Alabama, Georgia headline college football's top 25 rosters for 2024 season, per Team Talent Composite (2024)

25. SMU Mustangs

24. Kentucky Wildcats

23. Nebraska Cornhuskers

The transition from the Group of Five level to a power conference typically comes with an adjustment period, as the Big 12's 2023 newcomers showed with only one reaching bowl eligibility. SMU is in a different boat, though, as it enters the ACC with a roster capable of producing a top-half finish in its new league. Unfortunately for the Mustangs, though, former five-star recruit Camar Wheaton is out for the year due to injury and did much of the heavy lifting in giving SMU a top-25 roster in the Team Talent Composite.

22. North Carolina Tar Heels

21. South Carolina Gameco*cks

20. Ole Miss Rebels

Lane Kiffin's outstanding work in the transfer portal during an extremely successful 2024 cycle bolstered this Ole Miss roster into a playoff contender. Top offseason commit Walter Nolen instantly became the headliner as a former five-star recruit and the No. 2 player in the 2022 recruiting class, and his arrival signals a much-needed step forward on the defensive side of the ball that should finally make the Rebels competitive with the SEC's strongest teams.

19. Missouri Tigers

18. Auburn Tigers

17. Tennessee Volunteers

Auburn is back on the right track thanks in no small part to Hugh Freeze acquiring the best group of freshman wide receivers in college football. Five-star signee Cam Coleman and four-star newcomer Perry Thompson were both top-50 prospects nationally and rank as the top two players on the Tigers' 2024 roster from a recruiting perspective. Their arrivals give Auburn reason for offensive optimism after the squad struggled mightily last year to move the ball through the air with any sort of consistency.

16. Michigan Wolverines

15. USC Trojans

14. Miami Hurricanes

The Mario Cristobal recruiting effect is in peak form at Miami, where the Hurricane alumnus dominated on the trail every year since his move from Oregon and looks to be on the verge of a breakthrough season. Transfer quarterback Cam Wardis the primary reason why the Hurricanes are widely projected to leap from the middle of the ACC to playoff contention, but the consistent waves of high-end talent in every recruiting class makes the roster around him just as impressive. Headlined by defensive lineman Justin Scott, a whopping eight of Miami's top-10 players from a recruiting ranking perspective are true freshmen.

13. Florida State Seminoles

12. Florida Gators

11. Penn State Nittany Lions

If not for its gauntlet of a schedule, Florida would have entered 2024 as a favorite to make a key leap in Year 3 under Billy Napier. Even with a flurry of decommitments ahead of National Signing Day last December, the Gators still signed the No. 13 class and found their quarterback of the future in five-star signee DJ Lagway, who has the highest composite rating of any player on the roster. Former Florida coach Steve Spurrier picked the Gators to finish in the upper half of the SEC this season, but even with so much talent across the board, overcoming one of the toughest slates in college football history will be no easy task.

Notre Dame enters 2024 with just one former Composite five-star recruit on its roster — the fewest of any team inside the top 10 of the Team Talent Composite. Redshirt sophom*ore linebacker Jaylen Sneed is that player and is a member of a defense that should stifle just about every opponent it meets this season. Marcus Freeman is now responsible for the majority of players on this roster as he enters Year 3 at the helm, and that he constructed a top-10 team in the early stages of his head coaching career should give the Fighting Irish reason to believe in his trajectory.

LSU could benefit from more talent on its defensive front and in the secondary, but linebacker Harold Perkins Jr. is the best player at his position nationally and gives the Tigers a whopping five former Composite five-star recruits on its 2024 roster.The projected first-round NFL Draft pick will have a lot of weight on his shoulders this season with the expectation that he carries the Tigers defense enough to take advantage of what should still be one of the SEC's most explosive passing attacks.

Oklahoma recruited at an SEC level well before it joined the conference, and that sustained talent acquisition helps the Sooners take a competitive roster into the toughest league in America. Unfortunately for Brent Venables, his team drew about as tough of a first-year schedule as possible. Roster headliner Jackson Arnold will be tested often as a first-year starting quarterback, but the defense keeps the floor quite high for the Sooners with young weapons like Adepoju Adebawore, David Stone and Peyton Bowen adding upside to a unit that features established stars in Billy Bowman Jr. and Danny Stutsman.

The historic 2022 recruiting class is largely broken up two years later, but some of the elite talent from that top-ranked haul remains in College Station for Mike Elko's debut campaign at the helm. Former five-star quarterback Conner Weigman could be in for a breakout season now that he is back to full strength, the five-star defensive line duo of Shemar Stewart and Shemar Turner comprises one of college football's strongest defensive fronts and a handful of elite transfers round out a unit that should inch closer to the SEC's top tier with its perceived upgrade on the coaching staff.

Dan Lanning just built arguably the best recruiting class in Oregon history and is on pace to complete another monumental cycle, giving the Ducks one of the brightest longterm outlooks of any program in the nation. The depth of blue-chip talent on his third roster is impressive enough to make Oregon an instant Big Ten title contender in its first year in the league, and as the preseason No. 3 team in the AP Top 25, there is obvious national championship upside if everything clicks. Former five-star wide receiver recruit Evan Stewart is the most notable transfer addition to a team that already projected to light up the scoreboard.

Transfer portal or not, Dabo Swinney knows how to recruit. He has the fifth-most talented team in the country this season despite counting all of the transfers he has ever taken on one hand. True freshman linebacker Sammy Brownturned heads all offseason and looks the part of a five-star addition to a defense that already boasts all kinds of blue-chip talent. The key is for quarterback Cade Klubnik — the highest-rated former recruit on this year's Clemson squad — to take a step forward in his second year as the starter. His ability to keep Clemson in the playoff discussion is the Tigers' biggest question mark.

The quarterback room alone helps Texas significantly in the Team Talent Composite with Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning ranking No. 1 overall in their respective recruiting classes, and their presence in the best QBstable in the country gives the Longhorns national championship upside for the next few years to come. Steve Sarkisian recruited incredibly well on the offensive line and at key defensive spots over his first couple of years at the helm, and his work in the transfer portal to completely re-tool the receiving corps gives Texas a chance to win the SEC in its first year in the conference.

It only ranks third in the Team Talent Composite, but Ohio State has a real case for the nation's best roster this year after Ryan Day both convinced hordes of his best players to put the NFL on hold and secured, pound-for-pound, arguably the best transfer haul in college football. There is five-star talent at essentially every position on this team, which is loaded with veterans and a couple of young impact players, like five-star freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, who looks like a generational talent. It is national championship or bust for the Buckeyes in 2024.

Georgia churns through NFL talent on its defense every year, and that will be no different for the foreseeable future as the Bulldogs carry a simply loaded unit into the 2024 season and beyond. Each of the top-10 players on this roster from a recruiting standpoint reside on the defensive side of the ball, which is a frightening fact for opponents given that quarterback Carson Beck is a strong Heisman Trophy contender, Trevor Etienne looks like a dominant workhorse running back in the making, Oscar Delp promises to deliver continued high-end production from the tight end spot and the wide receiver position gives the offense a handful of exciting targets.

Nick Saban is to credit for most of Alabama's roster, but Kalen DeBoer proved with a hot start to the 2025 recruiting cycle that the Crimson Tide will continue to acquire blue-chip talent at an elite rate over the years to come. The first-year SEC coach inherited the best roster in college football with a national-best 17 former composite five-star recruits. In total, 67 of the 82 listed players on this roster were at one time blue-chip recruits, including true freshman wide receiver Ryan Williams, incoming transfer defensive lineman LT Overton and a bevy of other projected standouts.