Georgia, Alabama makes moves in active June recruiting cycle

By Chris Marler

Recruiting used to feel nearly non-existent in the month of June. Thanks to incessant changes and a calendar that was put together more poorly than IKEA furniture with Elmer’s glue, June has become the biggest month of the year in college football recruiting. 

Several teams went on a tear in the last month. Georgia, Alabama, and Texas A&M grabbed a lot of the headlines because of the level of talent brought in and the numbers of commitments. 

Texas A&M landed ten commitments in June and vaulted up to the No. 4 ranked class in the country heading into July. They continue to recruit California extremely well, and their biggest commitment in the class is proof. Five star Brandon Arrington makes the Aggies one of six teams in the SEC with at least one five-star commit. 

The team they beat out for Arrington was Alabama which is impressive considering they haven’t missed on much else in the last month. Kalen DeBoer heard all the criticisms and assumptions about whether or not he’d be able to recruit the SEC after arriving from Washington. He’s answered that pretty quickly, landing eight five stars since last January including a nation’s best four in this year’s class alone.

In addition to Texas A&M and Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Ole Miss, and South Carolina all got verbal commitments from over a dozen blue chip prospects combined. But nobody came close to Georgia in June. 

The Bulldogs landed 14 commitments in 29 days, and ten of those either a four or five stars. They landed multiple top 100 players, a top five running back, and multiple players who were crystal balled to other schools in the conference or their own backyard. 

It may have felt like most of the league was enjoying a successful start to Summer and their 2026 classes. The SEC has accounted for half of the current top 20 ranked classes, including four teams in the top ten.

But not everyone had a great month. We’re looking at you, Hugh Freeze. 

In what’s become one of the biggest surprises and wildest disappointments this recruiting cycle, Auburn has been a complete non-factor so far. That’s shocking considering how good of a recruiter Freeze has been in general, but especially on the Plains. Auburn is coming off back-to-back top ten recruiting classes, and a top three transfer portal class this past December. 

This year has not been that. At all. Auburn currently has six commitments in their entire class, and is ranked No. 74 in the country. That’s right behind Toledo. Not kidding.

The good news is that they’re heading into this season with the most talented roster they’ve had in a decade because of how well they recruited.

The bad news is that SEC fans have a short memory and even shorter patience.

The lack of success they’ve had this year has the natives feeling restless. A groundswell of frustration led to a lot of message board warriors an arm chair quarterbacks deciding that Freeze was too focused on his golf game instead of recruiting. Then the latest case of “It Just Means More” came from AL.com tracking down his posted scores in the USGA’s GHIN tracker. That whistleblower reporting revealed that Freeze had played ten rounds of golf in June alone, more than three times the amount of any of his peers in the conference.

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