5 teams that could be primed for big years ahead after elite recruiting, transfer portal hauls

Much has become evident in college football in the past 3 1/2 years since the advent of the NCAA Transfer Portal and the explosion of NIL. Coaches have entirely new challenges on their hands with roster-building and potentially even more important — retention.

But it could be argued that the most obvious conclusion after a few portal cycles and recruiting calendars is this: elite teams are not built with an either/or approach. Even this year’s two national championship participants, Notre Dame and Ohio State, relied on both high-level recruiting — and keeping those players around — as well as finding key additions in the transfer portal.

The former decreases the need for a huge quantity of additions, but the latter is what has made the difference for the Buckeyes, Fighting Irish and a number of other playoff contenders in the past few years. We don’t know where Ohio State would be without Will Howard and Caleb Downs, or Notre Dame without Riley Leonard. But it’s a safe assumption they wouldn’t have been playing in Atlanta last month.

Deion Sanders has built his team at Colorado heavily through the portal during his first two years. But even the Buffaloes took a smaller portal class and slightly bigger high school class in an effort to build both the talent level and depth for longer than just a year at a time.

A few years into college football’s new reality, plenty of programs are still trying to find out just how they balance building a roster through the portal and the high school ranks. Some are much more insistent on one or the other. Lane Kiffin‘s Ole Miss program recruits the high school level at a respectable level but goes heavy in the portal. Notre Dame prioritizes big high school classes and select transfer additions.

But a handful of teams this offseason have retooled their rosters for both the next year and the following few years at a particularly high level. Whether that pans out on the field remains to be seen, but it would be no surprise to see these five programs competing for titles in the next 1-3 years. Each signed both a top-10 class in the On3 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings and has also landed a top-10 portal haul:

Oregon

Class Recruiting Ranking: No. 4
Transfer Portal Index Ranking: No. 4

Dan Lanning‘s first two years in Eugene were spent trying to both overhaul his roster, but also to compete at the top of the sport with what he inherited from Mario Cristobal. After taking 27 transfers between the 2023 and 2024 portal cycles, the Ducks have only taken 10 this year. And despite that lower quantity, they’re near the top of On3’s portal rankings because of the quality replacements they’ve found. Six of the 10 rank as portal four-stars. And maybe the most impressive part is they’ve done it without losing much at all in terms of key contributors into the portal.

At the same time, they’re recruiting at a level that’s really never been seen in Eugene. They signed 19 players in their high school class, but had an average ranking of 93.36 — the highest in the country. That comes on the heels of the nation’s No. 3 class in 2024.

LSU

Class Recruiting Ranking: No. 9
Transfer Portal Index Ranking: No. 6

The 2024 on-field performance wasn’t good enough by LSU standards, and Brian Kelly was the first to admit that. His team desperately needed a talent infusion through the portal, especially on defense. The Tigers went out an added 16 new players, including multiple projected starters on the defensive line and in the secondary. They also managed to majorly upgrade the weapons around quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, and did so without losing any projected impact players.

Their recruiting class lost some of its luster with five-stars Kade Phillips and Bryce Underwood flipping late. But they still ended up with a pair of five-stars and the nation’s No. 9 class. From top to bottom, this should be LSU’s most talented roster since Kelly took over. Now they’ll have to prove it on the field.

Michigan

Class Recruiting Ranking: No. 6
Transfer Portal Index Ranking: No. 10

For all the doom and gloom about Michigan this season, the Wolverines still finished 8-5 and beat both Alabama and Ohio State without a functioning quarterback room. Their NIL backers saw the glimmers of hope in Sherrone Moore’s first year and have gone all the way in to support him. They still landed a top-10 portal class, and that included missing on a few key targets.

But what they did late on the recruiting trail might ultimately prove to be the more impressive feat. Flipping Underwood, the country’s No. 1 QB, was a gargantuan win. Yes, NIL played a big factor. But a recruit with that level of talent isn’t going somewhere he doesn’t see leading to an an NFL future. Offensive tackles Andrew Babalola and Ty Haywood project as future bookends on the line, and they vastly upgraded their secondary talent with three top-100 signees.

Auburn

Class Recruiting Ranking: No. 8
Transfer Portal Index Ranking: No. 9

Hugh Freeze’s seat is warm heading into Year 3 after a second-straight sub-.500 season. But if he needed to, the man could sell a ketchup popsicle. Recruits and transfers alike believe in his vision, and it’s the biggest reason why Auburn is on this list. Not only did he land his quarterback of the future from the high school ranks (Deuce Knight), but he also signed maybe the highest-upside QB in the portal in Jackson Arnold. He’ll pair with WR1 Eric Singleton Jr. (Georgia Tech) and returner Cam Coleman in what has the potential to be a very dynamic offense.

While offense was a big focus in the portal, defense was the name of the game in high school recruiting. Auburn signed six defensive players who rank among the top-150 nationally regardless of position, and all of them hail from the state of Alabama.

Texas A&M

Class Recruiting Ranking: No. 7
Transfer Portal Index Ranking: No. 8

Proof of concept was there at multiple points during Mike Elko’s first year in College Station. But his team lacked the depth — especially on offense — to really put it all together. They look to have found their QB of the future in Marcel Reed, and this offseason was about putting the necessary pieces around him. The Aggies signed one of the country’s best wideouts in Kevin Concepcion (NC State). And added to their tight end room with Amari Niblack (Texas), Nate Boerkircher (Nebraska) and Micah Riley-Ducker (Auburn).

They also signed another top-10 recruiting class, headlined by five-star wideout Jerome Myles and five-star offensive tackle Lamont Rogers. Losing quarterback Husan Longstreet to USC was a big blow, but few programs added more high-level talent (14 top-300 signees) than the Aggies.