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BERKELEY, Calif. — Joe Starkey thought he had blown the call.

Hours after “the most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heartrending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football,” Starkey attended a neighborhood party near his home in Walnut Creek, California, about 15 miles East of Cal’s Memorial Stadium. The date was Nov. 20, 1982, and Starkey had spent the day calling the Big Game, featuring archrivals Cal and Stanford.

Starkey, the eighth-year radio play-by-play voice for Cal, scrambled to find a highlight of what had happened in the final four seconds, a scene that would become known in sports lore simply as: The Play.

Trailing 20-19, Cal fielded a kickoff with four seconds left. The Bears made five laterals, the last going to Kevin Moen. As Starkey shouted, “The band is out on the field!” Moen weaved through Stanford band members, crossed the goal line and plowed into trombonist Gary Tyrrell.

Final score: Cal 25, Stanford 20.

“I thought I’d screwed it up completely,” Starkey said. “I was too excited, not enough detail.”

Even in the KGO radio booth, amid the mayhem and excitement after Cal’s victory, Starkey felt fear run through him.

“I realized pretty quickly the magnitude of what had happened,” he said. “Now, my fear is, did I do it right? Did I make the call right? Did I screw it up and say something I shouldn’t have, or did I miss something I should have had? That haunted me.”

Eventually, Starkey warmed up to the call that would change his life, the one that will forever be associated with him. He’s called Super Bowls as the San Francisco 49ers radio play-by-play voice. While working for ABC at the 1980 Winter Olympics, he did an impromptu call of the third period of the U.S.-Russia “Miracle On Ice” game, which aired on ABC’s West Coast radio affiliates.

But no single moment will compare to the one 40 years ago in Strawberry Canyon. The one that got him recognized on the streets of Tokyo and in a hotel pool in Rome with the drummer for the Rolling Stones. Now 81, Starkey will call his final Big Game this week as he prepares for retirement after 48 seasons as the voice of the Bears.

“They’re going to bury me with it,” Starkey said of his famous call. “It will be the first words when I die in the obituary. It lives on forever, apparently. This is 40 years later, and it’s starting all over again.”

NOVEMBER 20 BEGAN like any other football Saturday for Starkey, then 41. He drove to the game with his wife and sons, and arrived at the stadium two hours before kickoff. Pregame always began an hour before, but Starkey used the extra time to finalize his notes and chat with the broadcasters from Cal’s opponents to gain a nugget or two. He knew plenty about Stanford, especially star quarterback John Elway, the son of college coach Jack Elway, and a high school standout in California.

The booth configuration was standard: Starkey and color commentator Jan Hutchins, a longtime Bay Area sportscaster; producer/engineer Neil Hogue; spotter Jim Starkey, Joe’s 15-year-old son; and a statistician. The broadcast didn’t include a sideline reporter.

“It was one of my first games,” Jim Starkey said. “I had just started spotting for him that year.”

Cal came in at 6-4, Stanford at 5-5. Joe Starkey expected “just a very normal Big Game day with a big crowd.” He’s not one for premonitions about events or potential historic moments, but sensed early on that the 85th Big Game would be special.

“The level of play, the amount of big plays, was so dramatic,” he said. “I’ve always said that even if there was no band on the field and game-winning laterals, it would have been one of the best two or three Big Games I ever saw.”

Cal wide receivers Mariet Ford and Wes Howell made highlight-reel touchdown catches. Elway, whose Pro Football Hall of Fame career featured many clutch drives, converted a fourth-and-17 from Stanford’s 13-yard line with less than a minute left.

“If that’s an incomplete pass, there is no ‘Band on the field,'” Starkey said. “They lose.”

Stanford set up for a field-goal attempt that everyone, including Starkey, expected to be the game winner. But rather than ensure the field-goal attempt would be the final play, Stanford took a timeout with eight seconds left. Mark Harmon converted the 35-yard field goal. Four seconds remained.

“The Stanford assistant coaches, many of whom I’ve known for years, have told me that there was actually a very aggressive shouting match going on between the coaches upstairs as to when they should stop the clock,” Starkey said. “The guys who wanted eight seconds, unfortunately for Stanford, won out over the guys who wanted four seconds.”

Stanford was flagged for excessive celebration after the field goal, a penalty Starkey hated then and hates now. Harmon kicked off from the 25-yard line rather than the 40, creating a shorter distance for Cal to ultimately cover.

“If they don’t get those 15 yards, does that play work?” Starkey said. “Do they actually bring it all the way back?”

STARKEY HAS NEVER rehearsed his calls, even when a significant play is approaching. He came close in 1992 when Jerry Rice was about to set the NFL’s touchdown receptions record, but ended up reacting to the moment in real-time.

As Stanford prepared for the kickoff, Starkey essentially began wrapping up the game, crediting the Cardinal for their drive despite “defeat staring them straight in the face.” He could see Stanford preparing to hoist the Axe, the Big Game’s rivalry trophy, which the Cardinal had won in 1981. He paid no attention to the Stanford band.

