The Big Ten has a serious SEC Football problem

In the current On3 Team Rankings for the 2025 class, five of the top ten classes of verbal commits are from SEC football teams. The Alabama Crimson Tide is No. 1; Georgia is No. 3. LSU is No. 5; Texas A&M is No. 8, and Oklahoma is No. 10. Only two of the top ten are Big Ten programs; Ohio State at No. 2 and Oregon at No. 4.

The B1G's success is not decidedly better than the ACC with Clemson at No. 7 and Florida State at No. 9.

Turning the focus to the top 75 ranked recruits in the 2025 class shows that except for Ohio State and Oregon, the Big Ten cannot keep up with many SEC programs in attracting top players. Using the On3 Industry Player Rankings, SEC programs have verbal commits from 27 recruits, including nine of the top 25. Big Ten programs have a total of 17 commits, with only five in the top 25. Ten recruits in the top 25 have not yet committed. Florida State has the ACC's only top 25 verbal commit.

One theory about the Big Ten's last expansion is adding USC and Oregon would help Big Ten programs recruit on the West Coast. The plum of West Coast recruiting territory is the state of California. About a year ago, 247Sports defined the top states for recruiting talent are Texas, California, and Florida.

Back in 2020, an analysis was done of the top states for 5-star talent. In the 2017 through 2021 recruiting cycles, 331 recruits gained a 5-star ranking, based on the 247Sports Composite. Florida was No. 1, with 59, followed by Texas with 45. The state of Georgia was third with 39, and just behind was California with 37. To compare, the count for the state of Alabama was 17, 5-star recruits.

Under Nick Saban, Alabama Football had great success recruiting in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and California. That success continues under Kalen DeBoer and it could become a big problem for almost all of the Big Ten's 18 football programs.

That potential big problem is currently striking, given what can be seen in the tweet below.

The Crimson Tide has verbal commitments from four of the top 10 players in the state of California. Alabama and the Texas A&M Aggies are kicking the butts of B1G teams, except for Oregon. Southern Cal with only one commit in the top 10 is a glaring fail. The Trojans, having made the move to the Big Ten, were predicted to reemerge as a national power. So far (and maybe forever) that is not happening.

SEC Football has no need to expand

As Greg Sankey said on Monday, the SEC is not recruiting more programs. There are rumors both the SEC and the Big Ten are not interested in Clemson and FSU. That might be true for the SEC because the conference is so strong it does not need an expansion boost.