Rivals.com Mid-South recruiting analyst Marshall Levenson addresses Arizona State‘s recruiting, the wide receiver big board and the recruitments of two Texas quarterbacks.
MORE LEVENSON: Mid-South programs off to surprisingly strong starts in 2025 class
#Texas2Tempe
Since Kenny Dillingham took over the Arizona State program in 2023, one of the biggest recruiting efforts from the staff in Tempe has been to reel in Texas prospects, coining the popular social media hashtag, #Texas2Tempe. The initiative has been a successful one from the start.
In 2023, the Sun Devils, between the transfer portal and high school recruiting, landed 11 players that played high school football in Texas. In last year’s cycle, the 2024 class, they brought in eight total players from Texas. Already in the 2025 class, Arizona State holds commitments from three Texas-based prospects in four-star wide Adrian Wilson, three-star Joseph Smith and three-star Xavier Skowron. The three commits are half the class of six pledges for the Sun Devils.
Dillingham and his staff are certainly not looking to be done in the state for the 2025 class.
The staff in Tempe has offered more than 70 prospects in the state of Texas in the 2025 cycle. If the past two years tell us anything, they will also look to land players around the country out of the portal who played their high school football in the Lone Star State.
Several Texas-based prospects to be on the lookout for taking official visits to Arizona State are three-star wide receiver Carterrious Brown, three-star safety Joseph Albright, four-star linebacker Jonathan Cunningham and three-star linebacker Ke’Breion Winston.
When will the wide receivers come off the board?
Looking around the positional rankings, the commitments are starting to fill in for most positions. Wide receiver, though, seems particularly blank at this point in the year. Of the top-50 wide receivers in the 2025 class, only 14 of them have committed. Just 28-percent of the top 50 has chosen a school. Looking at the quarterbacks, for pro-style, 21 of the top 25 prospects are off the board. For dual-threat, 11 of the top 15 have committed. So with a majority of the quarterbacks in place around the country, why have the receivers not yet done the same?
Running backs and tight ends are both at least 50-percent committed among the top 20 at each position. Only three wide receivers in the top 20 have committed: Five-star Dakorien Moore (LSU), four-star Dallas Wilson (Oregon) and four-star Adrian Wilson (Arizona State).
We will likely see a large number of wide receiver start to go off the board during the summer months as official visits take place. There is also a good chance, once some dominoes fall at the position in the coming months, others will react with commitments to secure spots in a class, or take advantage of a spot becoming open.
The potential dominoes of Ty Hawkins and Keelon Russell
Despite four-star quarterbacks Ty Hawkins and Keelon Russell being committed to TCU and SMU, respectively, their recruitments seem to just be heating up.
Both signal callers have had phenomenal winters and early springs, both seeing their stock rise tremendously. As such, both are hearing from outside programs, and while some offers have not been dished out yet, they are very much on recruiting boards.
For Hawkins, the two programs to keep an eye are Alabama and Oregon. The Ducks, who have offered, have been in contact for some time. The Tide have been a new addition to the mix in the early months of 2024, but have not offered yet. Both programs pose a real threat to TCU.
For Russell, there are several schools entering the mix. Texas and Florida are the two biggest names to know at this time. The Alabama staff has been in contact with Russell as well. An interesting one is Texas A&M, which could potentially continue to pursue him despite recently landing four-star Husan Longstreet.
For both quarterbacks, any move they make could cause major dominoes to fall around the country, especially at the quarterback position. If flips do take place, it will cause certain programs to move onto their next choices and will leave spots open at two power conference programs.
MORE: QB dominoes