Jim Starkey stood up and stretched a bit, ready to pack up his binoculars. He briefly left the booth before returning, sitting to his father’s left as Stanford kicked off. Joe’s wife, Diane, sitting not far from the KGO booth, remembers seeing groups of fans leaving early.

“It wasn’t like, you think 40 years later, this was going to be such a momentous event,” Diane said. “But people said to me later, who were out on the street, people were at intersections and nobody was moving, because they were listening to it on the radio.”

Joe expected a squib kick, which would limit the chances of a long return. That’s what Harmon did.

“The Bears need to get out of bounds,” Starkey began his call, thinking Cal could attempt a Hail Mary if it immediately reached the sideline.

He thought Cal might pull off a successful lateral or two before the play would end. Moen took the kickoff and passed the ball backward to Richard Rodgers, who then found Dwight Garner. The young running back’s knee nearly hit the ground — or did, according to anyone affiliated with Stanford, including a group of players who ran onto the field to celebrate — before he pitched the ball back to Rodgers.

Things were getting interesting, but a Cal touchdown? “I still didn’t believe it,” Starkey said. He continued to watch the ball, which Rodgers had pitched to Ford as the action shifted closer to Stanford’s sideline. By this point, Starkey’s color man and spotter had become irrelevant.

“Strictly me,” Starkey said. “I’m making every bit of the call.”

A split second before three Stanford defenders converged, Ford pitched the ball over his shoulder to Moen at around the Stanford 25-yard line.

“It’s again, serendipity, a fluke, whatever you want to call it,” Starkey said. “When he throws that ball over his shoulder, he is hoping and praying that maybe there’s a Cal guy behind him that can catch this, but he can’t possibly know that.”

The excitement in Starkey’s voice built as the play continued, but after the Ford lateral to Moen, his voice amplified. Stanford band members had entered the field.

“It changes everything. How do I describe this? It’s so bizarre,” Starkey said. “I’ve broadcast nearly 1,000 college and pro football games. I’ve never seen anything that matches what happened at the end of that game. To this day, you’ll see a game where they’ll have laterals at the end of the game, trying to save a play, save a touchdown.

“But the wild card is always the band.”

While Starkey tried to describe the scene before him, Hutchins started screaming, completely immersed in what was unfolding. It was similar in 1972 when, as a young sports reporter in Pittsburgh, Hutchins stood on the sideline at Three Rivers Stadium as Steelers fullback Franco Harris made the “Immaculate Reception” and ran right by him.

He’s grateful his audio track has been edited out of clips that show The Play.

“I was not thinking, I was totally being, which is why I started screaming,” Hutchins said. “They’ve taken my whole soundtrack out because I was gibberish and ruining your chance to hear what Joe had to say. I try to live like this most of the time anyhow, but I was flat-out in the moment. I was not thinking anything.

“I was experiencing what I knew was one of the most fantastic sporting results ever.”

Even while shouting about Moen entering the end zone, Starkey had seen flags fly during the play and posed the essential question: “Will it count?” Would Cal’s win — and Starkey’s incredible call — be wiped away by a penalty on the Bears?

At worst, Starkey had become really excited for nothing. But it was better than the alternative.

“My theory had been, even then as a young broadcaster, is you can always apologize, but do it all the way through the first time,” he said. “If you stop and then it counts, then there’s no record of it, you screwed it up, and now it’s lost for posterity. In any sport, whatever I was doing, it was call the play and feel free to say, ‘Gee folks, I guess I messed that up.'”

Starkey’s rule is why only one call of The Play truly resonates. There had been a local TV broadcast and a Stanford radio broadcast, but both cut off the call midstream, thinking there was no way the touchdown would count.

“The worst thing would be doing what the other broadcasts did,” Starkey said. “They wrote it off too soon.”

Starkey’s eyes locked on the officials. He theorized to the audience that Cal might have made a forward lateral during the return.

“It is louder than you can ever imagine,” Jim Starkey said. “Half the stadium, the red is not believing it, and the blue is saying, ‘It happened.’ You had the band on the field, all these bodies, and since I had binoculars, I saw [Moen] running into the end zone. But you still don’t know if it’s truly going to happen because it’s just chaos.”

The crew congregated around referee Charles Moffett, who confirmed Moen had crossed the goal line, that every lateral was legal and that the penalty was against Stanford for players and band members entering the field. Moffett raised his arms: Touchdown.

“I get kind of wacky and scream and yell,” Joe Starkey said.

He then delivered the famous summation of The Play: “The most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heartrending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football. California has won the Big Game over Stanford!”

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November 20th is the 40th anniversary of when Cal improbably took down Stanford and its band with an infamous kick return.

