There were 34 high school players that were awarded 5-stars by the 247 composite score in the class of 2021. 5-star players are an interesting breed because they more closely match the reality of recruiting. In reality, the difference between a 2-star, a 3-star, and a 4-star is often less than you’d think. In total the averages should matter but they don’t always, so much hinges on development and developmental curves.
The number of truly transcendent players is also fairly limited. Schools like Alabama restock their defensive line with top rated players every year but there’s typically only one or maybe two guys who are truly transcendent trouble-makers for opposing offenses.
In terms of raw athleticism and recognizing elite attributes, 5-star kids often make up a pretty good chunk of the transcendent athletes.
Check out the 5-stars on the last five National Championship squads.
2016: Clemson
Mitch Hyatt (left tackle), Dexter Lawrence (nose tackle)
Clemson mostly won the title due to flooding the field with high level targets for Deshaun Watson, but Hyatt was certainly instrumental in protecting their deadly empty formations that flexed out Jordan Leggett and Hunter Renfrow with Mike Williams wide and Lawrence joined forces with some other blue chips to win the trenches for their defense.
2017: Alabama
Damien Harris (running back), Calvin Ridley (wide receiver), Robert Foster (wide receiver), Jonah Williams (left tackle), Da’Shawn Hand (defensive end), Da’Ron Payne (nose tackle), RaShaan Evans (linebacker), Minkah Fitzpatrick (nickel)
Alabama would have lost the title if not for Tua Tagovailoa stepping in to throw bombs to their multiple 5-star receiving talents. This was the last great Alabama defense and it was powered mostly by 5-stars Da’Ron Payne at the nose and then Minkah Fitzpatrick playing nickel or dime and taking away the seams in coverage.
2018: Clemson
Trevor Lawrence (quarterback), Tee Higgins (wide receiver), Mitch Hyatt (left tackle), Dexter Lawrence (nose tackle), Christian Wilkins (defensive tackle)
Similar formula for Clemson as 2016.
2019: LSU
Terrace Marshall (wide receiver), K’Lavon Chaisson (edge), JaCoby Stevens (safety), Kristian Fulton (cornerback), Derek Stingley (cornerback)
LSU ended up putting something like 45 players into the NFL from their starting lineup, they had a lot of 4-star athletes who proved to have NFL athleticism and their aggressive offensive scheme was the primary driver of their success. That said, the reason they made Clemson look overmatched by the end was Fulton and Stingley locking down Dabo Swinney’s receivers.
2020: Alabama
Najee Harris (running back), Alex Leatherwood (left tackle), Evan Neal (right tackle), LaBryan Ray (defensive tackle), Dylan Moses (inside linebacker), Patrick Surtain (cornerback)
Alabama’s offensive line were arguably the true champions of 2020, although you have to also give a lot of credit to DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle, who were 4-stars. Both were lighter, smaller guys coming out of high school and knocked a bit for it. Patrick Surtain was rated so highly because he’s 6-2, 200 pounds yet had the athleticism to play press-man coverage. Similarly, Neal and Leatherwood were 6-5+, 300+ pound athletes even in high school, so it was obvious they’d be high level talents in the college game.
If you already know a player will be an NFL caliber athlete with NFL size when they’re 17 years old, it’s a good indicator they’ll be good players. As the 2019 LSU Tigers sort of revealed, there are plenty of NFL players outside of the 5-star ranks, but signing a large chunk of the obvious transcendent athletes is a useful trick.
The 2021 5-stars
Here’s how the 5-stars in the 2021 class were dispersed across the nation:
Judging from the map and an understanding of which bigger schools are located where, you’d probably guess the schools who made out best were Georgia, Clemson, and perhaps one of the Florida schools.
In fact, here’s how the tally looks with a pair of players yet unsigned.
Alabama: Six 5-stars
Ohio State: Four 5-stars
Georgia: Four 5-stars
North Carolina: Two 5-stars
Miami: Two 5-stars
Clemson: Two 5-stars
And then Texas, USC, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Maryland, Washington, Florida, LSU, Oregon, and Michigan are each signing one apiece.
