Top 25 Recruiting Classes, Winners and Losers

Florida, Tennessee, USC bring home the tops

Feb. 7, 2007

By Tom Lemming

CSTV Recruiting Expert

	TOM LEMMING Tom is CSTV's college football recruiting analyst, and writes for CSTV.com regularly. E-mail here!

        ---   Column Archive   --- RANKINGS 1/23: Final Class Of 2008 Top 100 1/11: Stock Watch - 2009 Potential All-Americans 1/5: Stock Watch - All-American Bowl 1/4: Stock Watch - All-American Practice Week 8/2: 2008 Top 100 Overview 4/9: 2008 Updated Watch List 2/8: 2008 Early Watch List 2/5: Top 100 Latest 1/29: 2007 - Final Rankings 1/23: 2006 - Final Rankings 2008 TOP 25s 11/15: Inside Linebackers 11/14: Outside Linebackers 11/13: Athletes 11/13: Cornerbacks 11/12: Fullbacks 11/08: OGuards/Centers 11/01: Offensive Tackles 10/20: Defensive Ends 10/14: Tight Ends 10/04: Safeties 9/19: Defensive Tackles 9/12: Tailbacks 9/5: Pro-Style QBs 8/28: Dual Threat QBs ROAD TRIP 2007 12/16: Ten With Tom - Rich Rodriguez Edition 11/29: Ten With Tom - Recruiting Road to the BCS 6/7: Mailbag 5/23: History Lesson 5/11: Ten With Tom 3/29: North Carolina 3/16: East Coast Swing 2/28: Setting Up Shop 2/26: Texas NFL DRAFT 4/27: From Five-Star to First Rounder CONFERENCE BREAKDOWNS 07 2/13: SEC Breakdown 2/12: Pac-10 Breakdown 2/11: Big Ten Breakdown 2/10: Big East Breakdown 2/9: Big 12 Breakdown 2/8: ACC Breakdown SIGNING DAY 2/7: Winners and Losers 1/22: Countdown to Signing Day 1/15: Best Available BCS BOWLS 1/5: BCS Championship Game 12/31: BCS Orange Bowl 12/30: BCS Sugar Bowl 12/30: BCS Fiesta Bowl 12/30: BCS Rose Bowl CONFERENCE BREAKDOWNS 06 4/28: Pac-10 4/25: Big East 4/19: ACC 4/14: Big 12 4/12: Big Ten 4/6: SEC ROAD TRIP 06 7/14: Part IX 6/22: Part VIII 6/2: Utah 5/26: Colorado 5/16: Illinois 1/19: Part IV 1/12: Part III 1/06: Part II 12/30: Part I

The winners have to be Florida and Tennessee. They dominated the recruiting scene.

USC, with a limited amount of scholarships this year, their top 15 players would have made them No. 1 if everyone had stopped at 15. You have to count them as a winner.

Texas got everybody they wanted in the state of Texas except for Ryan Mallett.

South Carolina had their best year ever.

The surprise of today was North Carolina, getting Marvin Austin and keeping Dwight Stone and getting Greg Little away from Notre Dame.

The loser today had to be Florida State. They had one of their worst years ever. The Seminoles lost Ahamad Paige to Tennessee. They really only came up with a couple of good players. They didn't clean up like they normally do every year.

Notre Dame was disappointed with losing two players, but they're still top 10. They still had 11 All-Americans come in.

UCLA had a limited number of scholarships and really had a disappointing year.

Cal came through, but the separation now between USC and the rest of the Pac-10 is noticeable; it's as worse as I've ever seen it. USC had a 20 year period where they didn't do much, but there's always been somebody there to challenge them. Even though UCLA beat them on the field they're really dragging way behind them when it comes to talent.

Arizona and Arizona State; it's going to take three or four more years. Dennis Erickson coming to ASU, you might see more next year, but so far this year I didn't see it. Arizona lost the only two impact players in the state to USC so it's going to take one or two years to catch up.

The Big Ten didn't have a big year. This was the first time they didn't have any teams in the top 10. That's due mainly to the fact that it was a very down year in the Midwest. Every state was down talent-wise as well as Pennsylvania, and the natural recruiting area for the Big Ten. So I can see why Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State fans are a little upset because they didn't have the dominating year they're normally used to. But it brings parity to the Big Ten. From No. 1 to 11 isn't much difference. Maybe just three or four impact players. The bottom half of the Big Ten will be happy the big teams didn't have big years.

After releasing a pre-signing day Top 10 Classes, here's my Final Top 25 Classes for 2007 along with footage from our signing day show on CSTV: