Mountain West recruiting
UNLV top recruit Melvin Laster poses with Runnin' Rebels head coach Barry Odom Jr. (PHOTO CREDIT: Melvin Laster/Twitter)

Mountain West Recruiting: Tight Race for Top Class

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.

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

Mountain West recruiting

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

MORE: Mountain West Preview: Boise State Should Supplant Fresno State