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  • Paolo Uggetti, ESPNAug 16, 2024, 08:00 AM ET

EUGENE, Ore. — The first thing Dan Lanning notices when I step into his office is my shoes.

“You’re wearing Reeboks in here, man?” he says, pointing at my Club C sneakers. Lanning, of course, is in head-to-toe Nike. He smiles. “Don’t worry, I won’t get you in trouble with anyone.”

When he was a high school PE teacher and assistant with a desire to coach at a Division I level, it’s safe to say Lanning never thought it would happen in Eugene. But now that he’s here, it doesn’t take much to see how comfortable he is.

Eugene is removed and quiet, while the presence of the university permeates the entire city. It has the passionate fan base that Lanning has experienced at SEC schools before, the national Nike appeal and the resources of a powerhouse ready to do the most important thing: win.

At 38 years old, Lanning’s position is unique. Not only is he one of the youngest head coaches in college football, but he and his team find themselves squarely in the center of the sport. The Ducks are ranked No. 3 in the AP preseason poll, are the second-favorite to win the Big Ten and are expected to not just make the 12-team College Football Playoff, but make a run at a title. Their recruiting is one of the best in the country and their name, image and likeness prowess, fueled by Nike founder and Oregon booster Phil Knight, seems to be the envy of the sport.

This is exactly what Lanning wanted. This is what he has prepared the past 14 years for. This is why, when his former boss Nick Saban retired at the end of last season, Lanning — who was rumored to be one of the top choices for the Alabama job — didn’t entertain the position.

“I feel like I have the things necessary here to win. So how much money does a person need to make? What do you really need in your life?” Lanning said. “For me, I want to be in a place where I can win championships. I feel like we’re close to that here. And then there is a level of loyalty to people that gave you an opportunity. Why should anybody ever trust me again if I, if I do leave here for something else?”

Oregon, perhaps more than any other program in recent years, knows the feeling well of being left behind for something else.

Lanning, like many young coaches, is an amalgamation of his previous experiences and thus, the previous head coaches who gave him those crucial opportunities — a list that includes Saban, Todd Graham, Mike Norvell and Kirby Smart. He has also had nearly every job you can have in the sport — from graduate assistant, to recruiting coordinator, to special teams coach, to defensive coordinator.

It has all positioned him perfectly for what today’s college football coaches have to be: a CEO-type with an ability to oversee an entire program without losing a keen eye for detail. Lanning’s youth is matched by his confidence, variety of experiences and ability to draw people in. A former coach he worked with said he’s “as comfortable in a room with a $20 million donor as he is with the third-string linebacker.”

“He’s got a lot of experience for a 38-year-old,” said Graham, who first hired Lanning when he was the head coach at Pittsburgh. “[Oregon has] a synergy with him and he’s just getting started. This guy, he isn’t even close to reaching his potential.”

ONE COULD CALL it bold. Others could argue it was ludicrous. Even now, 13 years later, Lanning would simply deem it necessary.

That’s how he found himself inside his truck, blaring old CDs, drinking Mountain Dew and rolling the windows open to stay awake as he sped east down Interstate 70 on a 13-hour road trip from Kansas City to Pittsburgh. Whatever scenery may have wallpapered the overnight journey that cut through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio into Pennsylvania was mostly invisible. Lanning was heading toward his future in the dark.

“There was certainly a lot of intent,” Lanning said. “I was dreaming big. I wanted to be part of a Division I staff.”

Lanning didn’t have a glowing résumé. He was a 24-year-old high school teacher and an assistant at Park Hill South High School in North Kansas City who coached defensive backs, special teams and wide receivers. It was mid-January and school was in session, so Lanning had taught class earlier that day and once the school day was over, he got in his car and started to drive.

No one knew he was coming, but Lanning knew why he was going there. Graham, the former Tulsa coach — whom Lanning had met multiple times when attending coaching clinics at the school — had just taken the Pittsburgh head-coaching job. Lanning saw an opening, if ever so small, to make his move.

“For me, it was like this little sliver of hope,” Lanning said. “Like this might be my only opportunity.”

The feeling Lanning carried with him throughout the trip, the feeling that he kept coming back to even as he was tired or questioned what he was doing, even as he had to stop at a gas station near campus to change into a suit or park half a mile away to try to, as Lanning explained, “sneak,” into the facility, was not either success or failure, but rather regret.

“I just didn’t want to be the guy that was sitting on his recliner 15 years later saying, ‘Man, what if I would’ve just got my car and drove to Pittsburgh?'” Lanning said. “The whole drive there, it was kind of the same thought. I never really spent any time thinking about, this might not work out. I just wanted to think about, ‘If I don’t do this, how much will I regret it?'”

Lanning got to Pittsburgh around 5 a.m. and made it all the way to the Pitt lobby before a graduate assistant, Eric Thatcher, told him the bad news: The coaches were at a clinic at Penn State. Lanning would have to wait a little longer. He got a room at the local Spring Hill and returned the next day to meet with defensive coordinator Keith Patterson. Lanning made an immediate impression on him, as well as on Graham.

