You sit there and watch Oregon stack five 5-stars in their 2026 class and Georgia lock down another elite TE and Texas load up with Dia Bell and Richard Wesley and you start wondering where our class ranking actually lands in all this noise. The 247 composite has us hovering but not cracking that top tier and that is unacceptable for a program with our resources in this NIL era. We are hosting OVs this dead period and the staff better be working every angle because the gap between us and the top five is real and it is growing.
The ESPN 2027 five-star breakdown just dropped and I already know which names our bagman needs to be prioritizing this summer. We cannot afford to let another year slip where we finish outside the top ten nationally while Oregon and Texas and Georgia run away with the talent level. The crystal ball chatter on some of those 2027 targets is quiet right now but that is exactly when you build the relationships that turn into silent commits down the road. Our staff needs to be living on those recruits' campuses during this dead period.
I look at the 247 team rankings and see us sitting there and I just think about what we could be if we closed on a few more of those elite battles. The NIL revenue-sharing model is coming and that $20.5M cap might actually help level the playing field but only if we get aggressive now. We have the location, the brand, the history. No excuses for where our class ranking sits right now.