WHEN DIANE STARKEY saw her husband after he finished his postgame duties, she joked, “I bet you’re excited about this one.” But she could tell Joe, always the self critic, thought he’d left out too many details in the call. He had hit the emotional notes, but worried he missed something big. Then, Diane heard the replay.

“Amazing, unbelievable, I didn’t realize he knew that many adjectives,” said Diane, a longtime school teacher. “It was a true moment, full of real emotion, and people react to that. This man is so excited about the team he loves.

“He’s always been on the more emotional side of broadcasting.”

Starkey immediately recognized The Play and his call would resonate, but he thought it would be confined to the Bay Area or the West Coast. For a while, he was right.

Sports broadcasts were different in 1982. Media mechanics didn’t allow clips to go viral, even ones that would belong among the most famous playcalls in sports history.

But the elements and emotion attached to one of the most incredible unscripted sporting moments eventually broke through the media barriers of the time and reached a larger audience. The call also made Starkey into a celebrity.

Once, Starkey and Diane were vacationing in Tokyo when a Cal fan spotted him and said, “Oh, Joe Starkey, the band is on the field.” The same thing happened when they went to Athens.

“He’s been recognized in all sorts of places,” Diane said.

In 1987, Starkey and Diane took their youngest son Rob, then 11, on a summer trip to Italy and Greece. The vacation ended in Rome at the Cavalieri Hilton hotel. On a blisteringly hot day, Starkey’s wife and son decided to take a nap, so he grabbed a book and went down to the hotel pool.

While Starkey read poolside, the Rolling Stones, who were performing in Rome, and their families sat down next to him. Starkey and Charlie Watts, the Stones’ legendary drummer, struck up a conversation about the band’s tour through Europe.

“Then he says, ‘Ya know, mate, it really is hot, you want to go in the pool?'” Starkey said. “I said, ‘Hell yes.'”

They went to the shallow end of the pool and continued to talk more about music and the Stones, a passion for Starkey. As they chatted, Lou Ferrigno, the actor and bodybuilder, and star on the TV show “The Incredible Hulk,” joined them.

At this moment another man jumped into the pool and started swimming toward them. As he approached from the other side, Watts lamented that fans just wouldn’t leave them alone.

“The guy comes up to the three of us and says, ‘Aren’t you the Cal football announcer?'” Starkey said, laughing. “Charlie said, ‘What’s that all about?’ I said, ‘I broadcast college football. He’s obviously a Berkeley guy.’ I didn’t go into all the stuff about the laterals.

“He wouldn’t have cared. He’s from England.”

Soon after the 1982 Big Game, people began calling KGO radio, asking for tapes of The Play. As sports director, Starkey realized he couldn’t keep asking for copies to be sent out. Plus, since ABC owned the rights, there were legal hurdles to jump over before distributing.

Starkey approached KGO’s station manager with a plan: Transfer him the rights to The Play. He would arrange for the tapes to be produced and would sell them solely at the manufacturing cost.

“I said, ‘I guarantee you I will not do it for money, strictly for cost,'” Starkey said. “So he says, ‘Gimme a buck.’ So I’ve had the rights to The Play for 40 years for a dollar. It hasn’t made me a lot of money, but there have been commercials over the years where people wanted to use it and they had to pay me whatever rates.

“But it’s basically been my play.”

Jim Starkey understood his dad’s initial angst about the call.

“As a professional broadcaster, you’re always supposed to paint the picture, especially in radio, and he’s very studious about that,” Jim said. “He knows the numbers, he’s always very good about knowing both teams, and college teams have a lot of players. I think there are no names actually said in the [call].

“It was right for the moment, but if you look at it in a classroom, you’d probably say, ‘Not the way it’s supposed to go.'”

As the years went by, Starkey warmed up to his call. He now considers it his co-favorite, along with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Terrell Owens that lifted the 49ers past the Green Bay Packers in the 1999 NFL playoffs, a play known as “The Catch II,” after Dwight Clark’s original 17 years earlier.

The USA-Russia Olympic hockey call also sticks with Starkey, who “used a lot of the same adjectives” as he did for The Play.

“It was so unique,” Hutchins said. “It would have been easy for him to get carried away or to get lost, but he stayed in his broadcaster brain the whole way through that thing. It was kind of funny to me, my reaction versus his, but it was evidence and a testimony to just how professional he always was.”

The way Starkey described The Play jibed with his general broadcast style. He wasn’t a football lifer, like others in the booth. The Chicago native played second-string in junior college but had no football broadcasting experience before landing the Cal job in 1975. Starkey had worked in banking in Los Angeles and the Bay Area before breaking into sports broadcasting, his dream job.

“I tend to be a fan in moments like that, where I really kind of let it loose,” he said. “You hope you don’t lose the detail by just screaming and yelling, but I have no problem with being excited about a particular moment. There’s such exuberance and astonishment in the call.

“People get caught up in that and appreciate the pure drama of what was going on.”

