SEC dominates 2025 Team Talent Composite

By Chris Marler

247Sports released their annual team talent rankings for the 2025 season. The rankings show the total number of former blue chip recruits, meaning four or five star ranked players, specifically out of high school.

The rankings themselves are a little flawed since it doesn’t take into account updated player rankings after they enter the transfer portal. It also doesn’t automatically translate to teams winning a national title. In fact, the team who has been ranked No. 1 in the team talent composite ranking hasn’t won the national title since 2017 (Alabama).

Some interesting takeaways

During Fall Camp, Brian Kelly was asked if this was his most talented team he’s ever coached. The answer was certainly yes. LSU hasn’t moved a lot in the rankings for team talent nationally, shifting from 8th in 2022 to 6th this upcoming season. However, the sheer increase in the number of blue chip players is remarkable. In Kelly’s first season (2022), the Tigers had just 38 total former four and five star recruits. Going into 2025, that number jumped to 62.

For the fifth straight year, Alabama is ranked No. 1 in the ranking. However, their total number of blue chip players has dropped year over year over the last four years from 75 in 2021 to 70 to 67 to 63 in 2025.

Another interesting trend that shows how much more of a talent influx has come to the SEC is abundantly clear when looking at South Carolina, especially with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas to the conference. During Shane Beamer’s tenure at South Carolina, the Gamecocks have increased their total number of blue chip players by 50 percent with 23 in year one to 39 this upcoming season. During his first three years they had 23, 24, and 26 total blue chips. That number ranked eighth in the SEC all three years. However, even after increasing that number significantly to 30 and now 39, they ranked 12th and 10th in the last two years respectively.