D1 High School Recruiting Class Rankings - 2021

Hey, team, thanks for joining me today. And if you're new here, my name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division I college coach and recruiter. And now I help talented high school athletes reach the next level and play in college. And in today's video, we're going to be going over the Division 1 college baseball recruiting rankings for the 2021 class. So that is the student athletes that just got on campus. They're technically four freshmen on campus. And why is this ranking important? Because it's the official ranking. So there's rankings for 2022s and 2023s, but that's changing all the time because either kids are changing schools or, you know, they decide they don't want to play baseball anymore and a number of different reasons why. But once the, the players are on campus, it's solidified, right? It's solidified. So they have these rankings and it's kind of fun. But it's also, hey, these schools, coaches and you all student athletes and parents, take pride in this stuff. It's awesome to be recognized, to be part of a recruiting class that is in the top 100, the top 50, top 25, the top 10, and so on and so on. And these coaches really put their heart and soul into recruiting because when I was a college coach, we called it, and many coaches still do call this, it's the bloodline to your program. You have to bring in and be searching for athletes across the nation to help your program because the purpose of the program is to win and bring in good players. And then as a coaching staff, not only make them even better players, but make them better human beings. And that's what I'm big about. Even just with this channel, I want to educate people on the recruiting process and how, how to give their son and daughters the best chance to play at the next level, but also just to help them be a better person. The earlier you can get some value and some education based whether it's mindset in a certain lens. The earlier you can do that, I think the better. There's a lot of things that I wish I would have known or learned in my teenage years. And I get it. Teenagers, you know, sometimes it goes in one ear and out the other, but it's also stuck. Just hear good to hear it from a different source rather than maybe just parents or a guardian. So we're going to get into that today. If you have any questions, please comment down below. And if you get anything from this video, if you like this video, Put that thumbs up. Click on that thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on recruiting and just how to get better on and off the field. All right, let's get into it. So these recruiting rankings are created by Perfect Game which many of you may may know, many of you may have done their showcases and if you don't, they're a very respectable showcase organization that's been around for a while. Then anytime a player comes through their program, they basically rank them and that's how this ranking has come about and how they've created this ranking. And this is going to make more sense as I go into it. So I'm going to pull up this screen right here that goes into how these rankings were created. I'm just going to read this real quick. So the Perfect Game USA college recruiting rankings are based off the Perfect Game Crosscheckers national high school player rankings. Colleges are given points for each recruit based on their recruit's current high school ranking. Let me read that one more time. Colleges are given points for each recruit based on their recruits current high school rankings. The rankings are updated with each added college commitment to our database as well as updates to our national high school player rankings. Currently, junior college players are not factored into rankings. So if you go down here and you see to the left if you're ranked 1 through 50 in the nation, okay, in your class and remember we're talking about the 2021 class of the seniors that graduated high school in 2021. If you were ranked in the top 50, you got 15 points or the school got 15 points for their recruiting class and then so on and so on. And how do you know if you're ranked? Where do you know if you're ranked? Well, you can go to your Perfect Game web page if you will. I'm going to pull up mine right here. And if you're not ranked, it's not the biggest deal in the world. Don't get too caught up in your personal rankings because this was mind I wasn't even ranked. I was a follow I'm not even a one when I was playing but I went on and played Division 1 baseball, had a great career. So if you're not ranked, don't. It's not the end of the world guys. But I just wanted to show you this so you could see national rankings. I wasn't even ranked in my state, which is Virginia, but again had a good successful career going forward. By the way, there I am young, young buck Alex there. So alright, let's get into the top hundred recruiting classes in the nation for the 2021. Let's dive into that. All right, team, the number one ranked recruiting class in 2021 as you see is the University of Florida. And this is a big deal, remember for the program, the coaches and the players that are in this class. And Vanderbilt's number two, UCLA is number three, four is Arkansas and five is Tennessee. And if you're on this list, and especially if you're a mid major, most of these programs in the top 10 are Power 5 schools. But if you're a mid major program, I remember at Georgetown we made the top 100 and we've never been in the top 100 and that was a big deal for us. All right. It helped our recruiting and this is going to help recruiting for the teams going forward because you can talk, these are talking points and for just the players, I mean for the players to be tell it say like I'm always part of this program's top recruiting class. For example, if they're University of Florida and you'll see that these high school commits in these columns. I'll go over this before I scroll down. There are 16 high school players in the class of 21 for Florida and so on and so on for these schools. Now honestly this is for another video whether I agree with that or not, which I just don't. If you do the math, it doesn't add up for as many players they bring in and not everybody's going to make the team. So that, that's a, that's another video that we'll get into. But there you have. So if you go move over to the column top hundred. So they have four top hundred players, Vanderbilt has five and then the point system. So this is actually the system where you get ranked the points where you stand. So Florida had 152 points after we just saw. We just read through how the point system goes. That puts them at number one, Vanderbilt's right behind them at 150 and there's a pretty large gap actually from 1, 2 to 3 and the average player ranking. So players can get ranked 6 through 10. It could be 6, it can be 6 and a half, it could be 7, 7 and a half and so on as you go. Perfect Game has a ranking system there as well. So let's go on and scroll down. So we see Clemson is the 10, makes the top 10, Florida State's 11. We have Texas AM 15 round out. Duke is up there. They've been doing A good job recruiting. Missouri making the top 20. Nebraska making the top 20. These are just some, you know, Midwestern schools that obviously with the weather, baseball is not year round. So that's good for them. Notre Dame, that, they're doing a really good job there as we go. So if we go and scroll down to these lists, you guys will see there's Georgia. My wife went to Georgia. So go Dogs. I'm a fan by association. Mississippi, Ole Miss, 40. That's actually pretty high for them. But for the 20, 21 and the pandemic and all the different NCAA rules, things have changed. A lot of guys have come back. So they're not. They were more focused on arms this year. Talking with the coaches. See South Florida, East Carolina, they do a really good job. College of Charleston, around up top 50. That's really good for them. That's. That is awesome. Northeastern got Stetson in here. Iowa, Texas 60. And keep scrolling down, I got Charleston Southern coach Mack over there, head coach over there doing a great job. He's turning that program around. So he made the top 75, which is great. There's almost 300. I think it's 299, 298 programs in Division 1. So being in the top hundred again, the top third, is a big deal. Jacksonville, my alma mater, good for them. That's great. And then you just got some, again, mid major programs that are sneaking in here. I mean, army armies in here, which is tough, you know, tough to recruit players. Being a military school, obviously, for those reasons, you got Bradford. VMI is in top 80, another military school. So you have these. Let me know if you guys have any questions on this rankings. And if you want me to go into any detail or any questions you have, please comment down below as we go. I enjoy this stuff. This is fun and it gives you some motivation to go to a school with a top rank and be part of a recruiting class that is in the top hundred. That's awesome. All right, guys, hope to see you in the next video. If you got anything from this video, click the thumbs up that like button and subscribe. I'll see you in the next one. Take care. Bye.