Despite his initial angst about the call, Starkey embraces its significance, both personally and historically. The call is an identifier and an icebreaker — “Apparently nuns in convents know The Play,” he jokes — and so distinct that it will never be replicated.

Four decades later, Starkey’s call has a place in sports history, and has far exceeded his initial assessment.

“The things I said and didn’t say, I thought made sense after a while,” he said. “As the years went on, I realized, ‘No, that’s exactly the way you should have done it,’ to capture the excitement of the moment and the mystique that built up around it as this absolutely unique football play.”

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Stanford hires former Nike CEO Donahoe as AD

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August 2, 2025

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Stanford hires former Nike CEO Donahoe as AD

  • Seth Wickersham

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    Seth Wickersham

    ESPN Senior Writer

    • Senior Writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine
    • Joined ESPN The Magazine after graduating from the University of Missouri.
    • Although he primarily covers the NFL, his assignments also have taken him to the Athens Olympics, the World Series, the NCAA tournament and the NHL and NBA playoffs.

Jul 31, 2025, 11:10 PM ET

Stanford has hired former Nike CEO John Donahoe as the school’s new athletic director, the university announced Thursday.

Donahoe, 65, will arrive in the collegiate athletic director space with a vast swath of business experience, as Stanford officials viewed him as a “unicorn candidate” because of both his business ties and history at the school. Stanford coveted a nontraditional candidate for the role, and Donahoe’s hire delivers a seasoned CEO with stints at Nike, Bain & Company and eBay. He also served as the board chair of PayPal.

He also brings strong Stanford ties as a 1986 MBA graduate. He has had two stints on the Stanford business school’s advisory board, including currently serving in that role.

“My north star for 40 years has been servant leadership, and it is a tremendous honor to be able to come back to serve a university I love and to lead Stanford Athletics through a pivotal and tumultuous time in collegiate sports,” Donahoe said in a statement. “Stanford has enormous strengths and enormous potential in a changing environment, including being the model for achieving both academic and athletic excellence at the highest levels. I can’t wait to work in partnership with the Stanford team to build momentum for Stanford Athletics and ensure the best possible experiences for our student-athletes.”

Donahoe replaces Bernard Muir, who announced in February that he was stepping down after serving in that role since 2012. Alden Mitchell has been the school’s interim athletic director.

The hire is a head-turning one for Stanford, bringing in someone with Donahoe’s high-level business experience. And it comes at a time when the athletic department has struggled in its highest-profile sports, as football is amid four consecutive 3-9 seasons and the men’s basketball team hasn’t reached the NCAA tournament since 2014.

In hiring Donahoe, Stanford is aiming for someone who can find an innovative way to support general manager Andrew Luck and the football program while also figuring out a sustainable model for the future of Stanford’s Olympic sports.

“Stanford occupies a unique place in the national athletics landscape,” university president Jonathan Levin said in a statement. “We needed a distinctive leader — someone with the vision, judgment, and strategic acumen for a new era of college athletics, and with a deep appreciation for Stanford’s model of scholar-athlete excellence. John embodies these characteristics. We’re grateful he has agreed to lead Stanford Athletics through this critical period in college sports.”

Stanford’s Olympic sports remain the best in the country, as Stanford athletes or former athletes accounted for 39 medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. If Stanford were a country, it would have tied with Canada for the 11th-most medals. Stanford has also won 26 of the possible 31 director’s cups for overall athletic success in college, including a 25-year streak from 1995 to 2019.

School officials approached Donahoe in recent weeks about the position, with both Levin and former women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer among the chief recruiters. Donahoe has a long-standing relationship with both, as he maintained strong ties to the school throughout his career.

Sources said Luck will report to Donahoe. Luck spent time with him in the interview process and is excited to work with him, sources said. It’s also a change from the prior structure, as upon Luck’s hiring he had been slated to report to Levin.

“I am absolutely thrilled John Donahoe is joining as our next athletic director,” Luck said in a statement. “He brings unparalleled experience and elite leadership to our athletic department in a time of opportunity and change. I could not be more excited to partner with and learn from him.”

Stanford is set to begin a football season in which it is picked to finish last in the 17-team ACC. Former NFL coach Frank Reich is the interim coach, and both sides have made clear this is a definitive interim situation and that he won’t return after the 2025 season.

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Iowa State extends Campbell, bumps pay to $5M

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August 2, 2025

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Iowa State extends Campbell, bumps pay to M

  • Max OlsonAug 1, 2025, 04:59 PM ET

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    • Covers the Big 12
    • Joined ESPN in 2012
    • Graduate of the University of Nebraska

Iowa State and coach Matt Campbell have finalized a contract extension through 2032 after the winningest coach in program history led the Cyclones to their first-ever 11-win season in 2024.

