High school recruiting isn't the only way to build a winner in the era of the transfer portal

Texas A&M signed the nation's top-ranked recruiting class three years ago believing it had built a potential national title contender.

Plenty of players from that heralded 2022 class could indeed be participating in the first 12-team College Football Playoff this month. They just won't be doing it for the Aggies, who no longer have nearly half their 2022 signees.

The list of 2022 recruits now with playoff contenders elsewhere includes Mississippi defensive lineman Walter Nolen, Oregon wide receiver Evan Stewart, Alabama defensive lineman LT Overton, SMU offensive tackle PJ Williams and injured Boise State receiver Chris Marshall. Texas A&M has done all right without them, going 8-4 as transfers filled about half the starting roles.

Texas A&M represents perhaps the clearest example of how recruiting and roster construction have changed in the era of loosened transfer restrictions. Coaches must assemble high school classes without always knowing which of their own players are transferring and what players from other schools could be available through the portal.

“It used to be you lost 20 seniors, you signed 20 incoming freshmen,” Duke coach Manny Diaz said. “You just had your numbers right. Now you might lose 20 seniors, but you might lose 20 underclassmen. You just don’t know.”

Is high school recruting losing value?

Coaches emphasize that high school recruiting remains critical, but recent results suggest it isn’t as vital as before.

The last two College Football Playoff runners-up – TCU in 2022 and Washington in 2023 – didn't sign a single top-15 class in any of the four years leading up their postseason runs, according to composite rankings of recruiting sites compiled by 247Sports.

This year’s contenders have shown there’s more than one way to build a championship-caliber roster.

About half of No. 1 Oregon's usual starters began their college careers elsewhere. No. 5 Georgia, which annually signs one of the nation's top high school classes, has only a few transfers making major contributions.

Colorado's rise under Deion Sanders exemplifies how a team can win without elite high school recruiting. None of Colorado's last four classes have ranked higher than 30th in the 247Sports Composite. Three ranked 47th or lower.

“If anybody ever did the homework and the statistics of these young men – people have a class that they say is the No. 1 class in the nation – then five of those guys play, or four of those guys play, then the rest go through the spring and then they jump in the portal,” Sanders said.

“Don’t give me the number of where you rank (in recruiting standings), because it’s like an NFL team," he added. "You always say who won the draft, then the team gets killed all year (and) you don’t say nothing else about it. Who won the draft last year in the NFL? Nobody cares right now, right?”

The busy transfer portal

Star quarterback Shedeur Sanders followed his father from Jackson State to Colorado in 2023, and Heisman Trophy front-runner Travis Hunter accompanied them. According to Colorado, this year's Buffaloes team has 50 transfer newcomers, trailing only North Texas' 54 among Bowl Subdivision programs.

Relying on transfers comes with caveats. Consider Florida State's rise and fall.

Florida State posted an unbeaten regular-season record last year with transfers playing leading roles. When those transfers departed and Florida State's portal additions this year didn't work out, the Seminoles went 2-10.

“There has to be some type of balance between the transfer portal and high school recruiting,” said Andrew Ivins, the director of scouting for 247Sports. “I compare it to the NFL. The players from the transfer portal are your free agents and high school recruiting is your NFL draft picks.”

A look at the composite rankings of recruiting sites compiled by 247Sports for the 2020-22 classes shows at least 40 of the top 100 prospects each of those years ended up leaving their original school.

Coaches must decide which positions they're better off building with high school prospects and which spots might be easier to fill through the portal.

“The ones that have a ton of learning to do - tight end, quarterback, interior offensive line, inside linebacker, safety, where they are the communicators - they are the guys that are processing a lot of information,” Florida’s Billy Napier said. “Those are the ones in a perfect world you have around for a while.

“It’s easier to play defensive line, edge, corner, receiver, running back, tackle, specialists. Those are a little bit more plug-and-play I’d say, in my opinion," Napier said. "Either way, it’s not necessarily about that. It’s just about we need a certain number at each spot, and we do the best we can to fill those roles.”

Transfer portal ripple effects

Power Four programs aren’t the only ones facing a balancing act between recruiting high schools and mining the transfer portal. Group of Five schools encounter similar challenges.

“We’re recruiting every position and bringing in a high school class,” Eastern Michigan coach Chris Creighton said. “That’s not going to be maybe 24 scholarship guys like it used to be. It might be more like 16. It’s not four d-linemen necessarily, right? It might be three. It might not be three receivers. It might be two. And it might not be five offensive linemen. It’s two to three.”

The extra hurdle Group of Five schools face is the possibility their top performers might leave for a power-conference program with more lucrative name, image and likeness financial opportunities. They sometimes don’t know which players they’ll lose.

“We know who they’re trying to steal,” Miami (Ohio) coach Chuck Martin quipped. “We just don’t know who they’re going to steal.”

The obstacles facing coaches are only getting steeper as FBS teams prepare for a 105-man roster limit as part of the fallout from a pending $2.8 billion NCAA antitrust settlement.

While having 105 players on scholarship seems like an upgrade from the current 85-man scholarship limit, many rosters have about 125 players once walk-ons are included. Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said last week his program would probably end up with about 30-50 players in the portal due to the new roster restrictions.

Is there college free agency?

All the added dimensions to roster construction in the college game have drawn parallels to the NFL, but Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck believes those comparisons are misleading.

“When people talk about college football right now, they’re saying, ‘Oh, we have an NFL model,’ or it’s kind of moving toward the NFL,” Fleck said. “First of all, it’s nothing like the NFL. There’s a collective bargaining agreement (in the NFL). There’s a true salary cap for everybody. It’s designed for all 32 fan bases to win the Super Bowl maybe once every 32 years – and I know other people are winning that a lot more than others – but that’s how it’s designed. In college football, it’s not that way.”

There does seem to be a bit more competitive balance than before. The emergence of TCU and Washington the last couple of postseasons indicates this new era of college football has produced more unpredictability.

Yet it’s also created many more challenges as coaches try to figure out how to put together their rosters.

“It’s difficult because we’re just kind of inventing it on the fly, right?” Diaz said.

AP Sports Writers Aaron Beard, Pat Graham, Larry Lage and Mark Long contributed to this report.

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