This Sentell’s Intel rep takes a look at what recruiting rankings will even mean two or three years from now. It also advances a theory about what constitutes a championship-caliber roster moving forward into the college football playoff era.

There will be a time later this fall when a play-by-play broadcaster or color analyst describes an Alabama football team or the Georgia football roster in broad strokes.

They will call upon recruiting rankings and an established tradition of on-field success. Maybe even NFL developmental pipelines. They will quickly chalk those two power programs up as football factories.

They should be a powerhouse. Look at how they’ve recruited over the last few years.

That is now only half of it. Or maybe just a third.

There’s no greater example than the Tide. Alabama is the only program that can say it has recruited as well as the Bulldogs over the last five cycles. The last four cycles matter because - despite NFL early entries from the 2021 classes - the players from those classes will anchor the hopes of contenders vying to reach the first 12-team college football playoff.

The recruiting rankings will say that the ‘Dawgs and the Tide have few peers when it comes to assembling a championship-caliber roster. Just take a look:

Those look sporty, right? Those metrics fuel those quick-hit impressions that Alabama and Georgia should win because they sign the nation’s best year in and year out.

But they don’t matter the way they used to.

Nick Saban’s departure has made the Alabama roster look like The Exxon Valdez. Talent spilling out everywhere.

The Tide’s 2023 recruiting class is a prime example. Kadyn Proctor portaled off to Iowa. Caleb Downs is now at Ohio State. Desmond Ricks chose Texas A&M. That’s three of the five-highest-rated players in that class. Alabama signed a whopping nine prospects with a 5-star rating in that class. There are now six left.

When anyone says Alabama had the nation’s No. 1 signing class in 2023, that won’t matter as much anymore. The 247Sports “Class Calculator” feature now gives UGA the edge in terms of the talent remaining from each signing class still at each program.

That full ‘Bama class is no longer intact after an exodus of 19 players who hit the portal after Saban retired.

That roster bleed came after a wave of Alabama players already hit the portal after the 2023 season. Georgia transfer Jake Pope was one of those who took leave before Saban’s historic news was known.

Playoff contender status now means the following:

Georgia’s 2024 team will be anchored by an offensive line rotation that will feature three players who signed with the ‘Dawgs in 2021. The upcoming season will be the first big slab of gameday reps for two of those ‘Dawgs.

It is getting harder and harder to keep guys like that around. Georgia signed five OLs in its 2022 class, but only two of those are still with the team.

Check out this table of subtraction from those lofty Alabama’s signing classes.

The numbers for the 2020 and 2021 classes are outliers. The elite signees from those classes are not expected to be around for five seasons. That 2020 class still benefits from the historic pandemic eligibility exemption for the 2020 season.

When they make their college decisions, we never hear a prospect say for the next four or five years, they will be taking their talents to (insert NCAA Big Fish here) before they are off to the NFL. The expectation for every All-American is three to four seasons.

That is not just a Saban retirement thing. The numbers for Georgia over that same span also reflect life at the top.

The players typically migrate after they’ve yet to garner significant reps over their first two seasons. Or they are so successful they leave for the NFL after their junior or redshirt junior years.

The Georgia case here will reflect a measure of positivity for the program. It just inversely affects the on-field roster for the upcoming season.

The Bulldogs have now seen 20 percent of their 2021 class declare early entry for the NFL. The 2020 class will have six Bulldogs back for 2024, but that group has also sent nine of their 25 signees (36 percent) to the NFL.

Want to see what those figures look like for another NCAA whale? Check out the Ohio State attrition rates for its signing classes from 2020-204.

The Buckeyes are the only team that can say their recruiting classes have finished in the top five in each of the last five cycles along with Alabama and Georgia. Texas is the only other program that has had a Top 5 class in at least three of those five cycles.

Ohio State is a major 2024 contender for a lot of reasons. It already had one of the nation’s top programs and a championship-grade roster.

The Buckeyes also won the transfer portal national championship by not only bringing in key starters from other schools but also retaining their top draft-eligible juniors. They kept six of the eight highest-rated players from their 2021 class away from either the NFL or the transfer portal.

The Big Ten power has also maintained its 2022 recruiting class better than both Alabama and Georgia.

2022 signing class retention rates:

Ohio State (21 signees): 66 percent

Georgia (30 signees): 53 percent

Alabama (25 signees): 48 percent

That’s a key layer of mature talent that most teams won’t have next season.