Campbell will earn $5 million per year in total compensation, according to a copy of the contract obtained by ESPN on Friday. The three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year honoree took a discount on the deal, sources told ESPN, to ensure that his staff salary pool increased and to allow Iowa State to allocate an additional $1 million to revenue-sharing funds for its football roster.

Campbell earned $4 million in 2024 while leading the Cyclones to a Big 12 championship game appearance, an 11-3 record and a No. 15 finish in the AP poll. He’s entering his 10th season in Ames and has won a school record of 64 games during his tenure.

Colorado coach Deion Sanders will be the Big 12’s highest-paid head coach this year at $10 million after landing a five-year, $54 million contract extension in March. Campbell’s new salary will not rank among the top five in the conference, but he prioritized maximizing Iowa State’s ability to invest in its football roster following a historic season.

Campbell, 45, told ESPN in July at Big 12 media days that “probably our top 20 guys took a pay cut to come back to Iowa State” for 2025, relative to what they could’ve earned in NIL compensation by entering the transfer portal.

The head coach’s deal includes performance incentives based on the Cyclones’ regular-season record, starting at $250,000 for seven wins and climbing to $1.5 million for a 12-0 season. He’ll earn at least $100,000 for a Big 12 title game appearance and up to $500,000 for a Big 12 championship. The deal also permits him to distribute up to $100,000 of his performance incentive earnings each year to his football staff.

If Campbell accepts another Power 4 head coaching job before the end of his contract, his buyout would be $2 million. He would not owe liquidated damages if he departs for an NFL coaching opportunity. Campbell interviewed with the Chicago Bears in January during the organization’s head coaching search.

Campbell surpassed Dan McCarney as the program’s winningest head coach last season and has led the Cyclones to bowl games in seven of the past eight seasons, including a Fiesta Bowl victory and a top-10 finish in 2020.

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What you missed from college football recruiting this summer

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August 2, 2025

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What you missed from college football recruiting this summer

  • Eli LedermanAug 2, 2025, 07:33 AM ET

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      Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.

The busiest 60 days of the annual recruiting calendar are officially behind us. And while another four months still remain before the December early signing period, college football’s top programs have already wrapped up the majority of their business in the 2026 cycle.

Per ESPN Research, a total of 155 prospects in the 2026 ESPN 300 made commitments in an avalanche of summer recruiting business from June 1 to July 31. In the wake of that, only 16 uncommitteds remain in the ESPN 300 as of Saturday morning. Within that group are just nine top-100 recruits, with five-star defensive end Jake Kreul, No. 2 running back Savion Hiter and No. 2 defensive tackle Deuce Geralds among those expected to come off the board in August.

More settled by this point of the cycle than any other in recent memory, college football’s 2026 class is unfolding against the backdrop of yet another moment of change in the sport. The House settlement and earliest ebbs of college athletics’ revenue sharing era have already shaped the 2026 cycle, and their effects will continue to ripple across the class until February’s national signing day.

As the recruiting trail prepares to take a (relative) back seat to fall camp practices, here’s a look at how the cycle played out this summer and what could come next for the class of 2026:

Revenue sharing and a new era in recruiting

The House settlement, which now permits schools to pay their athletes directly, among other sweeping changes, officially took effect July 1.

But according to personnel staffers, agents, recruits and parents surveyed by ESPN this month on the condition of anonymity, byproducts of college football’s new reality and the initial revenue sharing cap of $20.5 million across all sports have been steering the 2026 cycle for months. “In the past, collectives would always say we’re only going to offer what we know we can pay you,” a player agent told ESPN. “Now programs know what the budget will be, and harder numbers were discussed earlier than usual. The ability for programs to get those numbers out there early was huge.” As schools prepared roster budgets and braced for post-settlement oversight this spring, a number of Power 4 programs began front-loading their 2025 rosters in the lead-up to July 1.

In some cases, that meant negotiating updated, pre-settlement contracts with transfers and current players, deals that will not count against the post-July 1 revenue share cap. In others, sources told ESPN that programs and collectives found workarounds on the recruiting trail, doling out upfront payments as high as $25,000 per month to committed recruits in the 2026 class, primarily through advantageous high school NIL laws that exist in states such as California, Oregon and Washington.

Those front-loading efforts helped several programs jump out to fast starts in the 2026 cycle. Per sources, the impending arrival of revenue sharing also played a significant role in speeding up the 2026 class this spring. With programs in position to present firmer financial figures, a flurry of elite prospects committed to schools on verbal agreements before July 1.

“People rushed to get deals done pre-House,” a Power 4 personnel staffer told ESPN. “You know there’s only so much money available, and schools let kids know that. The first one to say yes gets it.”

Friday loomed especially large in the short-lived history of the House settlement.

Per the settlement, Aug. 1 was the first official date rising seniors could formally receive written revenue share contracts from programs and NIL collectives, the latter of which will now operate under looser regulation from the newly founded College Sports Commission, per a memo sent to athletic directors on Thursday. Put another way, Aug. 1 was the first day committed prospects and their families could officially learn whether terms they had agreed to earlier this year were legit.