Obviously an awful lot of talent is being accumulated by a few particular schools. Look back and you’ll see consistency. Alabama signed three 5-stars in 2019 and four more in 2010, Georgia signed five and then four, Ohio State signed three of those two classes, and Clemson got one in 2019 and five in 2020. Other than Oklahoma and Notre Dame, these are the same schools we tend to keep seeing in the College Football Playoff.
Oklahoma has signed four 5-stars now in the last three classes, Notre Dame has signed one, both of them have been beaten in the first round multiple times.
All these trends raise obvious questions for people about parity in the college game, has talent ever been hoarded quite like this with national recruiting strategies by a few top schools? How could it be ameliorated to level the playing field? Those concerns are then typically countered with the argument this sort of hoarding is not new.
The counterargument is basically right. From 1998 to 2013 in the BCS era, you’d see a fair number of fluctuations in which teams were able to make the title game but often some major hoarding in terms of prospects. USC signed at least five 5-star players in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2010. However they never reached the BCS title game again after 2005 (nearly made it in 2008) and have never really stopped signing large numbers of 5-star recruits. Florida was stockpiling blue chips in a similar fashion from 2007 through 2010 under Urban Meyer before he left and imparted his high level recruiting to the Buckeye program.
The Gators never really tasted the fruit of their high level recruiting either, it peaked when they were winning titles but some of the highest rated classes saw disappointing finishes to the runs. Today’s Georgia fans are keenly aware Kirby Smart’s ability to hoard high numbers of the 5-stars the state is producing these days has not yet yielded even a second playoff run, much less a National Championship.
Between those historical trends and the fact Ohio State is recruiting at an elite level these days despite having to reach into Texas, Washington, and Virginia in this class in order to sign 5-stars, there’s good historical precedent for believing the list of schools hoarding talent will change in the future. So what’s truly different?
What’s potentially different is the College Football Playoff and full-time recruiting personnel.
Back in the day it was hard to hold onto major recruiting momentum because it was exceedingly difficult to reach the BCS title game. Only two teams made it, you see, whereas today four make the mark. Clemson has been to the playoffs for six consecutive seasons and it’s only a seven-year old event. No one else in the ACC has been able to block their pathway.
Notre Dame has made it twice for similar reasons, they have a relatively easy path, and Alabama and Ohio State have massive, well-oiled machines that maintain a recruiting edge over the rest of their conferences and help them make repeated trips. Oklahoma has been feasting as well, stacking up wins and championships in a Big 12 in which the only one other team with comparable resources spent the last decade shooting themselves in the foot.
The key here is the preservation of momentum. If you can consistently keep your school as one of the IT programs regularly playing on New Year’s for a National Championship, you can maintain a recruiting edge vis a vis your main regional rivals. What’s more, these schools often have increasingly massive recruiting departments who maintain more continuity than the coaching staff and can preserve those edges more easily.
You’ll regularly see teams win championships, experience an exodus of assistant coaches for promotions elsewhere, and then even if the recruiting had actually ticked up the school will falter due to an inability to adjust to losing the assistants and the recruiting ticks back down. Well the recruiting needn’t tick down with well staffed recruiting departments so things instead hinge on how well the head coach replaces assistants.
This is “the thing” to watch for the coming seasons. Ohio State has been promoting grad assistants the last few years to replace departing coaches. Dabo Swinney could be about to lose one of the last remaining offensive coaches from the brain trust who helped build the championship teams of 2016 and 2018 in Tony Elliott. Alabama is facing a total rebuild of their offensive staff after they essentially all left to take over at Texas, which is fairly normal for the Tide.
Historically it’s been the poaching of assistants which has submarined would be dynasties. Woody Hayes lost Bo Schembechler and then, worse, gained him as a rival up north at Michigan and had one of his finest runs of teams denied National Championships in the “Ten Year War.” This famous stretch was actually a span of 11 games in which the Wolverines and Buckeyes went 5-5-1 against each other, it concluded with Michigan winning three in a row and Woody Hayes losing his mind and taking a swing at an opposing player in a bowl game, leading to his dismissal.
There’s a few areas in which things feel different than in previous eras. National recruiting becoming a mainstream practice by major schools, massive recruiting departments and budgets, and the college football playoffs have all helped a few schools entrench themselves at the top of the standings and recruiting rankings every year. However staff breakups are what tend to end dynasties and Nick Saban is the only coach who’s been proven to be inoculated for that ailment.
