This week in college football recruiting: Early rankings, Minnesota, and Cincinnati

In this edition of the Crootletter, we get you caught up on the week in recruiting.

Jason Kirk explained why early recruiting rankings, while flawed and incomplete at this early stage in the game, are of some value.

Most commits will stick. Things will fluctuate like wild, but a team generally needs about 30 to 35 commits over a class cycle to sign 25.

Total commits are interesting — Northwestern and Minnesota are in double digits already and thus rank highly — but a class’ average-player rating is a better predictor of quality. Ohio State’s lowest-rated commit out of seven rates better than Northwestern’s best out of 13.

Early QB rankings aren’t all that volatile. Every year, most tend to go early and most tend to stick. For 2018, only three of the top 16 QBs are on the market right now.

And we can spot small-scale trends, like Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck hinting at a Georgia pipeline after years of Midwest focus.

Also, the first Signing Day’s coming earlier than Um, Actually February Is In February guy thinks. December’s only eight months away.

Yes, it did! Malik Vann, from Fairfield (OH) picked the Bearcats over Michigan State, Wisconsin, and a few other Big Ten offers. Van is a 6’2, 270-pound defensive lineman, and the crown jewel of Luke Fickell’s class.

Vann is a 6’2”, 270-pound strong side defensive end, according to 247Sports. The recruiting site ranks him as the No. 12 recruit in Ohio for the 2018 class and the No. 12 recruit at his position.

Vann joins four others who have committed to UC so far, all of them coming from the Buckeye State. Josh Whyle is another four-star recruit and a local one at that, with the tight end hailing from Cincinnati. Three-star linebacker Ty Van Fossen, defensive end Black Bacevich and offensive tackle Colin Woodside are planning on attending UC as well.

In addition to Cincinnati’s big get:

I recapped the top 10 commitments so far in April, including prospects who chose Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, and Ohio State.

Our Alex Kirshner examined how P.J. Fleck is recruiting very well at Minnesota.

The Gophers have 10 verbal commitments. Six are Midwesterners, and the other four are Georgians. The Georgian contingent includes the top-rated commit, offensive tackle Oyenmwen Uzebu, who committed on Tuesday. Fleck’s defensive backs coach, Maurice Linguist, has ties to the region and has been in on their recruitment.

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The Gophers’ average commit rating, at this moment, is 0.85. That’s equivalent to a solid three-star prospect whom you’d expect to turn into a good player. It doesn’t represent Playoff-caliber recruiting, but it’s a good place to be.

For Minnesota, it’s a great place to be. The Gophers have never had an average rating that high in the recruiting rankings era, which stretches back to roughly the turn of the millennium. They’ve signed a few good classes, but they’ve never finished in the Composite top 25. Their 2008 class under Tim Brewster finished 26th, with a 0.84 average rating that isn’t much different than the current 0.85.

Normally, Minnesota lands somewhere between the 40th and 70th-best class. Fleck’s going to level that up. Get ready for vastly more talented Minnesota teams than the Big Ten West is used to facing.

No surprise here. It’s Florida. But there are some surprising schools behind, and we dig into the NCAA’s methodology.

Bill Connelly and Steven Godfrey previewed the AAC on Podcast Ain’t Played Nobody.

Think camps and 7v7 events do not lead to college offers? Think again, according to a mom of a top QB recruit.

At the first 7 on 7 tournament, which was in Los Angeles, he did really well. From there it just got bigger. There was some video of him playing that went viral, and suddenly analysts and reporters and scouts were saying he would be a game changer. He actually picked up additional offers after coaches began seeing the videos of him making throws. Things exploded very fast.