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The 2024 recruiting cycle is officially over.
The Transfer Team Rankings are final now that Aug. 1 is here and preseason camps around the country are beginning.
That means the 2024 Comprehensive Team Rankings, which calculate the combined high school team recruiting rankings and transfer portal recruiting ranking, are now closed and the rankings are complete.
Take a look at some of the noteworthy storylines that emerged.
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WHO IS NO. 1 IN EACH TEAM RANKING?
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Alabama claimed the No. 1 spot in the Comprehensive Rankings under new head coach Kalen DeBoer. The former Washington head coach did a good job mostly holding together what was an elite high school recruiting class after he was hired to fill the vacancy left by Nick Saban. Once DeBoer and his staff got their feet under them, they put together a transfer class that ended up at No. 13 in the nation.
For the second year in a row, Colorado has won the Transfer Team Rankings crown. Deion Sanders and his staff signed more than 40 transfer prospects as they did last year. Eight of their 2024 transfer signees were four-star prospects, which is more than last year as well, but none of them were ranked in the top 100 of the player transfer rankings.
Back in February, Georgia was crowned the high school recruiting champion thanks to a recruiting class that featured four five-stars, 19 four-stars, and five three-stars. It was Georgia’s fourth No. 1 recruiting class since the 2017 cycle.
LOOKING AT THE LAST TWO CLASSES
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SEC LEADING THE WAY IN COMPREHENSIVE RANKINGS
SEC programs dominated the Comprehensive Team Rankings this year. Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma and Auburn make up half of the top 10. The only representation the Big Ten had in the top 10 was Ohio State and Oregon. Miami and Florida State are the only ACC programs to place in the top 10.
A similar story emerges when looking at the top 15. Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Florida and LSU bring the SEC’s share of the top 15 to nine while the Big Ten has Michigan sitting at No. 15, bringing its total to three of the top 15 teams in the Comprehensive Team Rankings.
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MASSIVE TURNOVER
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Since the transfer portal came into existence, player movement has skyrocketed and it only seems to be accelerating. The number of transfer portal classes with at least 25 signees nearly doubled this year.
There were nine programs that signed at least 25 transfers in the 2024 cycle. Colorado led the way with more than 40 followed by Memphis, Louisville, Arizona State, Massachusetts, Marshall, Connecticut, Texas A&M, and Michigan State.
In 2023 there were just five programs (Colorado, Charlotte, Arizona State, SMU and Louisville) that signed at least 25 transfers.
In the 2023 transfer portal cycle, there were seven Power Four programs that signed at least 20 transfer prospects. That number more than doubled in the 2024 cycle, ballooning up to 16 programs – six from the SEC, five from the Big 12, three from the Big Ten and two from the ACC.
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INTRA-CONFERENCE TRANSFERS
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Of the 162 transfer prospects rated at least four-stars, more than 33 of them transferred to a program in the same conference. This group includes top 10 transfer prospects Walter Nolen (Texas A&M to Ole Miss), Dante Moore (UCLA to Oregon) and Lance Heard (LSU to Tennessee).
There were a lot of transfers within the SEC, despite the conference’s rule that players can’t transfer within the conference during the spring transfer window without sitting out one season. Cayden Green (Oklahoma to Missouri), Isaiah Bond (Alabama to Texas), Trevor Etienne (Florida to Georgia), Princely Umanmielen (Florida to Ole Miss), Desmond Ricks (Alabama to Texas A&M), Juice Wells (South Carolina to Ole Miss), LT Overton (Texas A&M to Alabama), Amari Niblack (Alabama to Texas) and Key Lawrence (Oklahoma to Ole Miss) are all top 50 transfer prospects who left one SEC program for another.
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