Who should join Nick Saban in Hall, has transfer portal affected recruiting interest?

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Today, we’re looking at the College Football Hall of Fame ballot and recruiting as a busy month of official visits kicks off …

Hall of Fame Candidates

Who should join Saban, Meyer?

Nick Saban and Urban Meyer were the headliners among the list of 2025 candidates released Monday for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. With 10 national championships between them (seven for Saban!), Saban and Meyer are slam dunks to make it in.

But who else should get in? First, some context. The College Hall of Fame usually inducts more new faces each year than the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

• Nineteen first-team All-Americans and three coaches made the 2024 College Football Hall of Fame class and will be inducted in December, and 1,093 players and 233 coaches are already in. The Pro Football Hall of Fame, meanwhile, will have 378 total members when Dwight Freeney, Devin Hester, Andre Johnson, Julius Peppers, Patrick Willis, Randy Gradishar and Steve McMichael are inducted later this summer.
• Among the nominees we think have strong cases: Pitt’s Aaron Donald (Lombardi, Nagurski, Bednarik and Outland winner) and Alabama’s Mark Ingram (Heisman winner) are no-doubters, along with Tennessee’s John Henderson (two-time All-American, Outland winner), Cal’s Alex Mack (Draddy Award winner) and Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o (Maxwell, Walter Camp, Butkus, Lombard winner). There will be more selected.
• Seventy-seven players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and 101 players and 34 coaches from the divisional ranks were selected for the ballot.

Details on the 2025 Hall of Fame Class reveal will be announced at a later date and the induction will take place at the National Football Foundation Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas.

High Schools vs. Portal?

Does high school recruiting still excite you?

It’s time for another Until Saturday vote. But, first, some context.

June has been a pivotal month on the college football recruiting calendar for several years because that’s when most of the top high school recruits in the country take their official visits. In the past, diehard fans have spent hours reading or watching interviews those recruits have done in the aftermath of those visits while clinging to every message board rumor or word uttered by their local beat reporters, bloggers and recruiting insiders as to which way players are leaning.

• Moves come quickly: But the transfer portal rules and player movement have quelled all that excitement, right? If you don’t already know, more than a quarter (56) of the top-100 recruits ranked in the 247Sports Composite in the two previous recruiting cycles combined (200 players total) have already left the programs they signed with out of high school. Many aren’t waiting until after Year 2 to depart.
• Big names are transferring: Sixteen of the top 100 players in the 2023 cycle are with new programs after one year, including six of the 39 players tabbed as five-star prospects. That includes QBs Dante Moore (UCLA to Oregon) and Malachi Nelson (USC to Boise State), CBs Desmond Ricks (Alabama to Texas A&M) and Cormani McClain (Colorado to Florida), S Caleb Downs (Alabama to Ohio State) and OT Lance Heard (LSU to Tennessee).
• Portal remains busy: The 2022 cycle has seen nine of the 34 five-star prospects leave for new programs, including three of the top five overall recruits: DL Walter Nolen (Texas A&M to Ole Miss) and CBs Travis Hunter (Jackson State to Colorado) and Domani Jackson (USC to Alabama). Of the top 100 players in the 2022 class, 40 have left the program they signed with.

Does that mean you shouldn’t be excited anymore when your favorite team signs back-to-back top-10 recruiting classes? I’m not saying that. But you probably need to develop a little more cautious optimism about young talented players than you used to if you haven’t adjusted already.

So what do you think? Has the portal changed your feelings about or interest in high school recruiting? Let us know here, and we will share the results Thursday.

Five-star quarterback Tavien St. Clair is committed to Ohio State. (Kyle Robertson / USA Today)

Who is doing best on the trail?

Putting the 247Sports team recruiting rankings into context in June can be tricky because points are awarded to each player committed to each program (and those who sign come December). But the best way to do it in my opinion right now is average player rating (think quality over quantity).

That puts Ohio State, Florida State, Oregon, LSU, Clemson, Alabama, Georgia, USC, Michigan and Texas into the top 10 entering June.

The Buckeyes have six top-100 recruits, including three five-stars – QB Tavien St. Clair (No. 14 overall in 247Sports Composite) and CBs Devin Sanchez (No. 5) and Na’eem Offord (No. 6) – among their 12 commitments. They haven’t added any pledges since four-star tight end Nate Roberts committed in mid-April but were busy this past weekend with five-star WR Dakorien Moore (former LSU commitment) among six top-100 recruits on campus.

More recruiting notes:

• Notre Dame, which has 21 commitments and the No. 1 class this cycle based on points, picked up its latest pledge during the weekend from 2026 four-star QB Noah Grubbs of Lake Mary (Fla.) High School. Grubbs is ranked the 10th-best player at his position and No. 118 overall according to the 247Sports Composite. I wrote about Grubbs and a talented stable of quarterbacks from Florida in the 2026 cycle back in April.
• Four-star safety Keon Young (No. 350 overall) of Lakeland High School (Fla.) was the only 2025 blue-chip recruit to commit during the weekend. Young picked Ole Miss over USF and Kentucky.
• So who is the next elite recruit scheduled to make a commitment announcement? Five-star cornerback Dijon Lee of Mission Viejo, Calif. He’s one of 16 uncommitted five-stars this cycle (there are 30) and told 247Sports he will announce his college choice on June 28. Lee was at Washington this past weekend and is hitting Georgia, Texas A&M and Alabama during the next three weeks.

Quick Snaps

Christopher Kamrani takes us with him to Oregon where quarterback Dillon Gabriel will use his sixth and final season of eligibility to try and lead the Ducks to the Playoff.

Pete Sampson explains to us why Year 3 at Notre Dame for coach Marcus Freeman is a big deal.

Justin Williams shared what he learned at the Big 12’s spring meetings.

You can buy tickets to every college football game here.

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(Top photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)