Thoughts On the Current State of ASU’s 2025 Recruiting Class

ASU leaps to the top of the Big-12 recruiting rankings, why star ratings don't tell the whole story, and how ASU's recruiting might stack up to the rest of the Big-12 moving forward

So, this is my first newsletter in a long while (more than two years). The type of posts I was doing before were very time-consuming, and I just didn’t have the time or energy to keep it up. I’m going to try doing periodical short newsletters that don’t put as much of a strain on me and see if I can maintain some sort of routine.

ASU football has received a number of commitments to its 2025 recruiting class over the last few weeks, and as a result, currently sits atop the 247’s Big-12 recruiting rankings.

There was a lot of talk about this online, most of it positive, and deservedly so. Given back-to-back 3-win seasons plus the NCAA investigation and ensuing penalties, the recent success is no small feat. Kenny Dillingham appears to have a solid recruiting gameplan and now has some momentum.

However, some of the online praise was overstated. Right now, ASU’s high ranking is due more to quantity than quality. They have 11 commits in their 2025 class, which is tied for the most in the conference. At some point, other schools will add more commitments and will catch up and/or pass ASU in the rankings. How many remains to be seen. The average rating of ASU’s commitments is 87.16, which would be seventh in the conference. For ASU’s class to finish in the top third of the conference, they would need to add a number of recruits rated higher than their current average.

Enough of the nitpicking, though. These are solid results so far. All of ASU’s 11 commits have ratings of 85 or above, and 7 of them are 87 or above.

For those who aren’t aware, 247 provides a number rating in addition to a star rating for each recruit. In terms of star ratings, of ASU’s 11 commits, 1 is a 4-star and 10 are 3-stars. The problem with only looking at star ratings is that there’s so much variation within each star category, especially the 3-star category.

In 247’s system, there are about 30-35 5-star recruits in each class - it’s that number because a 5-star rating indicates that they think the player will be a 1st-round draft pick in the NFL. 5-stars have number ratings above 97. There are then about 250 or so 4-stars. They have ratings between 90 and 97, and are players projected to be drafted in the NFL. There are roughly 1500 3-star players in each class, and have ratings between 80 and 90.

As a result, a 3-star rating provides not nearly as much information about a recruit’s quality as a 4 or 5-star rating does. High-end 3-stars (those rated 86 and above) are often more similar to 4-star recruits than they are to fellow 3-star recruits at the lower end of the scale (80-82). High end 3-stars have a much higher probability of becoming solid Power-5 (or Power-4 now, I guess) players than low end 3-stars do, but if you only looked at the star rating, you wouldn’t know the difference.

While it would be nice for ASU to have a bunch of 4-star recruits in their class, building a deep roster that can compete in the Big-12 is more about limiting the number of recruits who aren’t likely to contribute in a meaningful way to a competitive team. If, come signing day, there still aren’t any members of the class that are rated below 85 (or at least there are very few), ASU will have improved its roster, even if there aren’t very many 4-stars who sign.

To wrap up, I want to talk a little about how ASU’s recruiting might compare to the rest of the Big-12 in the coming years. Several months ago, Dave Bartoo (@CFBMatrix on X.com) had a series of posts about how the historical recruiting of the Pac-12 teams that are moving to the Big-12 stacks up against the rest of the conference. I can’t find the posts, but the gist was that ASU’s historical recruiting put them square in the middle of the Pac-12, but would put them in the top third of the new iteration of the Big-12. What this means is that if ASU is able to recruit at the same level moving forward as they have the last 25 years or so, they would have the talent to compete for conference championships more regularly than they did back in the Pac-12.

Recruiting at their historical level is not a sure thing, though. First, the recent changes to NCAA rules surrounding NIL and transfers have made recruiting a completely different game than it was just a few years ago. Additionally, being in a conference with a different geographical footprint adds a wrinkle as well. We’ll see how it works out.

As always, let me know what you think below.