So while the Matthew Principle has always played out in college football, it's still too early to be worried about a permanent caste system established amongst the elites.
The number of truly transcendent players is also fairly limited. Schools like Alabama restock their defensive line with top rated players every year but there’s typically only one or maybe two guys who are truly transcendent trouble-makers for opposing offenses.
In terms of raw athleticism and recognizing elite attributes, 5-star kids often make up a pretty good chunk of the transcendent athletes.
Check out the 5-stars on the last five National Championship squads.
2016: Clemson
Mitch Hyatt (left tackle), Dexter Lawrence (nose tackle)
Clemson mostly won the title due to flooding the field with high level targets for Deshaun Watson, but Hyatt was certainly instrumental in protecting their deadly empty formations that flexed out Jordan Leggett and Hunter Renfrow with Mike Williams wide and Lawrence joined forces with some other blue chips to win the trenches for their defense.
2017: Alabama
Damien Harris (running back), Calvin Ridley (wide receiver), Robert Foster (wide receiver), Jonah Williams (left tackle), Da’Shawn Hand (defensive end), Da’Ron Payne (nose tackle), RaShaan Evans (linebacker), Minkah Fitzpatrick (nickel)
Alabama would have lost the title if not for Tua Tagovailoa stepping in to throw bombs to their multiple 5-star receiving talents. This was the last great Alabama defense and it was powered mostly by 5-stars Da’Ron Payne at the nose and then Minkah Fitzpatrick playing nickel or dime and taking away the seams in coverage.
2018: Clemson
Trevor Lawrence (quarterback), Tee Higgins (wide receiver), Mitch Hyatt (left tackle), Dexter Lawrence (nose tackle), Christian Wilkins (defensive tackle)
Similar formula for Clemson as 2016.
2019: LSU
Terrace Marshall (wide receiver), K’Lavon Chaisson (edge), JaCoby Stevens (safety), Kristian Fulton (cornerback), Derek Stingley (cornerback)
LSU ended up putting something like 45 players into the NFL from their starting lineup, they had a lot of 4-star athletes who proved to have NFL athleticism and their aggressive offensive scheme was the primary driver of their success. That said, the reason they made Clemson look overmatched by the end was Fulton and Stingley locking down Dabo Swinney’s receivers.
2020: Alabama
Najee Harris (running back), Alex Leatherwood (left tackle), Evan Neal (right tackle), LaBryan Ray (defensive tackle), Dylan Moses (inside linebacker), Patrick Surtain (cornerback)
Alabama’s offensive line were arguably the true champions of 2020, although you have to also give a lot of credit to DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle, who were 4-stars. Both were lighter, smaller guys coming out of high school and knocked a bit for it. Patrick Surtain was rated so highly because he’s 6-2, 200 pounds yet had the athleticism to play press-man coverage. Similarly, Neal and Leatherwood were 6-5+, 300+ pound athletes even in high school, so it was obvious they’d be high level talents in the college game.
If you already know a player will be an NFL caliber athlete with NFL size when they’re 17 years old, it’s a good indicator they’ll be good players. As the 2019 LSU Tigers sort of revealed, there are plenty of NFL players outside of the 5-star ranks, but signing a large chunk of the obvious transcendent athletes is a useful trick.
The 2021 5-stars
Here’s how the 5-stars in the 2021 class were dispersed across the nation:
Judging from the map and an understanding of which bigger schools are located where, you’d probably guess the schools who made out best were Georgia, Clemson, and perhaps one of the Florida schools.
In fact, here’s how the tally looks with a pair of players yet unsigned.
Alabama: Six 5-stars
Ohio State: Four 5-stars
Georgia: Four 5-stars
North Carolina: Two 5-stars
Miami: Two 5-stars
Clemson: Two 5-stars
And then Texas, USC, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Maryland, Washington, Florida, LSU, Oregon, and Michigan are each signing one apiece.
Obviously an awful lot of talent is being accumulated by a few particular schools. Look back and you’ll see consistency. Alabama signed three 5-stars in 2019 and four more in 2010, Georgia signed five and then four, Ohio State signed three of those two classes, and Clemson got one in 2019 and five in 2020. Other than Oklahoma and Notre Dame, these are the same schools we tend to keep seeing in the College Football Playoff.