Bud Elliott of 247Sports has offered up a novel way to look at championship rosters over the years by advancing a “blue-chip ratio” that all contenders must hit to get that confetti shower after their last game.

Perhaps a “blue-chip retention ratio” is now another way to look at it.

How do those figures stand out nationally? That’s the next area we chose to take a look at.

Did you know the weekly DawgNation.com "Before the Hedges" program is available as an Apple podcast? Click to check it out and download it.

The Class 2022: It is hard to keep those signees together in the portal era

Quarterback used to be the only position where the migration of elite talent was the norm.

The retention rate for 5-star QBs sticking with the team they chose coming out of high school has kept dropping. The Athletic published a report earlier this year that studied the careers of the top 50 high school quarterbacks who signed with FBS programs in the recruiting classes of 2017 through 2020.

That research saw that 70 percent of those prospects transferred away from their original school. Their figures placed that elite QB transfer rate for another period just prior to that.

The Class of 2021 has now seen four of its top five QBs transfer out. The 2022 class is an outlier with all five of the top QBs sticking with their school. The Class of 2023 has already seen two of the top five signal callers transfer out.

Yet that transfer culture no longer feels like a position-specific thing in the NIL era.

The 2022 class seems like a good gauge because that’s a good way to

Take a look at the retention rates for the schools that finished in the top 10 on the 247Sports Team Composite rankings for the 2022 cycle. Pay close attention to the five highest-rated classes listed below.

*- Includes a medical retirement

There are a few takeaways to note. The attrition rates nationwide are much lower compared to the SEC. Texas A&M, Alabama and Georgia were the only SEC teams that finished with Top 10 classes in 2022.

What that big SEC three did in that cycle was staggering.

Those schools signed 24 of the nation’s top 50 prospects and 44 of the nation’s top 100. There seemed to be greater attrition for those rosters with 15 of their top 36 signees portaling off to other programs. Those players were all at least Top 150 nationwide prospects.

The classes for the five schools that ranked Nos. 6-10 nationally only signed eight of the nation’s top 50 and 16 of the top 100. Those programs also only lost a combined eight signees that ranked among the top 12 highest-rated signees at each program.

Now compare that to the attrition rates for the top eight classes from the SEC in that cycle.

It is fair to expect that roughly 15 to 25 percent of every class won’t make it to their third season. That will cover catch-all factors like the accuracy of the prospect’s evaluation, changes in family life, or a medical issue leading to early retirement. There might also be a logjam at a prospect’s position. That has been the normal attrition rate over the years.

But this era for the SEC is something else entirely. The transfer portal era combined with the lure of immediate eligibility for first-time transfers has produced roster churn in both directions. Perennial Top 20 teams are looking for solid players to spackle in their roster holes. They are looking to programs lower on the Power 5 food chain.

Those same middle-of-the-road schools are also intrigued by talented players who have yet to see the field for the big fish contenders. There are also cases where a player has shown their worth at a G5 school and the bigger teams come calling. That big transfer portal addition then forces other players down the depth chart to look for a better situation of their own.

Perhaps a player hasn’t developed the way the team they signed with expected them to. That has led their school to look to the high school ranks for players with higher ceilings to restart that developmental process.

There’s a reason why Kirby Smart has lamented over the last few months that it seems like roster management is now a year-to-year thing. He realizes the lay of the land.

Smart shared his view recently that transfers can arrive with bad habits that they picked up from their previous stop. The two-time national championship coach has also said if a player has yet to make a significant contribution after their second or third season with a program, it makes sense for them to look to continue their career elsewhere.

That’s disappointing. It used to be the number of vets in the starting lineup that have been with the program for three or four seasons was an easy way to tell which roster was superior. They’d been with the program for multiple seasons getting bigger, faster and stronger in the weight room. They guys had also absorbed all they could in games, on the practice field and in the film room.

A clear edge could be found if those mainstays were on the offensive and defensive lines. The adage of big people winning games was amplified even further when one team had more big people who were 21, 22 and 23 years old.

That’s becoming harder and harder to do these days. It will only get harder to stockpile players like that in the years to come.

We also discussed this topic on the latest “Before the Hedges” program below.

Have you subscribed to the DawgNation YouTube channel yet? If so, you will be able to see special 1-on-1 content with key 2024 prospects like Daniel Calhoun, Dwight Phillips Jr., Dylan Raiola and Sacovie White.

SENTELL'S INTEL

(check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)