Recruiting Top 5 Shocking Signings for G5 Schools

These are some of the shocking G5 Football offseason signings. We’ll judge these by how they are ranked by major recruiting services. Also, we’ll compare it to the university’s recruiting history and how it matches up. We’ve narrowed it to the top five through all non-power conferences.

Probably the best recruit is for perennial G5 power Tulane. The Green Wave recruited Keenan Harris, a four-star linebacker from St. Louis, Missouri. Tulane has a great program for a non-Power 5 team. Harris turned down offers from Alabama, Georgia, and Oregon. According to on3.com Harris was ranked the number one recruit in the state of Missouri, and the sixth ranked linebacker nationally.

The best transfer recruit will suit for Arizona State. The Sun Devils convinced Kanye Udoh, a four-star RB from Army, to join them for 2025. Udoh rushed for 1110 yards in 2024. Besides the high recruiting ranking, it’s shocking to see Mountain West school grab a contributor from a service academy after he was a featured RB.

The University of Memphis has a four-star recruit in freshman QB Antwann Hill, Jr. He’s from Houston County High School Georgia and is regarded as a top 10 QB prospect. He had earlier decommitted in 2023 from the Colorado Buffaloes. Antwann Hill will be the number one QB for a Memphis Tigers team that’s traditionally a top 50 offense and top five G5 offense.

Even More Shocking Signings

Western Kentucky picked up four-star edge rusher Jayden Loftin, Jr. from Somerville, Tennessee. Notably, Loftin switched his commitment from Tennessee to Western Kentucky University. He’s a remarkable addition (top 250 nationally ranked) for a C-USA school. I consider this addition maybe most shocking. Tulane and Memphis have played recently in New Year’s Day games, and Arizona State was in a power conference two years ago. However, C-USA has rarely signed recruits of this high ranking.

Ferzell Shepard was signed by UTSA after visiting Mississippi State. He’s a three-star WR from Scotlandville Magnet School in Louisiana. He’s a top 200 ranked player nationally (according to on3.com).

With the changes happening in NIL, definitely the G5 (soon to be G4) gets less four-star recruits. According to 24/7 Sports all the G5 football players ranked in the top 75 transferred to other Power 5 schools. We’ll talk about G5 transfers in a more general matter in a future article.

Follow me on X for all these articles under #G5 and also #G4heads, as next year we’ll truly be in a Power 4 NCAA. Comment to me at @ajayxemem@x.com (formerly Twitter).