CFB DeptHITS: Saturday, January 11
Our CFP final is set and we'll continue shining a light on positional portal updates with the defensive line next up. Also, we have another portal ranking tool to help you make sense of all of this...
Today, we’ll get you the big news from the portal and around college football and continue our series, checking in on the defensive line. Also, with so much player movement, we’ve created a tool to help make sense of it all. Since we have advanced player ratings for each team, we are able to do a “talent churn” rating and subsequent ranking for each. Understanding we are technically still less than halfway through the portal movement (47% to be exact), this is a live, dynamic ranking system that we will explain the purpose and algorithm that makes it different. Enjoy!
|||||| PORTAL SPOTLIGHT: DEFENSIVE LINE
DL Players Tracking: 470
DL Players Committed: 248 (53%)
Top 15 Defensive Linemen:
Notes: With 53% committed, like offensive line, the defensive line is the focus of a lot of coaching staffs looking to beef up in the trenches.
The top DL on our list is former UTSA Roadrunner Ronald Triplette, who committed to Georgia Tech may fly a bit under the radar with five sacks not exactly jumping off the page. Triplette grades out as a really good all-around player who will make plays against the run as well. A big pickup for the Yellow Jackets.
Washington State transfer DT David Gusta [16.4] is headed to Lexington. He chose not to follow his former head coach Jake Dickert to the ACC and Wake Forest, instead opting for the SEC and Kentucky. He will slot right in as a top force on the defensive line for Mark Stoops' unit.
Coastal Carolina transfer Clev Lubin announced his intentions to sign with Lousville. He absolutely dominated for the Chanticleers, with ten sacks and 27 hurries on the season.
EDGE Eric O'Neill is heading to Piscataway after his ascension to the top of the portal rankings at James Madison, via Long Island University. O'Neill put up eye-popping numbers in his one season at JMU, including 14 sacks and 38 hurries.
DT Santana Hopper is just one of a few solid defensive line pickups for the Green Wave this portal season. He joins a group that includes these fine gents:
View the full, live Tulane depth chart page here »
That is a perfect lead-in to our team-by-team positional rankings for the defensive line in the portal. It is important to note that these are just strictly portal coming and goings, not total defensive line rankings and also does not include graduates/NFL entries. We’ll have that full-on analysis when the dust settles and when we put our our “State of the Chart” publication (teaser).
TOP FIVE DL PORTAL SQUADS:
Mississippi State +73.6
North Texas +67.4
Wake Forest +51.9
Oklahoma State +49.9
Texas Tech +45.8
Tulane comes in at 17th (+28.4). They are losing two solid players, Matthew Fobbs-White [15.1] (Baylor) and Parker Petersen [13.5] (Wisconsin), thus the reason they are not in our top five here.
BOTTOM FIVE DL PORTAL UNITS:
Tulsa -62.6
Appalachian State -70.8
Alabama -71.8
Louisiana Tech -74.0
Coastal Carolina -76.6
|||||| OTHER PORTAL NEWS TO KNOW
Miami (FL) ::: As expected, it didn't take long for QB Carson Beck [16.3] to announce his plans for where he will suit up for 2025. And, as expected, it's Miami. A deal was clearly in place before Beck made his announcement and now we know for sure. The 'Canes could not have hand-picked a better replacement for Cam Ward and will get a year from Beck while they make their plans for the future.
Ole Miss ::: RB Jordon Simmons [13.8] is heading back to the power four level after a season at Akron, joining the stable of backs at Ole Miss. He started his career at Michigan State before heading to the Zips, where he ran 112 time for 672 yards and two scores. With Ulysses Bentley IV and likely Henry Parrish Jr. moving on, there will be some carries to fight for. The Rebels already added a promising youngster from Mizzou, Kewan Lacy, earlier this cycle.
Virginia Tech ::: The Hokies pick up high-upside WR Donavon Greene [12.7] from Wake Forest. Greene battled injuries and missed the entirety of 2023, thus giving him a medical waiver and one more year. He missed a portion of the season this year too, playing in eight games, catching 23 passes for 359 yards and three scores. A solid contributory piece who has shown the ability to have big games.
California ::: The Golden Bears get a good one in WR Jacob De Jesus [14.6] from UNLV to be a third option with Jonathan Brady [13.0] and Tobias Merriweather [11.9] likely to return. De Jesus operated primarily out of the slot (70% slot snaps) but can move outside if needed. A solid addition to this corps after the depth of the group has been compromised by Nyziah Hunter (Nebraska) and Mikey Matthews (UCLA) moving on.
Virginia ::: The Cavaliers lock up OL Monroe Mills [15.8] for their 2025 offensive line as he moves from Louisville to Charlottesviille. Mills can play either tackle spot and brings a veteran presence to this re-built UVA offensive line. This is his fourth (and final) school in his collegiate career.
West Virginia ::: A solid pickup on defense for Rich Rod and the Mountaineers as LB Chase Wilson [13.3] signs on board. He played last year at Colorado State where he started the past two seasons and really took a big jump in player-level ratings (via PFF). He has one year of eligibility remaining.
North Carolina ::: Bill Belechick and company aren't going to go after just anybody in the portal. They are looking to hand select the ones they want. One of them is S Coleman Bryson [13.5] from Minnesota. He joins Gavin Gibson [13.4] (ECU) as two additions in the secondary as this staff is building up their first roster in Chapel Hill.
|||||| PORTAL TOOLS AT CFBDEPTH.COM
With so much news coming across every day from the portal and more than 2,700 players to track, we have tools to help you make some sense of it all.
1.) Many of you know of our “Portal Tracker” which features all of the players in the portal, their ratings, signing statuses, years of eligibility remaining and even high-level recruiting information. You can sort and filter however you so choose to find what you are looking for.
2.) NEW! We’ve added aggregated Portal Rankings with our “Team Portal Rankings” tool. This uses a weighted system to rank the overall impact the portal is having on talent levels for all 136 (yes, Missouri State and Delaware are included) teams. This algorithm utilizes the player ratings as a base. Then, it excludes any players that are not expected to see the field (below replacement level) and then weights based on the positional depth at a particular school. The goal is to get a good understanding of who has more (and less) to work with on a whole. We have these broken out by offense and defense as well.
3.) COMING SOON! We break it down even further for you as we have alluded to positional rankings in our last couple of portal spotlights here on the HITS. We will soon be launching each position group to see the impact at an even more granular level. We’ll let you know when that is up and running.
That’s our (portal) show for today. We’ll have more for you after a day off tomorrow. We are working on quite a few updates for the site and are planning out our off-season “State of the Chart” update series and will get you more information on all that fun stuff here soon. Thanks for following along and please consider subscribing (if you have not yet) and spreading the word about our little endeavor. Thank you.
