While much of the country spent the holiday weekend celebrating America’s 250th birthday, the recruiting trail never took a break. Here’s everything you may have missed over the last four days.
Blue Chip Supply vs Blue Chip Demand
A blue chip recruit is traditionally defined as a four or fiv- star prospect. We’ve seen a shift in the supply of those players dwindling down earlier and earlier as recruiting season goes on.
For instance, when the early signing period first debuted in December, in addition to the traditional one in early February, players flew off the board. In year one, 79 percent of the top 100 players were committed by the end of early signing day. Just two years later that number ballooned up to 95 percent.
The same thing is happening now in the 2027 cycle. With 92 percent of blue-chip prospects already committed as of Sunday, the window for dramatic movement in the recruiting rankings is rapidly closing.
That’s bad news for programs like Alabama, which sits No. 35 nationally with just 13 commitments. That may be worrisome for a program that hasn’t finished outside the top five in recruiting rankings for the last 19 years.
South Carolina on a heater
No one enjoyed the start to July more than Shane Beamer and South Carolina. The Gamecocks started the week outside of the top 40 in recruiting, but after four consecutive days of high level players announcing their commitment to the Gamecocks they rocketed up to No. 25 in the rankings.
South Carolina started with five-star Josh Dobson, then followed that up with two four star recruits over the next two days, before wrapping up their four day flurry with a top 500 ranked edge rusher.
South Carolina went toe-to-toe with SEC foes like LSU, Texas A&M and Georgia and still walked away with a four-for-four stat sheet. It isn’t hyperbolic to say that it may have been a program changing four days for South Carolina football.
Team Rankings via On3
No. 1 Texas A&M
No. 5 Texas
No. 6 Oklahoma
No. 8 Florida
No. 11 LSU
No. 13 Auburn
No. 14 Ole Miss
No. 16 Georgia
No. 21 Kentucky
No. 25 South Carolina
No. 27 Missouri
No. 28 Vanderbilt
No. 33 Tennessee
No. 35 Alabama
No. 38 Arkansas
No. 45 Mississippi State