“We’re going to see how serious these schools are,” said the parent of an ESPN 300 quarterback. “I think we might see some kids decommit and find new schools this fall.”

Across the industry, sources believe programs will, for the most part, deliver on the verbal agreements. Multiple agents and personnel staffers told ESPN that a number of programs have also generally ignored the Aug. 1 stipulation across the spring and summer, presenting frameworks of agreements to prospective recruits or flouting the rule entirely. Another question hovering over the months ahead: How much will these agreements do to contain the annual shuffle of flips, decommitments and late-cycle drama in the 2026 class?

“These deals should keep things more in check,” another Power 4 personnel staffer said. “But I’m not naive to think some won’t flip. There’s some snakes out there.”

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0:46

No. 1 overall prospect Lamar Brown commits to LSU

No. 1 overall prospect Lamar Brown stays home and commits to play for the LSU Tigers.

Where do things stand with the 2026 five-star class?

Oregon offensive tackle commit Immanuel Iheanacho, No. 13 in the 2026 ESPN 300, initially planned to announce his commitment Aug. 5. But, like many of the 2026 five-stars who entered late spring still uncommitted, Iheanacho felt the heat of an accelerated market in June.

“There were a couple of schools I was looking at that asked me to commit early, really wanting to get me in their class,” Iheanacho told ESPN. “Oregon didn’t rush me at all.”

Even so, Iheanacho eventually shifted his commitment timeline forward more than a month. ESPN’s second-ranked offensive line prospect picked the Ducks over Auburn, LSU and Penn State on July 3, landing as one of 11 five-star recruits to commit between June 14 and July 20.

As of Saturday morning, only one of the record 23 five-star prospects in ESPN’s class rankings for 2026 remains uncommitted. LSU secured a class cornerstone and the highest-ranked pledge of the Brian Kelly era in No. 1 overall recruit Lamar Brown on July 10. Meanwhile, Florida (McCoy) and Texas A&M (Arrington) each landed a top-15 defender, Ojo landed a historic deal with Texas Tech, and Texas closed July with the most five-star pledges — four — in the country.

With Kreul, the skilled pass rusher from Florida’s IMG Academy nearing a decision from among Ole Miss, Oklahoma and Texas, ESPN’s 2026 five-star class could be closed out before Week 0.

No matter how it plays out from here, the cycle’s five-stars are already historically settled. As of Saturday morning, 95.6% of the five-star class is committed among 14 schools across the Power 4 conferences. Per ESPN Research, it’s by far the highest Aug. 1 five-star pledge rate in any cycle since at least 2020. Just over a decade ago, only six of the 20 five-stars (30%) in the 2015 cycle were committed on Aug. 1, 2014; nearly half the class committed after New Year’s Day.

Highest rate of five-star pledges by Aug. 1 since the start of the 2020 cycle

  • 2026: 95.6%

  • 2024: 76.1%

  • 2025: 72.7%

  • 2021: 66.6%

  • 2020: 58.8%

A number of factors — the early signing period, NIL, transfer portal, new rules around recruiting windows and on-campus visits — explain why elite recruiting continues to inch further and further from the traditional February signing day. Amid the fallout of the House settlement, the latest five-star class seemingly received another nudge this summer.

What’s left for the 2026 QB market after summer moves?

The last major quarterback domino in the 2026 class fell July 18 when four-star Landon Duckworth (No. 178 overall) committed to South Carolina. More than four months from the early signing period, the quarterback market in 2026 is effectively closed.

After Ryder Lyons (BYU), Bowe Bentley (Oklahoma) and Jaden O’Neal (Florida State) found homes in June, Duckworth was the last uncommitted ESPN 300 quarterback. Further down the class, several major programs across the Big Ten and SEC dipped into the flip market or outside the top 300 to secure their 2026 quarterback pledge(s) this summer.

Notable quarterback moves since June 1:

Oregon ended its monthslong chase for a quarterback pledge June 25 with former Boise State commit Beaver. One of the cycle’s top summer risers after a standout Elite 11 finals showing, Beaver landed with Ducks coach Dan Lanning and offensive coordinator Will Stein over interest Alabama, Auburn, LSU and Ole Miss in whirlwind, 13-day rerecruitment.

Alabama has five-star freshman Keelon Russell. But still repairing the program’s quarterback pipeline under coach Kalen DeBoer, the Crimson Tide added two pledges this summer between Thomalla — an Iowa State flip — and Kaawa. Across the state, Auburn and coach Hugh Freeze made their move June 26 flipping Falzone from Penn State before Ohio State (Fahey) and Kentucky (Ponatoski), another pair of quarterback-needy programs, landed pledges in July.

For now, the quarterback class is settled and only so many major programs are still searching in 2026.