Oklahoma has signed four 5-stars now in the last three classes, Notre Dame has signed one, both of them have been beaten in the first round multiple times.
All these trends raise obvious questions for people about parity in the college game, has talent ever been hoarded quite like this with national recruiting strategies by a few top schools? How could it be ameliorated to level the playing field? Those concerns are then typically countered with the argument this sort of hoarding is not new.
The counterargument is basically right. From 1998 to 2013 in the BCS era, you’d see a fair number of fluctuations in which teams were able to make the title game but often some major hoarding in terms of prospects. USC signed at least five 5-star players in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2010. However they never reached the BCS title game again after 2005 (nearly made it in 2008) and have never really stopped signing large numbers of 5-star recruits. Florida was stockpiling blue chips in a similar fashion from 2007 through 2010 under Urban Meyer before he left and imparted his high level recruiting to the Buckeye program.
The Gators never really tasted the fruit of their high level recruiting either, it peaked when they were winning titles but some of the highest rated classes saw disappointing finishes to the runs. Today’s Georgia fans are keenly aware Kirby Smart’s ability to hoard high numbers of the 5-stars the state is producing these days has not yet yielded even a second playoff run, much less a National Championship.
Between those historical trends and the fact Ohio State is recruiting at an elite level these days despite having to reach into Texas, Washington, and Virginia in this class in order to sign 5-stars, there’s good historical precedent for believing the list of schools hoarding talent will change in the future. So what’s truly different?
What’s potentially different is the College Football Playoff and full-time recruiting personnel.
Back in the day it was hard to hold onto major recruiting momentum because it was exceedingly difficult to reach the BCS title game. Only two teams made it, you see, whereas today four make the mark. Clemson has been to the playoffs for six consecutive seasons and it’s only a seven-year old event. No one else in the ACC has been able to block their pathway.
Notre Dame has made it twice for similar reasons, they have a relatively easy path, and Alabama and Ohio State have massive, well-oiled machines that maintain a recruiting edge over the rest of their conferences and help them make repeated trips. Oklahoma has been feasting as well, stacking up wins and championships in a Big 12 in which the only one other team with comparable resources spent the last decade shooting themselves in the foot.
The key here is the preservation of momentum. If you can consistently keep your school as one of the IT programs regularly playing on New Year’s for a National Championship, you can maintain a recruiting edge vis a vis your main regional rivals. What’s more, these schools often have increasingly massive recruiting departments who maintain more continuity than the coaching staff and can preserve those edges more easily.
You’ll regularly see teams win championships, experience an exodus of assistant coaches for promotions elsewhere, and then even if the recruiting had actually ticked up the school will falter due to an inability to adjust to losing the assistants and the recruiting ticks back down. Well the recruiting needn’t tick down with well staffed recruiting departments so things instead hinge on how well the head coach replaces assistants.
This is “the thing” to watch for the coming seasons. Ohio State has been promoting grad assistants the last few years to replace departing coaches. Dabo Swinney could be about to lose one of the last remaining offensive coaches from the brain trust who helped build the championship teams of 2016 and 2018 in Tony Elliott. Alabama is facing a total rebuild of their offensive staff after they essentially all left to take over at Texas, which is fairly normal for the Tide.
Historically it’s been the poaching of assistants which has submarined would be dynasties. Woody Hayes lost Bo Schembechler and then, worse, gained him as a rival up north at Michigan and had one of his finest runs of teams denied National Championships in the “Ten Year War.” This famous stretch was actually a span of 11 games in which the Wolverines and Buckeyes went 5-5-1 against each other, it concluded with Michigan winning three in a row and Woody Hayes losing his mind and taking a swing at an opposing player in a bowl game, leading to his dismissal.
There’s a few areas in which things feel different than in previous eras. National recruiting becoming a mainstream practice by major schools, massive recruiting departments and budgets, and the college football playoffs have all helped a few schools entrench themselves at the top of the standings and recruiting rankings every year. However staff breakups are what tend to end dynasties and Nick Saban is the only coach who’s been proven to be inoculated for that ailment.
So while the Matthew Principle has always played out in college football, it's still too early to be worried about a permanent caste system established amongst the elites.
