bad at timeouts, still good at crootin [Fuller]

When this not-quite-monthly feature last ran at the end of June, Ohio State and Michigan occupied the top two spots, as expected, but Penn State languished in the bottom half of the conference rankings.

1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Rutgers
4. Iowa
5. Northwestern
6. Nebraska
7. Michigan State
8. Maryland
9. Wisconsin
10. Penn State
11. Purdue
12. Illinois
13. Minnesota
14. Indiana

Outside of the locked-in top two, the rankings saw considerable movement as many prospects looked to end their recruitment before the beginning of fall camp. No Big Ten program made more progress than PSU, which picked up seven commits since the last update. The current standings:

The conference is also settling into more clear-cut tiers, which I'll cover after the...

[JUMP]

...jump. Hello again.

Tier One: Yes, The Two Top-Seven Teams Are In A Tier, Please Stop Arguing About This

It was a relatively quiet month for Ohio State, which means they only picked up five-star MD DE Chase Young and four-star CB Amir Riep. They remain the #1 class in the country, though Alabama has closed the gap to only a couple points (practically nothing in this system). While the only thing that'll keep OSU's top-300-or-bust class out of the top spot is a lack of quantity, that looks like it'll be an issue—working off the numbers Cleveland.com provided this week, OSU would need considerable attrition off the current roster just to reach 20 open scholarships, and they're at 16 commits right now.

Michigan is at #7 in the country right now, but they're much closer to LSU at #3 overall than the next-best Big Ten team (PSU at #19), so if you're here to complain about tiers, please don't. We've been over this in two different comment sections.

Tier Two: Solid, Indistinguishable

As mentioned, Penn State vaulted up to #19 in the rankings due to seven recent commits. The headliner among that recent group, going by composite ranking, is four-star VA S Jonathan Sunderland, who like fellow Canadian import Luiji Vilain is playing out his high school career in Virginia. (Michigan offered Sunderland but he wasn't a take come announcement time.) The real headliner, though, is three-star IN WR Mac Hippenhammer, who is named Mac Hippenhammer.

Maryland is only two spots behind PSU at #21 overall after adding four commits (and losing one to Virginia) in July, led by in-state corner Deon Jones, who sits just outside the composite top-100. DJ Durkin has done an excellent job of recruiting the DMV area: counting five-star IMG transfer Josh Kaindoh, ten of the Terps's 15 commits hail from Maryland, Virginia, or Washington DC.

A mere eyelash (.06 points) behind is Iowa, which fell back to the pack a bit, only picking up two commitments since the last update. One of those, however, was the #102 recruit in the country, Texas corner Chevin Calloway. That gives the Hawkeyes two blue-chip recruits from Texas (RB Eno Benjamin), which is two more than I would've expected.

Tier Three: I Won't Make A Joke About MSU Being Rutgers Because I Remember Certain Things All Too Well

But seriously.

Rutgers is next up due almost entirely to volume. They have four commits in the top 700 overall, and the fourth is #689. Chris Ash added a legacy commit, three-star in-state DE Mike Tverdov, in July, and that was it. WV DT Darius Stills was a RU commit for all of a day until getting yoinked away by West Virginia, the offer he really wanted.

Michigan State got a head-to-head win over Michigan for four-star TE Matt Dotson to open the month of July and grabbed three-star Cass Tech OG Jordan Reid a couple days later. Since then, though, they've only picked up low three-star CB Josiah Scott. The Spartans are going to move up sooner or later as they fill out their class after the Rutgerses of the world are mostly full, but this still has to be a disappointment coming off a playoff berth.

Nebraska gained commitments from a pair of three-star prospects, FL DE Guy Thomas and LA FB Ben Miles. The Huskers have put together a sneaky-good class—30th overall despite only 13 commits—and could move up a decent amount if they're able to close on a couple of their top targets.

One spot behind the Huskers is Northwestern, which picked up only three-star GA RB Kyric McGowan since the last update.

Tier Four: Um... Wisconsin? You There?

I'm feeling even better about being vocally skeptical of Paul Chryst and Wisconsin on WTKA this morning after checking in on their recruiting class. Since early May, the only Badger commit has been a three-star corner who's heading into a year of prep school. Three of their top five commits are offensive linemen, which is promising for that particular position group and not so much for the rest of the program.

Tier Five: Bad

The most notable thing to happen between Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, and Minnesota over the last month-plus: the Hoosiers added jumbo DT Juan Harris, he of the the umpteen Iowa commits and decommits, on July 25th. It's August 18th, and remarkably, Harris is still on the Indiana commit list.