Among the 68 Power 4 programs and Notre Dame, only 10 reached August without at least one pledge among the 106 quarterback prospects rated by ESPN: Colorado, Georgia Tech, LSU, Iowa, Iowa State, Maryland, Stanford, UCLA, Virginia Tech and West Virginia.

Who might still be looking within that group?

Colorado (Julian Lewis), Maryland (Malik Washington) and UCLA (Madden Iamaleava) each signed a top-300 quarterback in the 2025 class. With all three programs in the midst of roster rebuilds, none is likely to make a serious push at the position this fall.

With Garrett Nussmeier out of eligibility in 2025, and after the LSU lost No. 1 overall recruit Bryce Underwood to Michigan last fall, the Tigers remain a program to watch in the coming months.

What did ESPN’s top five classes do this summer?

The Trojans got the bulk of their work done on the trail this spring and began June with the most ESPN 300 pledges of any program nationally. That remains the case as USC has bolstered its top-ranked incoming class with five more ESPN 300 pledges over the past eight weeks, adding defenders Talanoa Ili (No. 54 overall), Luke Wafle (No. 104) and Peyton Dyer (No. 269), a July 4 pledge from No. 3 wide receiver Ethan “Boobie” Feaster (No. 25) and the commitment of highly regarded four-star offensive guard Breck Kolojay (No. 198) on Friday.

Can USC hold on to secure its first No. 1 class since 2013? Time will tell. Sources told ESPN that the Trojans’ biggest moves in the cycle are likely finished while the program continues to target the tight end and safety positions, but there’s still time for plenty more to unfold this fall.

The Bulldogs went for volume and quality this summer, collecting 19 commitments including 12 from inside the ESPN 300. Georgia continued to build around five-star quarterback Jared Curtis with five-star tight end Kaiden Prothro, top-50 offensive tackle Ekene Ogboko, running back Jae Lamar and pass catchers Brayden Fogle and Craig Dandridge. On the other side of the ball, defensive backs Justice Fitzpatrick, Chase Calicut and Caden Harris, and defensive tackle Pierre Dean Jr. rank among the newest arrivals in an increasingly deep Bulldogs defensive class.

Georgia’s summer wasn’t without a few major misses. Losing out to Texas on No. 1 outside linebacker Tyler Atkinson — a priority in-state target — stung. Top running back Derrek Cooper’s subsequent pledge to the Longhorns marked another blow, as did wide receiver Vance Spafford‘s decision to flip to Miami in late June. But the Bulldogs are loaded up once again on top during this cycle and will hit the fall in line to secure the program’s 10th straight top-three signing class for 2026.

The Aggies landed a key local recruiting win over Texas on June 17 with a commitment from No. 5 running back K.J. Edwards, the state’s No. 6 prospect in 2026. But Texas A&M’s summer of recruiting was defined on defense, where coach Mike Elko is building another monster class.

Five-star athlete Brandon Arrington, who will play defensive back in college, became the program’s top-ranked 2026 pledge on June 19. Behind him, the Aggies have added top-150 defenders Bryce Perry-Wright, Camren Hamiel and Tristian Givens, and top 300 linebacker Daquives Beck since June 1 to a defensive class that features nine ESPN 300 pledges.

Even after narrowly missing on top defenders Lamar Brown (LSU) and Anthony Jones (Oregon) in July, Texas A&M holds one of the nation’s deepest classes and appears poised to contend later this year for its first top-five class since the Aggies went No. 1 in 2022.

It was a five-star bonanza for coach Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns this summer.

It began with a late-June pledge from Oregon decommit Richard Wesley, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive end. From there, Texas went on to secure its latest pair of recruiting wins over Georgia last month, swooping in to land Atkinson on July 15 before earning Derrek Cooper’s commitment five days later. With No. 1 quarterback Dia Bell already in the fold, the Longhorns have as many five-star pledges in 2026 as the program signed across 11 classes from 2011 to 2021.

Top-50 offensive lineman John Turntine III marked a key addition July 4, and the Longhorns got deeper on defense with commitments from cornerback Samari Matthews and former Georgia defensive tackle pledge James Johnson. But the five-star moves have been the story for Texas this summer, and Sarkisian & Co. might not be done yet with the Longhorns heavily in the mix for Jake Kreul, the last remaining five-star in the 2026 class.

After a productive spring, the Irish landed five ESPN 300 pledges after June 1, plugging the few remaining holes in the program’s 2026 class with a series of elite high school prospects.

Notre Dame landed its top two defensive back commitments within hours of each other on June 20 with pledges from cornerback Khary Adams and Joey O’Brien. On June 26, the Irish secured their highest-ranked tight end commit since the 2021 class in four-star Ian Premer. And in early July, Notre Dame bolstered its wide receiver class with an infusion of talent and NFL pedigree, adding Kaydon Finley (son of Jermichael Finley), Brayden Robinson and Devin Fitzgerald (son of Larry Fitzgerald).

