College Football Recruiting: Which positions get the most 5-star recruits?

Five-star recruits don’t grow on trees and they aren’t distributed evenly. How often do college football recruiting services dole out their most exclusive rating?

The amount of analysis that goes into rating each recruit is extensive. Considering today’s experts have no shortage of data at their disposal, perhaps now more than ever the prospect ratings serve as a useful indicator to coaches and fans alike about which players have the potential to become truly elite.  That’s why it’s no small thing to earn the coveted 5-Star rating.

No matter where these recruits commit to there’s always a justifiable amount of excitement. Granted, there’s always going to be flops, but the hype is real and that’s largely due to how short the 5-Star list is. Depending on the year there are somewhere between 20 to 30 players per class.

Let’s take a look at the 5-Star recruits from the last five years and see what trends we can find.

As you can see from the chart the most common position for a 5-star recruit is a wide receiver with a total of 21 and that’s clearly been reflected by how high powered some of the nation’s top team passing games have been in the past few seasons.

That said, what’s a receiver without a top-level quarterback – and with 13 in the mix these past five recruiting classes it’s not only surprising we’ve seen a 5-star quarterback, receiver tandem but that we the saw one thrash the Alabama defense in this past year’s championship game in Trevor Lawrence and Justyn Ross.

Speaking of 5-Star quarterback, wide receiver tandems – Oklahoma has been crushing it on the recruiting trail and what better way to follow up the Heisman streak from Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murry by signing 5-star quarterback Spencer Rattler alongside 5-star wide receivers Trejan Bridges, Theo Wease and Jadon Haselwood.

If this chart shows us anything it’s there’s going to continue to be an influx of top-level air attacks that come fully stocked with 5-star talent.  With Clemson coming off a championship season they clearly the team to beat but only time will tell if a new group of 5-stars like that of Oklahoma’s is ready to claim the title as their own.

In closing the only thing that can temper a high powered passing game is a top-level defensive and with the defensive back being the second most common position of the chart perhaps that’s exactly what we’ll see in seasons to come.

It would likely make games more enjoyable to watch because after all, I think everyone except for Clemson fans agrees the college football playoff was at it’s most entertaining when the games were close all the way until the final whistle.  Until we see otherwise the country will be waiting for those defensive backs to stand up and make these games competitive again.