Above all, Graham remembered Lanning’s persistence, which led him and Patterson to allow Lanning to stick around and volunteer. The door was now ajar — Lanning drove all the way back to Kansas City and resigned from his high school job the same day.

“He’d saved money for a year to do this, and his wife stayed in Kansas City. He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Graham said. “Then he immediately starts outworking everybody in the building.”

On a staff that included current Florida State coach Mike Norvell, Lanning quickly impressed those around him and made the leap from volunteer to intern to graduate assistant in three months.

“There was never a task that was too small for him,” Norvell said. “He never went through the motions. I knew if I was ever to get the opportunity to be a head coach, he is definitely a guy that I wanted on my staff.”

Lanning looks back at Pitt as not just an opportunity but a wake-up call. He learned how much he didn’t know, he “failed a ton” and realized that his journey would require patience, effort and a whole lot of learning. Just six months into working with Lanning, Graham knew his assistant had the ingredients to achieve his lofty goal: becoming a Division I head coach and winning a national title.

The overnight dash to Pittsburgh had gotten Lanning in the building, but it was his work there that earned him a job as a GA — and eventually as a recruiting coordinator — at Arizona State when Graham took the head-coaching job there in 2012. Even as a grad assistant, Lanning would be bold enough to make suggestions in meetings based on his own film study. Some coaches on staff were bothered by it. Soon though, even the veterans came to respect his suggestions.

“Coaches don’t like that. They don’t like young, hotshot guys,” Graham said. “And then after a year, everybody in the building loves this guy. So not only does he have the work ethic, but he has the talent. And what I mean by talent, to me, coaching is relationships and there’s no one better than him at relationships in my opinion.”

After those two years as a graduate assistant and recruiting coordinator at Arizona State, Lanning got his first full-time job as a defensive backs coach and co-recruiting coordinator at Sam Houston State. Graham, who credited Lanning for the defense ASU played over his two seasons there, still rues allowing him to leave.

“Dumbest thing I ever did was let him do that,” Graham said. “I should have fired somebody and hired him. I should have hired him there and kept him there. Then he goes from there to Alabama as a GA and then goes to Memphis. And then I offered him the defensive coordinator job. Heck, I’d probably still be at Arizona State if he’d have taken it.”

But Graham knows there was nothing he could have done to keep Lanning around for long. This was just the beginning.

DESPITE WHAT HE told Graham when he was in his mid-20s, Lanning’s mindset has changed over the years.

When his wife, Sauphia, was diagnosed with bone cancer in late 2016 while he was the inside linebackers coach at Memphis, Lanning’s focus shifted away from his head-coaching dreams and toward his family.

By the time he got the job offer to be the outside linebackers coach at Georgia in 2018, Sauphia was cancer-free. Lanning took over as defensive coordinator a year later and he now admits that he relished that position and enjoyed it to the point where he was satisfied if he never became a head coach.

“But those opportunities came,” Lanning said. At the end of 2021, Lanning took the first head-coaching job of his career at Oregon. “I didn’t want to become a head coach where I couldn’t be great, where I couldn’t compete for championships, where I could be ahead of the curve. I was at a point at Georgia where I wasn’t going to leave for a place that I didn’t feel I could do it. Oregon checked all those boxes.”

Everything before had prepared him for this. Lanning’s résumé doubles as an ideal graduate program for anyone wanting to be a head coach. One year at Alabama under Saban. Two years at Memphis under Mike Norvell. Three years at Georgia under Kirby Smart.

“Dan is a sponge. I don’t think Dan does everything exactly like I did it. I don’t think he does everything exactly like Nick did it, but I think he’s taken the best of every situation he’s been in,” Graham said. “I think he is a combination of those people, and the one thing that I think is his secret to his sauce to what he does, the guy learns. He is a learner and once he learns it, he’s got it.”

It doesn’t take much to see that certain standard play out in Eugene. From Saban, he learned “robotic consistency” to the day-to-day, which now plays out in how Oregon approaches practices, which are planned down to almost the second with no time being wasted. From Smart, he learned how to adapt defensive personnel in the middle of games depending on what the opponent was doing. From Norvell, Lanning — a defensive coach — learned about the offensive side of the ball, which is now under his purview at Oregon.

It’s not just the variety of coaches Lanning has worked under, but also the plethora of jobs he has held. Lanning says he prided himself on finding the jobs nobody else wanted to do and excelling at them. He knew, even back then, those experiences would help him when he ascended to his goal of being a head coach.

“It has just shaped him into the head coach he is today, which is a guy who can do it all if he needed to,” Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein said. “If every coordinator was out sick, or at some crazy emergency, Dan could call the offense, defense and special teams, call the whole game on his own. If the recruiting department was all out for some reason, he could run the recruiting department too. No job is too big for Dan … he’d sweep the floors if he had to.”

