Ranking the No. 1 college football recruits in the ESPN

7:00 AM ET Tom Luginbill Close Tom Luginbill ESPN Analyst Senior National Recruiting Expert for ESPN.com Coached in 4expert

• football leagues Finished from Eastern Kentucky and
• Marshall Craig Haubert Close Craig Haubert ESPN Personnel Author National recruiting expert and expert for ESPNU More than a years of college and pro coaching experience. Graduated from Indiana and Nebraska-Omaha Editor’s note: This story was originally published in
• June 2020. It has been upgraded with NFL data and the inclusion of recruits from the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022. Examining college

  football prospects has shown to be an inexact science. It’s incredibly tough to predict how 18-year-old high school players will adjust to all the unidentified variables at the college level.But No.

  1 talent level on tape will stick out to even the most unskilled scout in the space. Each of the players listed here dominated the high school landscape and had the physical skills and transferable talent to task highly as college prospects.We ranked our previous No. 1 prospects going back to the 2006 recruiting cycle, the first year ESPN started ranking employees.( We left out quarterback Malachi Nelson, the premier prospect in the Class of 2023, as his freshman season at Southern California has yet to start. )Some maximized the elite potential they revealed. Others stopped working to satisfy the lofty expectations set by the ESPN No. 1 general ranking– whether the talent bar was just set expensive, they didn’t have the best situations or the absence of intangibles was simply too difficult to mask when the

  competition stepped up. While some did not have that”it”factor, others had it to the greatest degree. In the case of Myron Rolle, those characteristics caused an even more impactful career off the field. South Carolina|Class of 2011 Clowney came out of South Pointe High in South Carolina as a 6-foot-6, 240-pound defensive end with an otherworldly initial step and the capability to be a dominant edge rush. After choosing South Carolina over Clemson and Alabama, Clowney was an effect player for the Gamecocks, earning SEC Freshman of the Year and All-SEC second-team honors in 2011

  .