Notre Dame’s trip to last season’s national title game arrived amid the program’s steady rise on the recruiting trail under coach Marcus Freeman. That has continued in 2026, where the Irish are poised to sign more ESPN 300 pledges — 17 — than in any cycle since at least 2006.

Five programs poised to push for a top-five finish this fall

Current ESPN class ranking: No. 6

Only one program can match USC’s count of nine top-100 pledges in 2026: Alabama.

The Crimson Tide’s second class under coach Kalen DeBoer boomed in June and July as the Crimson Tide secured a slew of commitments on defense with five-star safety Jireh Edwards (No. 23 overall), No. 3 outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 30) and defensive ends Nolan Wilson (No. 53) and Jamarion Matthews (No. 92). Priority in-state offensive targets Ezavier Crowell (No. 31) and Cederian Morgan (No. 47) marked two more key additions this summer.

Alabama whiffed on another major in-state recruit Thursday when four-star outside linebacker Anthony Jones, the state’s No. 1 prospect in 2026, committed to Oregon. Jones represented one of the last elite targets on the Crimson Tide’s board. But Alabama has already flipped four Power 4 commits this summer and could continue to climb this fall as long as DeBoer and his staff remain active within the class from now to the early signing period.

Current ESPN class ranking: No. 11

LSU enters the month with ESPN’s No. 1 overall recruit, a five-star wide receiver in Tristen Keys (No. 10 overall) and 10 total ESPN 300 commits in the program’s incoming recruiting class.

How can the Tigers climb into the upper reaches of the 2026 cycle this fall? First and foremost, they have to hang onto Keys, ESPN’s No. 3 wide receiver. He has been committed to LSU since March 19, but that didn’t keep him from taking multiple official visits in the spring or shield him from serious flips efforts from Miami, Tennessee and Texas A&M this summer.

The Tigers’ battle to keep Keys could stretch all the way to the early signing period.

Sources expect LSU to ramp up its own flip efforts with in-state safety and Ohio State pledge Blaine Bradford (No. 34 overall) in the coming months. The Tigers are also finalists for Deuce Geralds and remain top contenders in the recruitments of offensive linemen Darius Gray (No. 73) and wide receiver Jase Mathews, both of whom are set to commit in August. LSU can’t be counted out from renewing its work in the 2026 quarterback this fall, either.

Current ESPN class ranking: No. 7

The defending national champs had a relatively quiet summer atop the 2026 cycle, adding only four ESPN 300 pledges highlighted by the in-state pledges of outside linebacker Cincere Johnson (No. 82 overall) and running back Favour Akih (No. 160). Fahey, ESPN’s No. 28 pocket passer, will pad Ohio State’s future quarterback depth after Air Noland‘s offseason transfer, too.

One priority target who could help push the Buckeyes over the edge is four-star prospect Bralan Womack (No. 32). Ohio State has been consistent a leader in the recruitment of ESPN’s No. 3 safety through the spring and summer, and coach Ryan Day & Co. will have to hold off late pushes from fellow finalists Auburn, Florida and Texas A&M from now until Womack’s Aug. 22 commitment date. The Buckeyes also remain involved in the recruitments of No. 2 running back Savion Hiter and Darius Gray, the nation’s 10th-ranked offensive lineman.

Current ESPN class ranking: No. 8

Wolverines coach Sherrone Moore has filled out his class with nine ESPN 300 pledges since June 1, headlined by top-100 defender Carter Meadows (No. 88 overall), who trails only quarterback Brady Smigiel (No. 44) among the top prospects pledged to Michigan in 2026.

Who could be next for the Wolverines? Michigan are finalists for ESPN 300 defenders Davon Benjamin (No. 63) and Anthony Davis Jr. (No. 299) with each set for a decision Saturday. More prominently, the Wolverines remain focused on Hiter (No. 24 overall), a top priority for the Michigan staff this summer whose commitment date is set for Aug. 19. The Wolverines also continue to be linked with Syracuse wide receiver pledge Calvin Russell (No. 28). ESPN’s No. 4 wide receiver closed a narrowing process with a commitment to the Orange on July 5, but sources expect Michigan and Miami to remain involved with Russell this fall.

Current ESPN class ranking: No. 10

No. 2 outside linebacker Anthony Jones committed to the Ducks on Thursday, joining five-stars Immanuel Iheanacho and Jett Washington in a string of high-profile pledges for Oregon this summer.

Insiders believe the Ducks have backed off at the very top of the 2026 class after spending in the 2025 cycle, but Jones’ pledge could be the first move in a late-summer surge for coach Dan Lanning. Oregon is viewed as the front-runner for both Deuce Geralds and Davon Benjamin as the pair of top-65 prospects prepare to announce their commitments Saturday afternoon. If the Ducks land both, Lanning & Co. could be in position to sign another top-five class by December.

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