2026 IUFB Class Ranking

[Lebowski 3,521]

Overall/Conference/Transfer
32/12/NA - 247
33/12/NA - Rivals
30/11/NA - On3 

Updated: 6/27/2025

Class Map

Italic indicates the recruit has a 4 star or greater rating by one of the rating systems. 

High School (19 total)
OL Samuel Simpson - River Falls, WI (2/1/2025)
LB Henry Ohlinger - Columbus, OH (4/21/2025)
DL Rodney White - Towson, MD (4/24/2025)
CB Kasmir Hicks - Indianapolis, IN (4/24/2025)
LB Jacob Savage - Union, KY (4/24/2025)
S Lawrence "Jay" Timmons - Gibsonia, PA (4/28/2025) DECOMMIT
DL Blake Smythe - Franklin, IN (5/2/2025)
LB/TE Trevor Gibbs - Crown Point, IN (5/7/2025)
DL Gabe Hill - Naperville, IL (5/17/2025)
OT Kenton Mondeau - Eau Claire, WI (6/2/2025)
TE PJ MacFarlane - Middletown, OH (6/8/2025)
WR Kortez "Tez" Rupert - East Saint Louis, IL (6/9/2025)
LB Ja'Dyn Williams - Massillon, OH (6/10/2025)
DL Kevontay Hugan - Sarasota, FL (6/11/2025)
OL CJ Scifres - Greenwood, IN (6/14/2025)
TE Parker Elmore - Columbus, IN (6/15/2025)
RB Jayreon Campbell - Powder Springs, GA (6/16/2025)
CB LeRon Dues - Sarasota, FL (6/17/2025)
QB Cash Herrera - La Jolla, CA (6/23/2025)
S Jamar Owens - Douglasville, GA (6/27/2025)

[Lebowski 3,521]

Updated Rankings

Overall/Conference/Transfer
31/9/NA - 247
35/10/NA - Rivals
40/12/NA - On3

[Lebowski 3,521]

Updated Rankings

Overall/Conference/Transfer
31/9/NA - 247
35/10/NA - Rivals
32/10/NA - On3

[Stuhoo 90,023]

8 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

Updated Rankings

Overall/Conference/Transfer
31/9/NA - 247
35/10/NA - Rivals
32/10/NA - On3

When given historical context, that is an underrated and astounding post.

247 actually has our current 2026 football high school recruiting class in the upper half of the Big Ten's 18 teams.

[Pagoda 4,964]

It's a slow day.  Out of curiosity, below is our historical high school recruiting per 24/7's rankings.  The best teams in CFB are still being primarily built with high school recruits (with some portal supplements in key spots), so I like looking at good old high school recruiting.  Recruiting rankings aren't everything, but they're directionally helpful in measuring classes every year.

There are a few outliers, but we've historically been around #50 in the country and towards the bottom of the conference.

Year - Overall/Conference
2025 - 46/14
2024 - 65/16 (conference expands)
2023 - 68/13
2022 - 25/5
2021 - 55/12
2020 - 58/12
2019 - 37/8
2018 - 50/10
2017 - 62/13
2016 - 53/11
2015 - 53/9
2014 - 48/9
2013 - 42/8
2012 - 57/11
2011 - 55/11

I'm stating the obvious, but if we can level up to be around #30 ranked high school classes every year, that will make a world of difference.  To some extent football is a game of physics -- just mass and speed smashing into each other about 180 times per game, and we do need some more mass/speed to consistently compete at a higher level. 

I would guess our NIL/rev share for football is around #30 or maybe a little better nowadays, so it's doable.  And of course with Cig and his staff, recruiting at this level should provide enough talent to hopefully be in the mix most years to make a 16 team playoff and finish mid-pack to top 1/3 of the conference.  These sort of results would be incredible given our history.

I think Scott's #1 priority should be finding as much money as he can for our football player payroll.  As has been pointed out many times, FB drives the whole athletic dept and it's the only sport with a serious ROI. 

Exciting times for IUFB.

 

[Lebowski 3,521]

53 minutes ago, Pagoda said:

It's a slow day.  Out of curiosity, below is our historical high school recruiting per 24/7's rankings.  The best teams in CFB are still being primarily built with high school recruits (with some portal supplements in key spots), so I like looking at good old high school recruiting.  Recruiting rankings aren't everything, but they're directionally helpful in measuring classes every year.

There are a few outliers, but we've historically been around #50 in the country and towards the bottom of the conference.

Year - Overall/Conference
2025 - 46/14
2024 - 65/16 (conference expands)
2023 - 68/13
2022 - 25/5
2021 - 55/12
2020 - 58/12
2019 - 37/8
2018 - 50/10
2017 - 62/13
2016 - 53/11
2015 - 53/9
2014 - 48/9
2013 - 42/8
2012 - 57/11
2011 - 55/11

I'm stating the obvious, but if we can level up to be around #30 ranked high school classes every year, that will make a world of difference.  To some extent football is a game of physics -- just mass and speed smashing into each other about 180 times per game, and we do need some more mass/speed to consistently compete at a higher level. 

I would guess our NIL/rev share for football is around #30 or maybe a little better nowadays, so it's doable.  And of course with Cig and his staff, recruiting at this level should provide enough talent to hopefully be in the mix most years to make a 16 team playoff and finish mid-pack to top 1/3 of the conference.  These sort of results would be incredible given our history.

I think Scott's #1 priority should be finding as much money as he can for our football player payroll.  As has been pointed out many times, FB drives the whole athletic dept and it's the only sport with a serious ROI. 

Exciting times for IUFB.

