit has limited the number of high school players they could sign up for.