Current players and assistants alike rave about Lanning’s ability to connect with people. His personality — a cocktail of focus, intensity and drive — creates a magnetism that is palpable any time you speak with anyone else wearing Oregon colors.

“I think he connects well with the players because he’s not like a grandpa,” quarterback Dillon Gabriel said. “I think he does a damn good job of being real. He is able to be vulnerable with us and that allows us to be vulnerable, which makes you gain confidence in one another and get closer.”

“He’s the same guy every day, never too high, never too low,” Stein said. “He’s always in the middle. When your leader, when your boss is the consistent person in the building, everyone strives to match his intensity and knowledge.”

Lanning isn’t doing anything groundbreaking in being able to relate to players while also coaching them hard. But as Graham and Norvell point out, those two go hand in hand. And it’s the combination of Lanning’s personality with his football acumen and competitive determination that makes him unique.

“Plenty of people get opportunities and don’t capitalize,” Norvell said. “But you take work ethic and intelligence, that’s a good recipe for success, and that’s who Dan is.”

THERE IS A game that is embedded deep in Lanning’s memory and it’s not one when he coached in any capacity.

It was 2004 and a teenage Lanning was a senior tight end and defensive end for Richmond High School in Missouri. His team was playing local rival Harrisonville in a semifinal matchup, and Lanning can still recall how Harrisonville ran a reverse in the first half for a touchdown that helped its team secure the win.

“After the game, you got your jersey and your pants ’cause it was your senior year, and it’s the end,” Lanning said. “And my pants are still stained with blue from the paint from their field. So yeah, I remember the losses a little more than the wins.”

Lanning’s competitive nature takes on many forms. Plenty of his players have experienced it in practice. Others have felt the force of it while playing cornhole.

“We were at his house eating and he came up to me and he was like, ‘I need a cornhole partner. Can you be my partner?'” sophomore quarterback Dante Moore said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know, Coach, I don’t know if I’m that good.’ He looked at me, he was like, ‘Nah, I don’t want you on my team then.'”

Recently, Gabriel became acquainted with Lanning’s competitive nature on the golf course when the coach invited him out to play nine holes after workouts.

“I started with a par 4. I made par and he doubled bogey, but he got competitive, so s— started getting serious,” Gabriel said. “I messed up beating him on the first hole, I’ll tell you that because then he started playing lights out.”

The dedication to succeed and the sheer distaste for failure that runs through Lanning also runs through this Oregon team. Despite the 22 wins over the past two seasons, the two losses to rival Washington still live inside Lanning’s mind, not as regrets but as learning experiences.

“I think you’re going to not always have success,” Lanning said. “But when you feel like you can control it, that’s the part that always bothers me. If there’s something that I can do to control it to make it a little bit better, that’s the part that I want to improve.”

Despite losing Bo Nix to the NFL, Oregon has improved this offseason. The Ducks are returning several starters on both sides of the ball and have added a slew of talent through the portal, including six former four-star prospects and one five-star. Not only did they get Gabriel through the portal, but also Moore as a potential quarterback of the future to account for one of the five best recruiting classes in 2024. And look beyond this season, the Ducks should have at least one of the 10 best in 2025.

Oregon’s ability to lure talent is about its recent success, it’s about having Lanning at the helm and the ability to win at a high level, but it is also about the program’s resources. It is no secret that 86-year-old Phil Knight wants Oregon to win a championship and has provided the program with ample resources to do just that. Even Lanning’s former boss has chimed in on the topic recently.

“I wish I could get some of that NIL money [Knight’s] giving Dan Lanning,” Smart said at SEC media days.

When asked about Smart’s comments in July, Lanning had his answer ready.

“I’m glad he’s paying attention to what we got going on out here,” Lanning said. “I think that’s great that they think so highly of Nike like we do. I think he’s just poking the bear a little bit.”

As he leans back in his chair inside his office, Lanning’s knowing grin speaks volumes. Even after just two years, Lanning has made a home in and out of the Oregon facility. He isn’t just comfortable here but also content. All of this made it easier for him to not flinch when the Alabama job opened up and his name was immediately thrown around like a football at Thanksgiving. Lanning said he never even entertained it.

“When you make decisions before opportunities arise, I think it’s really easy,” Lanning said. “And my family and I made a decision a long time ago, this will be, for us, the last place that we coach …. That means I have to win.”

Whether he wants it or not, Lanning is now Eugene’s beloved son. Unlike Mario Cristobal and Willie Taggart before him, Lanning has stayed. He hasn’t used Oregon as a launching pad but rather viewed it as a destination.

“He’s wanted it his entire life. That was his mission,” Graham said. “I wouldn’t worry about Dan going anywhere else unless he wins three or four national championships or something and then he might want to go win a Super Bowl.”

Even though he is only two years into his head-coaching career, it’s clear to Lanning, more than anyone, he is exactly where he needs to be. The only thing left to do now is win.

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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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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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