Recruiting 2021: 5 Things That Matter After National Signing Day

5 observations and things that matter after the 2021 recruiting season and National Signing Day are over.

3. Some new schools were in the mix of great recruiting classes

So everything has changed, everything is weird, and everything is moving around a bit in how business is done in the college football recruiting world. That’s a positive, and it’s good for schools outside of the norm to take advantage of the situation.

There’s always an outlier or three in the recruiting rankings based on one or two star gets who screw up whatever formulas the various systems use. However, this year was a bit different with some new trends starting to form.

Of course Alabama, Ohio State, and all the normal big names got their share of superstars, but here are a few who made an interesting splash outside of the normal obvious recruiting giants.

Oregon
It’s not a given that Oregon is the star of Pac-12 stars when it comes to recruiting. Willie Taggart got the ball rolling to help turn a top 20ish class program into one that could compete with anyone, and Mario Cristobal – who was a big part of that upgrade – took things to a whole other level. His 2020 class was great, but this 2021 version is truly fantastic.

Maryland
This is going to be a regular thing now. Mike Locksley still has to start winning things on the field, but he and his staff are proven superstar recruiters, and they’re loading up with talent over the last few classes.

2021 Big Ten Recruiting Rankings. Top Players, Team Breakdowns

Missouri
It stinks when a great class is lost in the shuffle of all the SEC mega-classes, but Mizzou just upgraded its talent level with a whole lot of promising new parts in a big class. Expect this to be the norm under Eliah Drinkwitz.

Wisconsin
The Badgers have lived off of the recruit-to-a-type thing, but that changed with this class. Not only did they go get offensive linemen, they got a slew of really, really good ones. Not only did they go get defensive end, they got a slew of really, really good ones. Now they got the talent to fit the type. It helped that …

The Top Position
Alabama Dunked On Your Recruiting Class

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