Many of these blue-chip recruits put together legendary careers.
Carter Bahns
No college football recruit is a "sure thing," but the top-ranked prospects in every class carry extremely high upside and more often than not deliver on their NFL potential. Of those who remain in college for the 2024 season, each ranks as one of the sport's biggest stars with players like Quinn Ewers and Travis Hunter gracing the cover of the upcoming EA Sports College Football 25 video game.
Some of the recent No. 1 prospects are in the middle of tremendous professional careers. Former Heisman Trophy winners and current NFL standouts headline the small and prestigious group of recruiting class headliners, like ex-Clemson star Trevor Lawrence and former Alabama prodigy Bryce Young.
Quarterbacks dominated the top spot in the recruiting rankings over the last decade, but a few extremely heralded talents at other positions such as wide receiver and defensive tackle generated tremendous excitement for their schools of choice and, in turn, delivered high-impact careers.
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Here is where each No. 1 recruit from the last decade stands ahead of the 2024 football season:
2024: WR JEREMIAH SMITH
Signing Team: Ohio State Buckeyes
Current Team: Ohio State Buckeyes
The preseason arrival of Jeremiah Smithis one of the many reasons why Ohio State has a tremendous chance of winning the 2024 national championship. He is far from the only immediate-impact addition to the Buckeyes' roster this offseason, but the freshman from Hollywood (Fla.) Chaminade-Madonna Prep has the greatest upside of the bunch as Ohio State's second-highest rated commit of all time. Smith made a splash this spring as an early enrollee when he dazzled in camp as one of the top options in a loaded receiving corps.
2023: QB ARCH MANNING
Signing Team: Texas Longhorns
Current Team: Texas Longhorns
The Arch Manning show at Texas is still a year out given Quinn Ewers' return to the top of the Longhorns' offense, but the future looks extremely bright for this program as the former heralded recruit showed off much-improved arm talent this spring. Manning tossed three touchdown passes in the Texas spring game and racked up 355 yards in his first public performance since a 2-for-5 outing in mop up duty of last November's blowout win against Texas Tech. The 2023 recruiting gem will be the Longhorns' primary backup this year and figures to keep the offense rolling at a high level when he takes the reins in 2025.
2022: CB TRAVIS HUNTER
Signing Team: Jackson State Tigers
Current Team: Colorado Buffaloes
Travis Hunter is college football's premier two-way player and one of two elite NFL prospects on the 2024 Colorado roster, along with quarterback Shedeur Sanders. He is the Buffaloes' best cornerback and wide receiver and played a mind-blowing number of snaps last year, rarely coming off the field when healthy. There is more talent around Hunter this year, which should reduce some of the burden on him, but he will still be a high-volume contributor on both sides of the ball.
2021: QB QUINN EWERS
Signing Team: Ohio State Buckeyes
Current Team: Texas Longhorns
Quinn Ewers is one of college football's biggest stars for the 2024 season and ranks in a tie with Georgia's Carson Beck for the best odds to win the Heisman Trophy. Even with Arch Manning's spring surge, this is still Ewers' team, and he has what it takes to lead the Longhorns back to the College Football Playoff and potentially to a national championship. Last season was Ewers' best at the college level as he racked up career highs completion rate (69%), passing yards (3,479) and touchdowns (22).
2020: QB BRYCE YOUNG
Signing Team: Alabama Crimson Tide
Current Team: Carolina Panthers
Bryce Young is the second-highest-rated player to enroll at Alabama in the modern recruiting era, trailing only offensive tackle Andre Smith (2006). He set numerous records with the Crimson Tide en route to the 2021 Heisman Trophy, though the program never won a national title during his starting career. Young was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, and while he struggled during his rookie season, the lack of talent around him was largely to blame. He played behind one of the league's worst offensive lines and completed a modest 59.8% of his throws for 2,877 yards and 11 touchdowns to 10 interceptions.
2019: DE ANTONIO ALFANO
Signing Team: Alabama Crimson Tide
Current Team: Edmonton Elks
Antonio Alfano landed this spring in the Canadian Football League when the Edmonton Elks selected him in the 2024 supplemental draft. It has been far from a straightforward path for the former five-star prospect, who signed with Alabama but left the program in the first month of his freshman season and transferred later that fall to Colorado. He left that program after Mel Tucker departed to take the Michigan State job, was later reinstated and never played a game before he moved to Independence Community College in Kansas. Alfano, again, did not see the field and transferred one final time to Lackawanna College in Pennsylvania, where he logged 14 tackles, eight tackles for loss and four sacks during the 2023 campaign.
2018: QB TREVOR LAWRENCE
Signing Team: Clemson Tigers
Current Team: Jacksonville Jaguars
Trevor Lawrence went wire-to-wire as the No. 1 prospect in the 2018 recruiting class and lived up to his hype with three ACC titles and a national championship at Clemson. The future No. 1 overall draft pick is a college football legend who racked up more than 10,000 yards and 100 touchdowns in his career with the Tigers. After a slow start to his pro career, Lawrence emerged over the last two years as one of the NFL's most promising signal-callers, crossing the 4,000-yard mark with Jacksonville in each of the last two seasons.
2017: OT WALKER LITTLE
Signing Team: Stanford Cardinal
Current Team: Jacksonville Jaguars
Injuries and his decision to opt out of the 2020 season amid the COVID-19 pandemic kept Walker Little off the field at times during an otherwise stellar Stanford career. Not often does an offensive lineman capture top billing in a recruiting class, but Little delivered with a tremendous start to his Cardinal career when he became the first freshman to start at left tackle for the program since 2000 and earned the Pac-12 Co-Offensive Freshman of the year Award. He was a first-team all-conference selection the following year and later went to the Jacksonville Jaguars with the No. 45 overall pick in the 2021 draft. Little has 40 games of NFL experience under his belt, including 17 starts.
2016: DT RASHAN GARY
Signing Team: Michigan Wolverines
Current Team: Green Bay Packers
Rashan Gary enters Year 6 with the Green Bay Packers this fall as one of the top defensive players on the roster. He and the franchise agreed during the middle of the 2023 season to a four-year contract extension worth up to $107 million, and that steep price tag stems from his 179 career tackles and 31.5 sacks as a longtime starter at outside linebacker. Before his first-round selection in 2019, Gary starred at Michigan with a pair of first-team All-Big Ten campaigns.
2015: DT TRENTON THOMPSON
Signing Team: Georgia Bulldogs
Current Team: None
Trenton Thompson is the only former No. 1 recruit of the last decade to not reside on an active professional or collegiate roster. He enjoyed a splendid career at Georgia and had his best season as a sophom*ore when he racked up 64 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss and 5.0 sacks, but he went undrafted after he elected to forego his senior campaign. Thompson bounced around countless rosters since 2018, spending time on the Cleveland Browns' offseason roster and in the AAF, AFL, CFL, XFL and IFL.
