Three big college football recruiting ‘winners’ that helped their cases in the month of July
A quick glance at your calendar (if you still have one of those hanging around) will inform you that we have now entered the month of August, which means college football is exactly four weeks away.
It's an exciting time to be a fan, as fall camp starts to ramp up and practice reports will have every fanbase believing this is the year their team wins it all, but there's plenty of action off the field to be locked in on too, namely recruiting.
Nowadays, most of the top-end talent in the current recruiting class has already committed to their program of choice by mid summer, but that doesn't mean we still didn't see some July fireworks on the recruiting trail.
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Here are three college football programs that picked up big wins in the class of 2027 this past month.
After a blistering June on the recruiting trail, Mario Cristobal and company seemed like they might have taken the month of July off for a little vacation.
Who could blame them? After all, they were sitting comfortably within the top five of most recruiting industry rankings and their class was nearly full with 20 commits.
Then, about a week or so ago, some of the more plugged-in sources in the recruiting world started making noise about five-star cornerback A'mir Sears reclassifying from 2028 to 2027.
Given his South Florida roots and the fact that the Canes were seen as the leader to land his commitment even a year out, alarm bells started ringing that Miami's elite 2027 class was about to reach another level.
Then, on the last day of July, Sears decided to make it official, giving the Hurricanes their fifth five-star and putting the rest of the country on notice that The U might really be back this time.
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I didn't think it was possible for anyone to catch the Texas A&M Aggies, but Miami has a serious shot.
Their class currently has the highest average player rating of any program in the 2027 cycle, sitting just above a 93.5, and they have only 21 commits as of August 1, which means there's plenty of room for expansion.
Cristobal and the Canes are crushing recruiting by every conceivable metric, which should terrify the rest of the country.
I know what you're thinking: "But Austin! A team with a recruiting ranking in the low 30s who landed just one commit in the entire month is a 'winner' from July?"
Yes. And I'll explain why.
The Indiana Hoosiers have been a recruiting doormat for the entire existence of industry rankings and recruiting services.
If you don't believe me, a quick search through their sordid history of talent acquisition will show you that Indiana has never landed a five-star recruit... until now.
That's right, Curt Cignetti just changed the entire dynamic of Hoosier recruiting with a commitment from one Monshun Sales, a five-star wideout hailing from nearby Indianapolis.
Sales had his choice of any program in the country, with the might Alabama Crimson Tide pushing hard for his pledge, but the 6'5" athlete with 10.8 second 100 meter dash times chose to stay close to home and play for coach Cig.
This is about more than just landing the next big weapon at receiver to feature in your offense next season.
The commitment of Sales to Indiana just nuked an entire lifetime of narratives and checked off the one thing that was surprisingly missing from Cignetti's resume.
Talk about being resurrected from the brink of extinction!
What Florida State pulled off in the month of July on the recruiting trail is the college football equivalent of that gif of The Undertaker sitting up in his casket.
On Memorial Day, the Seminoles were on death's front door with a recruiting class that was ranked in the 50s and not a single four-star to their name.
Then June happened, and the Noles were able to check off the four-star box, but many people felt like the flurry of commitments was similar to a last spasm from a dead body.
Translation: it was a fluke.
Well, July just proved that Florida State and head coach Mike Norvell weren't just one-hit wonders in the month of June, as they signed two more four-star prospects, including their highest rated pledge in safety Ta'Shawn Poole.
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Poole is a top-100 prospect from the Peach State and what makes his commitment to FSU even more impressive is the fact that the Noles pried him away from the home-state Georgia Bulldogs.
Throw in four-star wide receiver Za'Kari Johnson and three-star edge Meshi Dobson, both of whom are Sunshine State prospects who were being courted by Alabama and Auburn, and this 2027 class for Florida State has gone from laughing stock to eye-opening quickly.
It's far from elite, to be sure, but the leg work that's been done in the past two months, especially given the uncertain circumstances surrounding coach Norvell's future, has laid the foundation for the Seminoles to potentially end the '27 cycle with one of their better classes since Norvell arrived in Tallahassee.
