This is that time of year when there are still several weeks until actual football games are played. Excitement for, and anxiety over, the upcoming season is building.
While we wait for games, the constant zig-zag of 17- and 18-year-olds making up their minds about where they want to go to college has always held the potential for fans and coaches to get whiplash. In the void of games being played, recruiting becomes a sport, with rankings fluctuating on a daily basis.
But now, simply put, the current model of assessing recruiting class rankings is obsolete. Recruiting in 2026 ain’t like it was 15 years ago. Come to think of it, it ain’t like it was just 15 months ago.
For the foreseeable future, without meaningful legislation from Washington, the current college football model is like the NFL. But college has a hyperkinetic free agency model on steroids, with no salary cap and no rules. And that doesn’t even consider recruiting, which is wilder than anything the NFL has ever seen.
Imagine every NFL draft eligible player ignoring the draft and playing one team off another to go wherever they wanted. And now think of that process with no transparency.
That is college football in 2026.
Even the best recruiters in the country are seeing the power of persuasion eroded. Money is king.
And the way we evaluate a recruiting class can no longer be done in a vacuum. Ranking classes with an emphasis on star rankings, on quantity of players signed and perception is outdated.
That star-ranking system has always been subject to manipulation by coaches and insiders. Now it is vulnerable to agents. Agents representing four- or five-star recruits may offer inside information on the high-profile guys in return for the “experts” elevating a couple of their three-star recruits. A three-star who becomes a four-star means bigger offers for the player and more money for the agent.
As it relates to team recruiting rankings…
By comparison, most experts don’t rank the NFL draft classes versus one another based on how many guys a team drafts.
They give the teams grades, and even those are completely subjective. The “experts” assess the needs of a team and then judge if, in their opinion, the draft met those needs. The expert opinion of “team needs” considers the current roster and free agent signings.
A school or an NFL team that has five running backs on their roster may not be in the market for another running back. That may mean your school bypasses that in-state running back that fans think is a must-get for the program. If an NFL team bypasses that running back, no experts would see that as a sign of the apocalypse.
So why is recruiting so different now?
Just a few years ago it still came down to getting that scholarship offer, talking with your parents and maybe your high school coach. Many players wanted to stay closer to home so family and friends could be part of their college experience.
Two years ago, revenue sharing was not in effect. Back then, an offer was a full scholarship, cost of attendance money and some promises made about NIL dollars. Much of that was coming from outside the program, but in the recent past NIL has moved in-house.
In-house NIL combined with revenue sharing, which started just over a year ago, has changed everything about the recruiting game.
Geographic proximity matters far less. Players making hundreds of thousands of dollars can travel home any time they need to go. Their family can make trips to all the games.
The current rules governing revenue sharing, as set forth by the House v. NCAA settlement, started as a $20.5 million per year revenue sharing cap covering all the teams in an athletic department.
By combining in-house NIL payouts with revenue sharing schools are blowing past the revenue sharing caps. Big-time basketball teams cost $10+ million. Major college football teams start at $30+ million.
On a national level, one recent report estimated that Power 4 schools offered on average $13.5 million in NIL money over and above the $20.5 million revenue share cap. That is the average. And much of that NIL money came from ongoing sponsorship contracts that diverted existing money that previously covered scholarships or expenses. It just shifted that money from other budgets and into the pockets of players.
But what about all that sponsorship money and sneaker money? University shoe/apparel/equipment deals are mostly about free wholesale merchandise and not cash. There are no war chests of cash that even remotely cover all the NIL money. Thinking that schools, whether they are Texas, Ohio State, Oregon, Michigan or Penn State have access to $20 million in shoe money each year is a myth. The number is more like $3 million to $4 million a year in cash, and not all of that goes to NIL. And even if it did, you’d be lucky to get a top 10 QB in the transfer portal for that.
The last year before revenue sharing began, the vast majority of athletic departments were operating at a loss or barely breaking even. Tack on $34 million in paying players and it is easy to see that the model is not sustainable.
What it comes down to now is this; recruiting has forever changed because of the convergence of an unlimited transfer portal and revenue sharing caps that are merely suggestions.
As for high school players, the idea of “recruiting” now takes a backseat to “signing” them. High school players have yet to amass any film against college competition. They can sell “potential” that is enticing to fans and coaches, but potential remains just that until it is proven.
Some of these players and their agents know during the recruitment process that enticing “potential” means they may never have more market value than they do now.
And the process of schools and coaches talking to just a player, his parents and a high school coach has been blown wide open.
Summer and spring 7-on-7 passing leagues have exploded for kids in high school. It is another way to showcase their talents. And many of these teams are “regional” teams. It has become like AAU basketball. A city like Philly or Chicago may have several 7-on-7 football teams.
Potential 7-on-7 players can shop themselves because shoe companies or other sponsors can pay players to join their teams. And 7-on-7 leagues, like AAU basketball, attract what college basketball coaches call “street agents” who run the leagues, and recruit kids for their teams using NIL deals. By way of reference, in Pennsylvania high school players can have NIL deals.
The sponsors and their street agents for these teams can then steer players toward the schools where they already have a connection. A high-profile player from a state like Pennsylvania could find himself on a plane for recruiting to Lincoln or Knoxville or Seattle with guidance from one of these street agents.
At its core, college coaches still talk to a potential recruit, his family and his coach. But now that circle of decision makers includes his agent and maybe a marketing team. What used to be a conversation about academic and athletic opportunities becomes a business negotiation with a discussion of contract terms.
Complexity increases as schools balance their current team’s payroll and revenue sharing cap. That places realistic limits on what they have to spend, which varies from year to year. Borrowing to overspend one year to chase a national title means less cash on hand the next year.
In years past, the playing field was set. The NCAA limited you to 85 scholarships and there was no way around it.
Now schools face a revenue sharing cap, but outside groups can funnel money through in-house NIL deals to exceed those limits. But donors covering your payroll every year is not a sustainable business model. Even the NFL has a hard salary cap.
The protections for and the enforcement of the revenue sharing caps must happen sooner than later. The only current vehicle for that to happen is through the Protect College Sports Act. The Senate Commerce Committee will have a mark-up of that bill today before it likely goes to the floor for a vote.
In the meantime, if you are a fan of college football, all of us should reassess how we evaluate recruiting classes year-over-year. The old way of tabulating total commitments, star rankings and the class rankings get lots of clicks to keep fans interested.
But at the end of the day, the way to evaluate your team’s offseason will increasingly look more like the way we evaluate an NFL team’s offseason. Upperclassmen transferring in or out, the makeup of the current roster and the salary caps in place all have a bearing on who your team recruits in any given year.
Remember this: Any fool with a big enough checkbook can put together a great roster. But only a coach can transform a great roster into a true team.
And when the ball is kicked off, a true team made up of competitive talent will almost certainly overcome the roster of their opponent. When you see how the assembled talent fits together into a cohesive unit of like-minded players united by one goal, then you will know how well you recruited.
