St. Thomas Aquinas has been the nation’s premier high school football program -- at least when it comes to producing elite college football recruits. However, another Florida powerhouse is quickly catching up.
St. Thomas Aquinas has been the country’s best high school at producing football talent, but here comes IMG Academy
Florida is the place to be if you’re a high school football player.
247Sports compiled all the players it has evaluated since 2000 and broke down the nation’s top talent by high school. Unsurprisingly, a Florida program took first, followed by a pair of California institutions. St. Thomas Aquinas was flanked in the top five by another Sunshine State school -- IMG Academy.
In all, Florida high schools made up four of the nation’s top 10 talent-producing programs and eight of the top 25. Texas placed second with five institutions near the top of the rankings. California, Georgia and Maryland were the only other states to have more than one school in the top 25.
While there’s a huge gap between St. Thomas Aquinas and the next closest school, IMG is quickly charging up the ranks. There are two interesting things to note about IMG Academy’s inclusion on the list.
The school did not have a football program before 2010.
- Staffers there just convinced 2017's top recruit Dylan Moses to spend his senior year in Florida.
The king is poised to stay the king after 2016, but IMG, a private institution focused on building football talent, has quickly established itself as a premier destination for future college athletes. No other program comes close to its 88-point average player rating, and it’s not difficult to see how the high school could jump to the top of the list with a few more years of elite recruits. They’ve got more top 100 prospects for 2016 than any other high school in the country.
| Class of 2016 | ||||
| 247 Rank | School | State | Top 100 Recruits | Total Top 247 Recruits |
| 1 | St. Thomas Aquinas | FL | 3 | 3 |
| 2 | Long Beach Poly | CA | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | Junipero Serra | CA | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | DeMatha Catholic | MD | 1 | 3 |
| 5 | IMG Academy | FL | 5 | 7 |
| 6 | Glenville | OH | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | Miami Central | FL | 1 | 1 |
| 8 | Bishop Gorman | NV | 0 | 0 |
| 9 | Skyline | TX | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | Lincoln | FL | 0 | 0 |
While Aquinas is home to seemingly surefire recruits like Ohio State commit Nick Bosa and LSU pledge Edwin Alexander, the school can’t match the volume of IMG’s elite athletes. The Academy has sprayed top 100 recruits across the SEC (to programs like Ole Miss, LSU, Georgia and Florida) and has two more players ranked within 247Sports’ top 160.
The early returns for the class of 2017 suggest this trend will only intensify.
| Class of 2017 | ||||
| 247 Rank | School | State | Top 100 Recruits | Total Top 247 Recruits |
| 1 | St. Thomas Aquinas | FL | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Long Beach Poly | CA | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | Junipero Serra | CA | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | DeMatha Catholic | MD | 2 | 0 |
| 5 | IMG Academy | FL | 4 | 9 |
| 6 | Glenville | OH | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | Miami Central | FL | 1 | 1 |
| 8 | Bishop Gorman | NV | 3 | 4 |
| 9 | Skyline | TX | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | Lincoln | FL | 0 | 0 |
All hail our new IMG overlords.
