Inside Group of 5 recruiting, roster-building challenges

BOISE STATE’S PEERS across the Group of 5 took notice in the fall.

The Broncos’ run to No. 3 seed in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff was remarkable in its own right. But equally noteworthy to coaches was that of Boise State‘s 26 starters across offense, defense and specialists, 22 had signed with the program out of high school, including running back and Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty, six other All-Mountain West selections and quarterback Maddux Madsen.

The Broncos laid the blueprint for the other half of major college football in 2024. Two weeks after the season ended, Boise State coach Spencer Danielson was back on the road in eastern Idaho recruiting another crop of high school prospects with his mind fixed on another critical task.

“A big push for me this offseason is fundraising,” he told ESPN. “It’s going to take everybody’s help to keep our staff and players here. But we’re no longer selling something that could happen. We’ve already done it here. A year like this year has the potential to change everything. It can catapult you to unknown waters.”

Boise State is now the standard in the Group of 5, the 65 programs across the AAC, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt conferences. And Danielson’s offseason objectives are a lens into the modern recruiting realities facing major college football’s smallest programs, where the gap to the Power 4 of the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC is wider than ever and the sport’s increasingly disadvantaged underdogs are adapting to survive.

Under the crush of NIL deals, free transfers, conference realignment, a compressed recruiting calendar and ever-evolving NCAA governance, the degree of difficulty behind managing a roster has never been higher for the thin-resourced programs across the Group of 5. Amid the chaos, high school recruiting has not been spared on campuses where all-conference players are poached annually, budgets stay tight and coaching staffs engage in a constant battle to build competitive rosters and sign classes of high school prospects in a time of seismic change.

“We’re not recruiting the way we used to,” North Texas coach Eric Morris said. “I think now, every year you’re building a new team, and it’s almost a race to who can have the best roster…