Must-have targets for top 30 college football recruiting classes

College football is marching toward the busy period of the recruiting calendar, and the picture for the 2026 cycle is beginning to take shape for the country’s top programs.

Three top-100 prospects came off the board in the last week alone, headlined by five-star wide receiver Tristen Keys‘ pledge to LSU. The slow trickle of commitments will eventually turn to a flood later this spring when the official visit season kicks off and the nation’s elite high school prospects flock to campuses all over the country from mid-May to the third weekend in June.

So who are the priority targets and what are the key roster needs for college football’s biggest programs in the 2026 class?

We took a shot at answering that question for the 30 schools that finished atop ESPN’s class rankings for the 2025 recruiting cycle earlier this year. For certain programs, the focus is trained on an individual recruit, such as Georgia and its pursuit of No. 1 quarterback Jared Curtis. For others, including Ohio State and Texas A&M, there’s key position groups to address, while a handful of risers — TCU, SMU, Maryland and Rutgers — are working to make sure their recruiting success goes beyond impressive 2025 classes.

Let’s start with Texas, which secured the nation’s No. 1 class in 2025, and a potentially foundational offensive line target for the Longhorns’ 2026 class.

Top target: OT John Turntine III, No. 41 in ESPN Junior 300

The Longhorns have signed just one top-100 offensive line recruit over the past three recruiting cycles — Brandon Baker in 2024 — and notably whiffed in their late push to flip five-star Oklahoma signee Michael Fasusi last cycle. As Texas prepares to replace four starters on the offensive line in 2025, the program’s lack of high-level recruiting at the position in recent cycles leaves the Longhorns relatively light on promising depth for the future.

All of that makes Turntine, the state’s No. 4 prospect out of Fort Worth, Texas, a priority in 2026. Longhorns offensive line coach Kyle Flood visited Turntine in January, and ESPN’s No. 6 offensive tackle prospect is set for an official visit to Texas on June 20 with Georgia, Texas A&M, Tennessee, Ohio State, Michigan and Oregon among other schools involved in his recruitment.

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