"It's June. It's early."
Wrong, Moose Breath. That used to be the thinking, but it's now delusional, reflecting an incomplete understanding of new realities in college football recruiting. The recruiting calendar has fundamentally changed.
The complacency reflects an incomplete understanding of how dramatically the landscape has shifted. First of all, it's necessary to be specific: It's June 24. All the spring official visits have concluded. Half the top 25 have made announcements. Two quarterbacks are left.
National Signing Day used to be the first Wednesday in February. In 2017 the NCAA added the early signing period, the third Wednesday in December. Now that has moved three weeks earlier, to December 4 this season.
Today begins the Dead Period, with no face-to-face contact between recruits and coaches, no school visits until August. It's not early anymore, and it's a lot later than it used to be.
With NIL, revenue-sharing and the impact of the House Settlement, both schools and players are making commitment decisions much earlier than ever before. In the Big Ten Conference, only two programs have fewer players committed than Oregon.
Rivals Big Ten 2026 Football Recruiting Team Rankings, top schools
Rank | Team | Commitments | Ave. Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | USC | 30 | 3.73 |
2 | Ohio State | 16 | 4.06 |
3 | Penn State | 20 | 3.35 |
4 | Illinois | 22 | 3.27 |
5 | UCLA | 22 | 3.23 |
6 | Minnesota | 24 | 2.75 |
7 | Rutgers | 21 | 2.95 |
8 | Michigan State | 19 | 3.11 |
9 | Washington | 15 | 3.4 |
10 | Indiana | 19 | 2.68 |
11 | Oregon | 9 | 4.0 |
Football is a game of depth and numbers. Currently only Nebraska and Maryland have fewer commitments than Oregon's nine, and nine different schools, including Purdue, have at least twice as many commitments.
There's still time for Oregon to turn this around, and 2026 recruiting won't effect their 2025 effort to compete for another Big Ten title and the playoffs.
The quality has been excellent with the Ducks adding nine four-star players, including Kendre Harrison and Jett Washington who are rated five-stars in the Composite.
Losing Ryder Lyons is in part understandable because of his faith and family connections to BYU and the extraordinary contracts high school players are getting to sign, as much as $2-$4 million for quarterbacks who have never taken a snap.
The Ducks have to think about their existing roster and make decisions that are in line with their overall strategy and goals. But it's no longer early, the timetable has sped up, and the Ducks have to start winning more of these battles.
Landing Immanuel Iheanacho and Davon Benjamin would be a great start.