Two weeks from this very moment, your team’s recruiting class will likely be wrapped up. The National Letters of Intent will be in, the fax machine taking a breather until next year, the press release sent and your head coach’s ever-so-pleased press conference completed.
But there is much to do between now and the first weekend in February.
Understanding that this is essentially taking a snapshot of a scoreboard merely entering the fourth quarter, here is how the top 25 recruiting classes in the country stack up according to Rivals.com:
1. Ohio State
2. LSU
3. Ole Miss
4. Notre Dame
5. Florida
6. Florida State
7. Michigan
8. Clemson
9. Baylor
10. Michigan State
11. Alabama
12. Georgia
13. UCLA
14. Texas A&M
15. Auburn
16. North Carolina
17. Penn State
18. Miami
19. Kentucky
20. USC
20. Stanford
22. Oregon
23. TCU
24. California
25. Duke
A handful of teams I’d bet the farm on -- grandpa’s prize heifer included -- rising between now and Signing Day are Alabama (currently ranked 11th), Oklahoma (27th), Tennessee (30th) and Texas (42nd).
Also, UAB, who won’t play football again until 2017, presently boasts the nation’s 52nd-ranked recruiting class, tied with N.C. State and Iowa State, and just head of Arizona and Illinois.