With Texas and Oklahoma, SEC's recruiting dominance only grows

The Southeastern Conference has been college football’s preeminent league for the last decade and a half, with 11 of the last 15 national championships belonging to SEC schools.

Not surprisingly, the league has also owned the recruiting trail, regularly boasting between 11 to 13 of the top 30 classes in every cycle. What might be the best class in certain other Power Five conferences will put you in the middle of the pack in the SEC.

But when the conference cherry-picked the Big 12’s two bellwether programs — Texas and Oklahoma — right from beneath its nose, it set off cataclysmic ripples throughout the sport. Another round of realignment has followed, with the Big Ten making its own move by pulling USC and UCLA out of the the Pac-12 and creating a national conference that will stretch from California to New Jersey. Other chess moves are surely coming, but the four aforementioned programs aren’t set to actually play in their new leagues until 2024 and 2025, respectively.

The one area where the impact of those moves is readily apparent is in recruiting. After nearly a decade of having programs like Texas A&M lord their SEC bona fides over Texas and Oklahoma’s heads on the recruiting trail, the two programs are capitalizing on their newfound status in the sport’s premier conference.

Both programs sit inside the top six of the On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Rankings, bookended by future SEC rivals Alabama, Georgia, LSU and Florida. And their recruiting pitches now have a little more juice with the SEC name and reputation attached.

“You can look directly at Texas’ class and see the move to the SEC is having an impact,” Gerry Hamilton, On3’s senior national recruiting analyst, said on Tuesday. “Most people look at Arch Manning and say, ‘well, no Manning has never not played in the SEC.’ Fair enough. But the 2022 and 2023 classes show exactly how big this move has been.

… This cycle, Texas got two kids from Orlando with Payton Kirkland and Cedric Baxter Jr.; I’m not sure if they have either one of those kids in the fold in the Big 12. Oklahoma just went in and landed Makari Vickers out of Tallahassee, beating Alabama and Florida State. There’s so many signs of it, and then when you talk to these kids, you see the SEC brand in making a huge impact.”

Staggering SEC dominance in the 2023 cycle

In hiring Steve Sarkisian and Brent Venables over the past two years, each program knew it needed proven closers on the recruiting trail; both were exactly that in their previous assistant roles. The transition into the SEC comes with a major upgrade in competition on the field and in recruiting.

That in and of itself isn’t particularly surprising, though. The league has dominated the recruiting rankings for the better part of a decade. The more eye-opening number appears when you consider individual prospects.

Of the top 300 players in the 2023 On3 Consensus rankings, 254 (84.7%) have already made a college commitment. And of those 254 prospects, 119 — a whopping 47.6% — have committed to the 16 current or future SEC programs.

Compare that to the future Big Ten (which includes USC and UCLA), the Pac-12, Big 12, ACC and Notre Dame (a list of 53 programs) which have all combined to land the other 135.

The Big Ten, which is reportedly courting Notre Dame to join the league, has 47 commitments in the top 300, while the ACC has 41 of its own. The Fighting Irish, who currently have a top-five recruiting class in the country, have 17 themselves. Individually, they’re able to keep pace. But their leagues as a whole are drastically behind.

New-look Big 12 and Pac-12 struggling to hold their ground

The news is even more dire for the Pac-12 and Big 12, both of which individually have fewer top-300 commits than Notre Dame. In response to the Longhorns and Sooners bolting, the Big 12 added the likes of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF.

Those programs have only marginally filled the gap left by Texas and Oklahoma, though. The Knights, who have actually put together one of the most impressive Group of Five classes in the country, are tied for the most top-300 pledges (3) of any future Big 12 member.

Out west, Oregon is carrying the banner in a big way. The Ducks have nine top-300 commits, while Washington (4) and Stanford (3) also have multiple blue-chippers. Top-tier prospects in that footprint were already being raided by the Big Ten and SEC, but with the Trojans and Bruins on their way out, the talent is will be even more pronounced.

Even more consolidation among the elite prospects

Something SEC programs have always touted over other conferences is the depth — of their league, of their rosters and of their recruiting classes. But where it has truly set itself apart is with the can’t-miss prospects. Ohio State, USC, Notre Dame, Miami, Clemson and Oregon have grabbed their fair share in this cycle, but when factoring in Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC has otherwise demolished everyone else.

Of the 76 top-100 prospects currently committed, 42 (55.6%) belong to one of the 16 future SEC programs. Of the other 34 commits, two-thirds belong to one of six programs above.

In the 2022 cycle, 54 of the top 100 prospects ultimately signed in the SEC. Including Texas and Oklahoma for 2023, it’s expected that number will top 60-65 by the time February rolls around — roughly two-thirds of the country’s best elite recruits in one conference.

Playing with and against the best players in college football has been the league’s calling card. But it’s even more apparent now.

“The fact that Oklahoma and Texas can now claim the SEC, and more specifically can claim that the classes that they’re assembling right now will be the classes that begin playing in the SEC, looms very large,” said On3 national recruiting analyst Sam Spiegelman, who has covered recruiting in Louisiana, Texas and the surrounding area for nearly a decade. “Recruits see that the path from playing on Friday nights to Saturdays and ultimately to Sundays for the most part goes through the SEC. And that isn’t changing.”