There was a lot of news in the Early Signing Period like every year. Here are five teams that were a bad surprise heading into the final weeks for the 2022 class:
MORE NATIONAL SIGNING DAY: Winners and losers | The Gorney awards | Travis Hunter spurns Florida State, signs with Jackson State | Breaking down team rankings | Where will Deion's next job be? | How teams announced their signees | Top 10 storylines of Late Signing Period | Ten best still available | NSD Blog | Ten biggest flips of NSD
FLORIDA STATE
The biggest surprise in Rivals history happened on Wednesday and it was awful news for the Seminoles as No. 1 overall prospect Travis Hunter flipped to Jackson State. From an outsider’s perspective, it was amazing to see play out. But for Florida State it had to be crushing since the five-star athlete had been committed to FSU since March 2020. Devaughn Mortimer also flipped to Louisville and offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham decided to leave FSU for Oregon. There was some good news late with four-star Azareyeh Thomas and five-star offensive lineman Julian Armella joining the class.
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LSU
Brian Kelly got an introduction to the cutthroat business of recruiting in the SEC when four-star receiver Aaron Anderson did not flip back to LSU from Alabama and the top receiver in Louisiana, St. James’ Shazz Preston picked the Crimson Tide over LSU. Those were two big misses for the Tigers but there was also some good news as WR Landon Ibieta flipped from Miami, three-star DB Jordan Allen committed and high four-star DB Quency Wiggins stayed home and picked LSU.
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CLEMSON
Three former commits ended up elsewhere with Jihaad Campbell picking Alabama, Daylen Everette going to Georgia and Keon Sabb heading to Michigan. Rarely does Clemson deal with a lot of movement toward signing day but the Tigers also lost both their offensive and defensive coordinators. Four-star athlete Jaren Kanak also didn’t sign as Oklahoma is still working on flipping him.
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NOTRE DAME
There was a lot of movement in and around signing day for the Irish with four-star cornerback Devin Moore picking Florida and three-star athlete Amorion Walker flipping to Michigan. The second one was completely expected and neither of those were surprises. Notre Dame was also a finalist for high four-star defensive end Anthony Lucas as academics became a serious part of his decision but he ended up picking Texas A&M. Notre Dame still has the seventh-best class in the team rankings so that’s nothing to sneeze at but it could have been even better.
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OREGON
There were some significant departures in the days leading up to Wednesday with five-star offensive lineman Kelvin Banks leading the way and ending up at Texas. But four-star quarterback Tanner Bailey and four-star cornerback Jahlil Florence also backed off their pledges with neither picking another program yet. The bigger issue was that Oregon didn’t load up with tons on signing day although high three-star Anthony Jones did flip from the Longhorns.
