SEC Commitment Comparison – 7/27/09

 Send This Story To A Friend

Praise be to Vanderbilt. 

That’s the surprising message that I take from the SEC’s 2010 football commitments list as of this morning.

When I look at the SEC, I expect certain big name schools with fertile recruiting bases to rank at the top of the list… and LSU, Alabama, Georgia and Florida are currently perched on Mt. Olympus just as I would anticipate.

But school #5 — at least according to the rankings of Rivals.com — is none other than Bobby Johnson’s Vanderbilt Commodores.

And that’s a great thing for the Southeastern Conference.  Long the doormat of the league, Vandy has become competitive under Johnson’s leadership, even reaching and winning a bowl game last season.

Their competitiveness might just improve further in the years to come if the commitments VU has collected do indeed sign with the ‘Dores and do indeed eventually pan out.

Below is the current list of commitments for each school in the conference.  You’ll note that I’ve added up all of the star ratings of the various commitments and listed the schools by their current point/star totals.

Aside from Vandy, one other thing to notice is that for all the talk and exposure Auburn and Tennessee have gotten this offseason, the schools haven’t made good — so far — in the battle for high profile commitments.

In, fairness, Auburn is wedged between perennial recruiting kings Alabama and Georgia while Tennessee has a weak in-state recruiting base.  Also, both coaching staffs closed strongly in February.  Perhaps they’ll make up ground again.

But the story of the moment is Vandy’s jump over two traditional SEC powers in summer recruiting.