 

The transfer portal adds a completely different element to this as well (the last two years IUFB's transfer rank was in the top 30). Keep in mind a good percentage of the high school commitments will transfer. After this year, if all goes as I want it to, IUFB will be in the top 20 composite (aka including transfer ranking) on a yearly basis. The goal should be top 10 every year just like IUBB.  NIL and the transfer portal allows this. If IUFB is playing championship level football (just like last year) this will happen. Just so long Coach Cig is calling the shots, we're well on our way folks. Coaching matters.

[Pagoda 4,964]

25 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

The transfer portal adds a completely different element to this as well (the last two years IUFB's transfer rank was in the top 30). Keep in mind a good percentage of the high school commitments will transfer. After this year, if all goes as I want it to, IUFB will be in the top 20 composite (aka including transfer ranking) on a yearly basis. The goal should be top 10 every year just like IUBB.  NIL and the transfer portal allows this. If IUFB is playing championship level football (just like last year) this will happen. Just so long Coach Cig is calling the shots, we're well on our way folks. Coaching matters.

Sounds good to me.  Agree some high school kids will transfer, though keeping the good ones and developing them over multiple years creates what appears to be the ideal foundation for a program.  At least this is what the national title winners have done.  But you’re right, portal has to be factored in too and we have done a nice job there as well.

I also thought our key player retention this year was very good — you just know all our top guys were getting tampered with.  But we kept 'em.

[Lebowski 3,521]

Updated Rankings

Overall/Conference/Transfer
26/8/NA - 247
35/11/NA - Rivals
33/13/NA - On3

[Lebowski 3,521]

Update Rankings

Overall/Conference/Transfer
27/9/NA - 247
32/10/NA - Rivals
34/12/NA - On3

Sidenote: Coach Cig is landing recruits within the 4 hour radius. I think he mentioned his strategy is to dominate recruiting within this radius. For reference, 14 out of 23 total in the 2025 class are roughly within the 4 hour radius. So far, this year, there are 8 out of 12 total commits within the 4 hour radius. I personally like this strategy because it allows family and friends to see the players more often and being close to home is just a half day drive away. So just in case of emergency situations the player has viable options in a timely manner. I'm starting to pay closer attention to recruits in St. Louis, Chicago, Indy, Columbus OH, Cincy, and Nashville. I have a feeling the staff is hitting these cities the hardest if I had to guess. 

[Lebowski 3,521]

Updated rankings. 

Overall/Conference/Transfer
24/8/NA - 247
28/9/NA - Rivals
34/12/NA - On3  (haven't been updated with recent Ja'Dyn Williams commit)
 

[Lebowski 3,521]

Added a class map. 

[Hovadipo 61,607]

1 hour ago, Lebowski said:

Added a class map. 

Sicko.

[Class of '66 Old Fart 91,748]

If no one has noticed, @Lebowski is doing his best to win the weekly "most posts" award.   

Really appreciate the time and effort you put into keeping us updated on all things IUFB.  Thank you.

 

[Stuhoo 90,023]

1 hour ago, Lebowski said:

Added a class map. 

 

The class map is pretty freaking excellent. 

Note of interest; if you expand the map enough you see the player who went to high school in Madagascar, off of the east coast of Africa!

 

 

 

 

 

 

(made you look)

 

[Lebowski 3,521]

Updated rankings.

Overall/Conference/Transfer
24/9/NA - 247
24/8/NA - Rivals
31/11/NA - On3 

[Lebowski 3,521]

Updated rankings

Overall/Conference/Transfer
26/10/NA - 247
29/12/NA - Rivals
31/11/NA - On3 

Class Map

[Lebowski 3,521]

Updated rankings

Overall/Conference/Transfer
26/10/NA - 247
24/10/NA - Rivals
29/10/NA - On3 

Class Map

[Lebowski 3,521]

Something to note:

While the rankings are nice to see and it provides a way to gauge things, the AVG should be the focus. For example, 247 currently has IUFB tied with California ranked 30th based on Avg ranking. And if you look at Rivals, IUFB is ranked 17th in the conference. The Rivals avg ranking is due to two commits currently not rated. That should change once they get a full rating. Which brings me into a nice segue, in the grand scheme of things, these rankings really don't mean poop. While they do hold some weight for some of the highly sought recruits folks like D'Angelo Ponds and Mikail Kamara completely blow their initial rankings out of the water. And that goes the opposite direction as well. How many 4 and 5 stars didn't pan out? More than I can count. So I guess what I'm saying here is take these rankings with a grain of salt. 

[Pagoda 4,964]

1 hour ago, Lebowski said:

Something to note:

While the rankings are nice to see and it provides a way to gauge things, the AVG should be the focus. For example, 247 currently has IUFB tied with California ranked 30th based on Avg ranking. And if you look at Rivals, IUFB is ranked 17th in the conference. The Rivals avg ranking is due to two commits currently not rated. That should change once they get a full rating. Which brings me into a nice segue, in the grand scheme of things, these rankings really don't mean poop. While they do hold some weight for some of the highly sought recruits folks like D'Angelo Ponds and Mikail Kamara completely blow their initial rankings out of the water. And that goes the opposite direction as well. How many 4 and 5 stars didn't pan out? More than I can count. So I guess what I'm saying here is take these rankings with a grain of salt. 

Yea, personally I view these rankings as directional.  The ratings services aren't always right, but in general they're okay and over a ~15-30 player class they'll provide a decent read on the overall quality and potential of the class.  I think of the buckets as: bottom of the conference, midpack, and the top 3-4.  We're midpack, which is really some nice improvement.  If we can consistently be midpack in the class rankings that will be new territory for IUFB, we've never done that before.

Of course, the coaching staff matters a lot, and I think this staff can take midpack recruiting rankings and deliver top 1/3 of conference results.  In my opinion that's all we can ask for.

Thanks for keeping track of all this.

[CSP 12,130]

Underrated weapon? How much the state has improved in football.