Three-Point Stance: Busy June, Dylan Stewart, Twitter

Rivals national recruiting analyst Adam Friedman has thoughts on the run of major commitments last month, five-star Dylan Stewart and the ripple effects of Twitter's changes.

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Saying June was a busy month just doesn't do it justice. It's like Los Angeles Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani. It's something we've never seen before. Over 20-percent of the prospects in the Rivals250 announced their commitment last month. That's unheard of for the month of June.

Sammy Brown, Bryant Wesco and Bryce West were the highest ranked prospects to commit last month while Clemson, Florida, Mississippi State, Texas A&M and USC each reeled in four Rivals250 prospects apiece.

As fun as it was to track the commitments in June, July is shaping up to be a chaotic month as well. Last year 58 Rivals250 prospects announced their commitments in July. As of this writing, there have been six so far with the latest coming from five-star Justin Scott. Here we are on July 4th but the recruiting fireworks have been going off for the last month and should continue to do so for the next few weeks.

Much of the college football world was caught off guard by the timing of five-star defensive tackle Justin Scott's commitment to Ohio State on Sunday. The Buckeyes, currently ranked No. 2 in the Rivals Team Recruiting Rankings, beat rival Michigan for his commitment and now fans are hoping to reel in another five-star defensive lineman in Dylan Stewart. The defensive end out of Washington (D.C.) Friendship Collegiate Academy is being tight-lipped about his commitment timeline and college coaches are in the dark too. A summer decision is expected but his recruitment will likely continue until he signs during the Early Signing Period.

Ohio State has reason to be confident but they aren't running away in this race. The Gamecocks "feel really good" about their chances with Stewart, according to a source. South Carolina is the main opposition for the Buckeyes in their pursuit of Stewart and they aren't going to stop recruiting him even if he announces a commitment to Ohio State. "Long way until signing day," said another South Carolina source. With that in mind, even if Stewart surprises with a commitment that comes seemingly out of the blue, it likely won't be the end of his recruitment.

College football recruiting is such a small corner of what happens on Twitter but the recent changes to the platform will have far-reaching effects on the news flow within the industry. Tracking which players are getting offers, scheduling visits, or announcing short lists, commitments, and decommitments is now severely hindered by Twitter's new tweet viewing limits. The disabling of push notifications have also negatively impacted the ability to timely report breaking news.

The large majority of college football prospects announce new offers, upcoming visits and milestone recruiting news in tweets but news outlets and other platforms that assist college football programs in the recruiting process aren't the only ones who need to adjust how they consume recruiting news. Fans of the sport are going to rely more heavily on websites like Rivals and our wide network of team sites and community forums to consume information relevant to their team. Twitter's new rules are pushing these fans off its platform (thank you, Elon), making it harder for the companies who are built on content aggregation (thanks again, Elon), but also severely restrict the ability for recruiting reporters and coaches to reach the future stars of college football (come on, Elon).

Twitter isn't making (temporary?) rules based on how they will impact the recruiting industry but Elon Musk is certainly living up to his "disrupter" label.