provided a jolt of energy<\/a> and has generated some Pete Carroll comparisons as a result. UCLA has 22 commits, 11 from blue-chip prospects, and its class is ranked ninth nationally.<\/p>\nThe Bruins are spending more on their roster, and so is Cal, which, like UCLA, had a positive portal season and is making noise on the trail under Tosh Lupoi. The Golden Bears haven\u2019t signed a top-25 class in 15 years, but have been one of the most active programs in the country since the end of May. Cal has picked up commitments from five blue-chip prospects in that span and is ranked 20th nationally.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all made the West Coast much more interesting from a recruiting perspective.<\/p>\n
Texas Tech\u2019s next step<\/p>\n
Yes, we know: The Red Raiders spend a lot of money on their roster. From a talent acquisition standpoint, that aggressiveness has usually been reserved for the transfer portal \u2014 where the program has done a really good job elevating its talent level \u2014 and with a few select recruits.<\/p>\n
Offensive lineman Felix Ojo, a top-50 prospect, was the headliner of the Red Raiders\u2019 2026 class, which ranked 18th nationally (highest in program history). Texas Tech is poised to take another step this cycle.<\/p>\n
The Red Raiders hold a pledge from the No. 1 overall recruit in the country, defensive lineman Jalen Brewster. The Cedar Hill, Texas, native did take a visit to Florida this past weekend, and it will take a fight for Texas Tech to keep him in its class, but the Red Raiders have done a lot of work outside of Brewster as well.<\/p>\n
Texas Tech has commitments from seven top-100 prospects and leads the nation with an average player rating of 93.848. The Red Raiders\u2019 class ranks sixth nationally, well on its way to blowing past last year\u2019s No. 18 ranking.<\/p>\n
Texas Tech now has a Big 12 championship and College Football Playoff appearance to tout. While some might be surprised to see this program in the top 10 of the recruiting rankings,\u00a0this sort of leap always felt like the logical next step.<\/p>\n
Matt Campbell\u2019s first recruiting impression at Penn State<\/p>\n
James Franklin\u2019s time at Penn State ran its course, and he was dismissed midway through the 2025 season. Campbell was hired, in part, to help the program reach the next level.<\/p>\n
It would be understandable if there\u2019s some angst about recruiting. Campbell was previously at Iowa State and never truly had to get involved in the cut-throat recruiting battles that programs at the top end of the Big Ten or in the SEC usually engage in.<\/p>\n
Yes, he has access to a different caliber of player at Penn State, but Campbell still has to show he can land that sort of prospect. Right now, Penn State has the 21st-ranked class in the country.<\/p>\n
The Nittany Lions\u2019 average player rating is 89.41. Franklin typically hovered around the top 15 of the rankings during his tenure, and the average player rating of his last four classes was 90.07 (2025), 90.59 (2024), 91.14 (2023) and 91.02 (2022). So, Campbell has some catching up to do on both fronts. The Nittany Lions just lost four-star receiver commit Jamir Dean to Georgia and could be on the short end of some other recruiting fights.<\/p>\n
Franklin\u2019s class at Virginia Tech has more blue-chip prospects (13) than Penn State does right now (seven). The Hokies are also ahead of the Nittany Lions in the team rankings at 17th.<\/p>\n
Talent was never the issue for Franklin, though. Campbell is much more of the recruit-and-develop mold. So the potential route to success might look different for Campbell than it did during the height of Franklin\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to say Penn State needs to raise its average player rating, but Indiana just won a national championship after signing just two blue-chip prospects over a two-year span. Curt Cignetti\u2019s program is an extreme outlier, but Campbell overachieved at Iowa State with lower-ranked classes, too.<\/p>\n
So we\u2019ll have to see if Campbell can add more blue-chip talent to this class or if he\u2019ll try to follow a method closer to the one he utilized at Iowa State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s only June, so it\u2019s not time to overreact to anything across the college football recruiting landscape. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1603,10779,1607,399,398,396,397,5693,5694,99,13419,17392,14034,3350],"class_list":["post-711486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-alabama-crimson-tide","tag-california-golden-bears","tag-college-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-sports","tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","tag-ucla-bruins","tag-usc-trojans","tag-washington-huskies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}