Mountain West recruiting is the lifeblood of this college football conference, and it's time to break down who is winning the battles off the field in addition to the ones on television each weekend. This one will feature Mountain West recruiting, with the Conference USA, American Athletic Conference (AAC), and Mid-American Conference (MAC) having already been published (linked below). The Sun Belt Conference is next this week, and then we will finish with the final September national rankings for the Group of Five — both teams and individuals.
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There are 12 football programs in the Mountain West Conference (MWC). Some programs that have some of the top individuals have smaller recruiting classes, and some with larger classes don't have a top Mountain West commitment — but it's still early. We worked in conjunction with our partners at Rivals.com to rank the teams and individuals — though our ranking method is a bit different from the recruiting network's criteria.
The Top Mountain West Recruiting Rankings
Boise State commitment Gatlin Bair is the highest-rated commitment in the Mountain West Conference (PHOTO CREDIT: Gatlin Bair/Twitter)
No. 1 - UNLV: The Rebels may not have the top individual commitment at this point (see lists below), but they have a loaded class. There's a load of talent from top to bottom, with names like Melvin Laster Jr., Nijrell Eason, and Devin Green jumping off the page — just to name a few. With 19 commitments already on board, the class is the largest (aside from the Air Force Academy's, which has a different style of recruiting due to service academy regulations). Head coach Barry Odom, Jr. and his staff truly created a buzz around this program, and the win over an SEC team this past weekend certainly doesn't hurt the cause.
While the Mountain West is often known for its high-flying offenses, what Odom's program is doing with this class is landing great defensive talent and shoring up on both sides of the line of scrimmage. Yes, QB Karson Gordon is a skill-position talent, but it's a balanced group that seems focused on building through the fundamental side of football, too.
No. 2 - Colorado State: The second-largest class behind UNLV (see Air Force note above), the Rams are coming off their entertaining game with the Coach Prime Show in Boulder (TM) with their own version of excitement — the recruiting kind of hype. Two of the top four current commitments in the Mountain West rankings are heading to play for CSU. Jordan Ross out of Dallas and Jalen Dupree out of Arkansas are two massive out-of-state pickups who had a lot of top programs chasing them, but they wanted to be a part of what coach Mike Norvell and his staff are building.
No. 3 - Boise State: Securing one of the top recruits in the entire Group of Five, in-state monster Gatlin Bair, was a massive home-state recruiting victory for the Broncos. Everybody wanted the guy, nationally ranked Power Fives and all — but he opted to build at home, a rarity these days. While Bair's recruiting rankings within the services will undoubtedly fall (it always happens when a recruit picks a G5 or FCS school, which is asinine), he was in the national top 100 for a while this year when it looked like he'd go P5. He's an immense recruiting victory for Boise State and the Mountain West. And he's not the only one, as fellow receiving target Tyrone Jackson out of San Francisco is another immense talent.
No. 4 — Fresno State: Coach Jeff Tedford and his staff have the Bulldogs heading in the right direction in recruiting, just like on the field. The program is coming off two Power Five wins over Purdue and Arizona State and don't think that's not going to translate to success in this recruiting class. While the Bulldogs' class is smaller (nine recruits) than some of the others as of now, it will undoubtedly rise in these rankings as the season moves along — because Tedford is undoubtedly going after some big fish.
Rest of the Country - G5 Recruiting
American (AAC) | Conference USA (C-USA) | Mid-American (MAC) | Mountain West (MWC) | Sun Belt (SWC)
National Top 15 Programs | National Top 100 Commitments
The Top 25 in Mountain West Recruiting
FanBuzz conference rankings are placed in order in conjunction with our professional partners at Rivals.com. However, they vary some.
| CO RK | PLAYER | POS | MWC COMMIT |
| 1 | Gatlin Bair | WR | Boise State |
| 2 | Jordan Ross | WR | Colorado State |
| 3 | Marshel Sanders | ATH | Fresno State |
| 4 | Jalen Dupree | RB | Colorado State |
| 5 | Terrell Cooks, Jr. | ATH | San Diego State |
| 6 | Melvin Laster | LB | UNLV |
| 7 | Stacy Bey | ATH | San Diego State |
| 8 | Foster Slaughter | DB | San Diego State |
| 9 | Tyrone Jackson | WR | Boise State |
| 10 | Levar Talley | DE | Nevada |
| 11 | Jordan Malau'ulu | WR | Fresno State |
| 12 | Darius Curry | QB | Colorado State |
| 13 | Logan Studt | LB | Fresno State |
| 14 | Treyvon Tolmaire | CB | Boise State |
| 15 | Nijrell Eason | CB | UNLV |
| 16 | Anthony McMillan | RB | San Diego State |
| 17 | Devin Green | ATH | UNLV |
| 18 | Rahim Wright | S | San Diego State |
| 19 | Nazaiah Caravallo | LB | Hawaii |
| 20 | Kory Hall | ATH | Colorado State |
| 21 | Karson Gordon | QB | UNLV |
| 23 | Kahekili Paaoao | LB | UNLV |
| 24 | Anthony Hymes | ATH | San Jose State |
| 25 | Kayden McGee | S | UNLV |
