Core four recruiting from college football's final four
How are college football's playoff semi-finalists recruiting toward the future?
One of my favorite subplots to see propping up around college football has been the one in which Big 10 fans have claimed, “now that everyone is paying the players look what happened to so called SEC dominance!”
Dancing on the graves of rivals after a single setback is a time honored tradition in college football, at least since the initiation of the modern era of online interactions. College football isn’t just a water cooler sport anymore where you brag about your alma mater and its successes relative to the universities of your friends and colleagues which are typically regional and known. There is still that, but there’s a much wider and more vicious world of online interaction where you can find yourself looking for something to throw at a fan of a university from which you know zero graduates hailing from a region you’ve never visited.
Anyways, the SEC isn’t doing so well in the first expanded playoff. First the league was hit with the inclusion of multiple ACC squads while Alabama, Ole Miss, and South Carolina were left out. Secondly, the SEC barking about unbalanced schedules and phony playoff resumes from the ACC schools or Indiana came around to bite them when similarly propped up Tennessee was embarrassed by Ohio State. Beaten down SEC Champion Georgia went down in flames against Notre Dame in the second round and now it’s just Texas, who’s a first-year SEC squad and possibly in line for a whooping from Ohio State (more on that tomorrow).
Has the rise of NIL upset the balance of power in college football? Was the SEC advantage always in the leagues’ willingness to go above and beyond in the nefarious world of pay for play? Has NIL and private capital swung the balance of power back to the more populous and resourceful north?
Let’s take a look at the last cycle of recruiting and see which schools were flexing their NIL muscles to sign the most coveted players in the country…
Texas (SEC)
Alabama (SEC)
Georgia (SEC)
Oregon (B1G)
Ohio State (B1G)
Auburn (SEC)
LSU (SEC)
Texas A&M (SEC)
Michigan (B1G)
Tennessee (SEC)
Florida (SEC)
Notre Dame (IND)
Miami (ACC)
USC (B1G)
Penn State (B1G)
Hmmmm. Perhaps it was just a down year and a rough scheduling for the SEC’s finest.
But in the meantime, the Midwest is supremely well positioned to claim its second consecutive National Championship. In terms of Colin Woodard’s 11 nations, it’s Yankeedom (Notre Dame), Greater Appalachia (Texas, Ohio State), and the Midlands (Penn State).
Another interesting question is whether these teams are poised to hold on in the future. My general thought toward recruiting is that it’s most valuable to track who is recruiting well at the “core four” positions of offensive tackle, Edge, and defensive tackle. Those are all “space force” positions where having elite athletes really makes a big dent and those are also positions where elite talent is scarce because the people who dominate at those spots are typically very large and thus make up a smaller chunk of the population.
Let’s go through the 2025 high school and portal (thus far) recruiting from our four semi-finalists and see which teams are stocking up for the now and future at these spots where elite physical traits are most precious.