MWC Recruiting Roundup 2-6-23. Final 2023 Team Recruiting Rankings.

It’s another week of the MWC Recruiting Roundup.

The class of 2023 is signed, sealed, and delivered, but our coverage on the class is just getting started. New offers for the class of 2024 and beyond will trickle in this month, and Hawaii even picked up the first Mountain West commit of the new cycle, but February will mostly focus on breaking down the 2023 class.

Next week will look at the Transfer Rankings along with our Transfer and JUCO Team. On the 20th, we will discuss which teams recruited the best position units, and the following week will unveil our sleeper recruit team. However, today’s edition features the 2023 Team Recruiting Rankings. Read further below for details about the rankings.

This week’s cover photo goes to the Broncos for being the #1 team in the rankings.

Class of 2023 Cover Photo Total:

• Air Force: 7
• Boise State: 6
• Colorado State: 6
• Nevada: 6
• UNLV: 5
• Hawaii: 4
• San Diego State: 4
• San Jose State: 3
• Fresno State: 2
• New Mexico: 2
• Wyoming: 2
• Utah State: 1

Recruiting Calendar:

For the month of February, we are in a dead period. This signifies the transition from one recruiting cycle to the next.

Next College Student Athlete says:

The most restrictive of all the recruiting periods is the NCAA Dead Period. During the dead period, coaches may not have any in-person contact with recruits and/or their parents. In other words, coaches are not allowed to talk to recruits at their college campus, the athlete’s school, an athletic camp or even the grocery store.

While the term “dead period” makes it seem like all recruiting stops during this time, that’s actually not the case. Athletes and coaches are still allowed to communicate via phone, email, social media and other digital communication channels. While NCAA Division 1 programs are prohibited from conducting any in-person recruiting, D1 college coaches can still contact student-athletes via digital forms of communication during the dead period.

Air Force Commitment Tracker:

Since the Air Force Academy regularly has by far the most commits among Mountain West recruiting classes, it’s kind of fun to track them over the course of the year.

Number of Falcon verbal commits: 73

2023 Mountain West Team Recruiting Rankings:

All data and rankings based on signees as of 2-5-23

Since rankings are always contested, this year, we laid out the date that was used to help determine our rankings. For each team, the number of 3 and 4 (when applicable) stars is given, along with the number of players who have certain composite rating benchmarks. Any player rated a four-star is given the designation of “a star”. Players with a composite rating of 85 or over are labeled as “top-end talent”, while players with a composite rating of 82 or over are considered “mid-tier talent”. All data is from 247 Sports. (Transfer data was taken into consideration, although it is not included in the information below).

For transfer rankings, it was a combination of ratings of the coming in plus on-field production. Since the transfer portal has changed how transfers are viewed, how we identify these rankings are still a work in progress.

Recruiting Rankings

1) Boise State

• 4 stars: 1
• 3 stars: 18
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 10
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 18

Tagline: A class with a star and top-end talent

2) San Diego State

• 3 stars: 13
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 7
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 12

Tagline: A class with top-end talent

3) Colorado State

• 3 stars: 21
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 4
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 19

Tagline: A class with top players and mid-level talent

4) Fresno State

• 3 stars: 13
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 5
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 13

Tagline: A class with high school and junior college talent

5) Utah State

• 3 stars: 7
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 3
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 6

Tagline: A class with top players, local players, and junior college players

6) Nevada

• 3 stars: 9
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 2
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 6

Tagline: A class with intriguing players and numerous transfers

7) UNLV

• 3 stars: 4
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 2
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 3

Tagline: A class with top players and balanced by transfers

8) Air Force

• 3 stars: 14
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 0
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 8

Tagline: A class led by mid-level talent

9) Hawaii

• 3 stars: 7
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 1
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 5

Tagline: A class with high school, junior college, and transfer talent

10) San Jose State

• 3 stars: 10
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 1
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 0

Tagline: A class with a top talent and many supporting pieces

11) New Mexico

• 3 stars: 3
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 1
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 2

Tagline: A class with local, junior college, and transfer talent

12) Wyoming

• 3 stars: 2
• Players with a composite rating over 85: 0
• Players with a composite rating over 82: 2

Tagline: A class with high-floor players

Tiers

As many of you may know by now, I like to also break lists like these down into tiers. Tiers can be helpful in providing a different angle to look at things. If one made an argument for flipping some of the spots on this list but kept them within the same tier, I wouldn’t put up much of a debate.

Tier 1: Boise State, San Diego State

Tier 2: Colorado State

Tier 3: Fresno State, Utah State

Tier 4: Nevada, UNLV

Tier 5: Air Force

Tier 6: Hawaii, San Jose State

Tier 7: New Mexico, Wyoming

Recruiting Updates:

Note: The updates only reflect recruits in the 2024 class and beyond. Any player without a year in front of them will be a 2024 recruit.

Offers:

• OL Wade Helton was offered by Colorado State
• OL Brent Helton was offered by Colorado State
• OL Joseph Ugwu Jr. was offered by Colorado State
• DB AJ Noland was offered by Colorado State
• WR Terrell Bradshaw Jr was offered by Colorado State
• 2025 TE/LB Carter Jones was offered by Colorado State
• OL Davion Parker was offered by Hawaii
• DE Ethaniah Steffany was offered by Nevada
• TE Ryan Wolfer was offered by SDSU
• DB Jayden Coleman was offered by SJSU
• 2026 WR Xavier Owens was offered by SJSU
• RB/DB Adrian Santana Wilson was offered by UNLV
• OL Austin Ellis was offered by UNLV
• OL Harrison Utley was offered by UNLV
• WR Hayden Eligon II was offered by UNLV
• LB Mark Iheanachor was offered by UNLV
• OL Ezra Ballinger was offered by UNLV
• OL Dyllan Drummond was offered by UNLV
• 2025 OL/DL Eliah Falefia Logo was offered by UNLV
• 2026 QB Michael Mitchell Jr. was offered by UNLV
• QB Maealiuaki Smith was offered by Utah State
• LB Luke Ferrelli was offered by Utah State
• WR Plas Johnson was offered by Utah State
• LB Jaylon Edmond was offered by Utah State

Visits:

Commits:

• Edge Tristan Waiamau-Galindo committed to Hawaii

Decommits

Follow @Mike_SBN on Twitter for all the latest recruiting news and updates.