Tulane Football Recruit Receives First Ranking After Commitment To Program

While rankings only go so far for projecting the trajectory of recruits, they certainly help with assessing the collective strength of recruiting classes for college football programs.

As many Tulane Green Wave football fans are familiar with, star players often don’t start their collegiate career with the requisite stars in ranking systems, but under head coach Jon Sumrall, the classes are beginning to match up with the product on the field.

For the first time this offseason, the Green Wave jumped the Memphis Tigers in the 247Sports rankings of 2026 AAC classes with a new rating designated for linebacker/edge rusher commit Chan Lumpkin.

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Lumpkin recently chose Tulane, albeit via a non-binding commitment as he can’t sign until later this year, over multiple Group of Five programs.

The 6-foot-4, 215-pounder was previously unranked out of the state of Georgia. He now has a three-star rating on 247Sports and is the No. 114 linebacker in the nation and the No. 139-ranked prospect in the state.

That brought the total of three-star commits in the 2026 class to 11, and with one four-star commit being wide receiver Trez Davis.

That was enough for the Green Wave to surpass the Tigers, who have 12 three-star recruits.

Tulane is the only program in the conference to have a four-star commit.

It’s a noteworthy ranking bump to receive in the offseason in July, and frankly, not the one Green Wave commits are used to being awarded.

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In frequent cases, Tulane commits have lost stars upon choosing the program.

It’s a largely arbitrary system that has always penalized Group of Five programs compared to their Power Four counterparts.

To see a slight change in that trend is intriguing and points to the efforts of Sumrall and his recruiting staff.

Lumpkin is currently the only edge rusher in the 2026 class out of the 17 hard commits.

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Jordyn Crites from Texas and AJ Westfield from Tennessee are projected on the interior of the defensive line.

This position is crucial in today’s era of college football, where pass rushing and containing mobile quarterbacks are particularly valued.

With the comments this spring camp about the strength of the defensive line room heading into the 2025 season, it’s a positive sign to see that being built off of in future classes.

For more Tulane news, head over to Tulane Green Wave On SI.