Memphis area college football recruiting 'business as normal' 3 years after COVID

Aidan Glover knew how important last summer was going to be for his recruitment.

Having played a shortened season during the COVID-19 pandemic as a freshman, he had to make the most of the traditional recruiting trail returning to normal, entering his junior year.

So, the Collierville High quarterback hit the camp circuit, visiting Ole Miss, Memphis, Mississippi State and Alabama.

It’s what helped elevate his recruiting profile.

"It's just the name of the game now,” Glover said. “It’s just the recruiting process. From what I heard back in the day, you could just play for high school, get film and then your coaches would send out the film.

“Now, that’s not enough. You have to go out, get in front of coaches and have them lay their eyes on you.”

Glover is now a three-star prospect and Missouri commitment who’s going into his senior year. Like many of the Class of 2024 prospects, he's attended camps over the last two summers, hoping to get in front of coaches and get more offers.

It’s one of the things that’s helped this class stand out after moving on from the non-traditional recruiting cycle COVID caused.

This class currently has nine players committed to Power 5 programs. That’s not uncommon in this area. If there’s another Power 5 commitment from the Memphis area, 10 would be the fourth most since 2010. The nine already committed is more than the 2021, 2022 and 2023 classes combined. The most Power 5 commitments since 2010 was the Class of 2013 with 14. The Class of 2020 had 10 Power 5 prospects, which was the third straight year Memphis had 10 or more in a class.

In a way, things are getting back to normal in the Memphis area.

"This isn’t anything out of the ordinary from Memphis,” said Ryan Callahan, who covers Tennessee recruiting for 247sports. “It is a pretty good year in terms of depth, to have that many players committing to Power 5 schools.”

Not lacking in depth

What makes this 2024 class standout is its depth.

Since the 2021 recruiting class, which was hit the hardest from the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been eight total Power 5 commitments. This year's recruiting class has surpassed that and the season doesn't start until next month.

That isn’t surprising. Memphis is known for having deep recruiting classes.

"It’s not unusual to have several Power 5 players to come out of the Memphis area,” Callahan said. “This is kind of back to business as usual as far as that’s concerned.”

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Callahan added that the focus shifted away from Memphis and more to Nashville because of its increase in population, but this class proved there’s still reason to recruit the Memphis area.

A lot of that starts with players getting the necessary exposure.

"You have to expand your horizons and go outside of your normal circle and really expand the things that you’re exposed to,” Whitehaven longtime coach Rodney Saulsberry. “... It’s opportunities everywhere, you just have to be willing to go out and reach them.”

And the more talent that comes out of each class proves why coaches will continue to recruit Memphis. But as good as this class is, there isn’t that top-rated player in the state and one of the best in the country yet.

“It’s not a bad class by any means, it’s just right now, the perception is that maybe it’s lacking in sort of the top-end talent that we sometimes see from that city and the surrounding area," Callahan said.

Finding that premier recruit

Between the uptick in Power 5 commits and increase in total commitments, the quality of the Class of 2024 is clear.

But the difference in this class to year’s past is there isn’t that one 4-star of 5-star prospect in Memphis.

"They’re always going to produce plenty of athletes I think,” Callahan said, “but it’s just sort of a year-to-year thing whether they’re those top-250 kind of players that are recruited by everybody or whether it’s just guys who end of up at Power 5 schools and not necessarily considering the Alabama’s and Georgia’s of the world.”

In each of the previous top classes, high-caliber players like Maurice Hampton and Eric Gray – both in the Class of 2019 – headlined their respective classes. In 2020, it was Omari Thomas from Briarcrest. Before then, it was Sheldon Dawson from Ridgeway in 2012 and Frank Herron from Central in 2013 and the list goes on.

All of those players were top 200 players in the country.

The Class of 2024 doesn’t have a player ranked inside 500 nationally and all are no higher than three-star outside of Kamarion Franklin of Lake Cormorant in Mississippi. Franklin, is a 4-star recruit and top prospect in Mississippi. This year's highest-ranked local instate recruit is Kumaro Brown of MASE, who is the No. 17 prospect in Tennessee and ranked No. 596 nationally by the 247Sports Composite.

Producing players like Franklin from DeSoto County just outside of Shelby County is where Memphis can stand out and better validate how good a recruiting class can be.

"There are some very good players committed to Power 5 schools,” Callahan said, “but just a lot of years in the past, we’ve seen at least one player in the top five or six (in Tennessee) being from the Memphis area.”

Along with Glover, MUS’s Brandon Nicholson has committed to Stanford. Germantown’s DJ Allen (Central Florida), Daniel Anderson (North Carolina) and Kison Shepard (Mississippi State) have all committed as have Lausanne’s Luke Work (Mississippi State); Munford’s Isaiah Cobbs (Washington State) and Collierville’s Bourdon (Duke).

The late Dion Stutts of MUS, who died last month in an ATV accident, had committed to Arkansas before his death.

“It’s impressive that even if you don’t have the 4-star, 5-star players from a city, that you still have players committed to schools like Missouri, North Carolina, Duke and Stanford,” Callahan said.

College coaches just need a reason to come back to Memphis after the COVID-19 pandemic limited the talent pool. That will ultimately determine just how good this class will be.

"Time will tell in that aspect,” said Ridgeway coach Duron Sutton on whether this class can shift that narrative. “The number of kids that are getting the types of offers, the high major D-I offers … I just think that the kids are going to be able to tell how good this class is, the public will be able to tell how good this class is three, four years from now.”

Reach Wynston Wilcox at wwilcox@gannett.com and on Twitter @wynstonw__.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis area's college football 2024 recruiting class best since 2020