The Buckeyes have opened up a sizable league among their Big Ten brethren in the team recruiting rankings battle but there are a couple of teams in the league that are putting together nice classes at this point of the recruiting calendar.

There is a long way to go between now and the February 2021 signing day, but it makes sense that the better the league recruits as a whole, the better the play should be moving forward, at least if you believe that “stars matter” when it comes to building a roster.

We are taking a look at a couple of the top teams around the league as well as pointing out a couple of teams that need to find that next gear as everyone waits for recruiting to really ramp up once again whenever the NCAA decides to end the national “dead period” that has been going on for several months.

Michigan Wolverines (Big Ten Rank: 2, National Rank: 5)

The Wolverines are sitting with 17 players at the time of publication and the No. 2 class in the Big Ten, obviously behind the Buckeyes. Strangely enough, there are only three players from the state of Michigan in this class with Giovanni El-Hadi leading the way in terms of star ranking as Michigan’s No. 2 player in the class, only trailing quarterback J.J. McCarthy.

This class seems to have a strong northeastern flair as five players are out of the traditional New England area with three out of Massachusetts, a state that has not been known to turn out a lot of depth in terms of football throughout the years. The Wolverines are obviously hoping that they have found a few diamonds in the rough with this approach.

A generation ago, Michigan made its name coming into the state of Ohio and taking kids that the Buckeyes wanted to land but that really has not been the approach under Jim Harbaugh through his tenure with only two players from the Buckeye state in his class at this point.

There are still some big fish on Michigan’s board, including Donovan Edwards, so expect this class to stay in the top-10 range throughout the cycle.

Minnesota Golden Gophers (Big Ten Rank: 3, National Rank: 8)

This might be the most surprising class in the Big Ten at this point with the Gophers sitting No. 3 in the league, not the Nittany Lions, Spartans or Badgers. The Gophers have 18 players at this point and while only one player is in the Rivals250 (Avante Dickerson) there is a good amount of depth in P.J. Fleck’s class with six high-three stars in the fold already.

The Gophers have done a solid job in recruiting many neighboring states and have six players out of the state of Illinois and even a pair of players out of Ohio.

Dickerson really is the surprising player in this class, turning down offers from major players like Texas, USC, Ohio State, Nebraska, Iowa and others to pick the Gophers. Now, that is not saying that Dickerson could have committed to many of those schools at this point of the process, but just knowing that he held those offers goes to show that he was highly thought of and his national ranking as the No. 208 player sure does not hurt as well.

Sitting in the mid-1400s right now with 18 players however does not bode well for staying power in the national rankings and as other programs start to heat up, the Gophers will start to see their national number drop and as some other Big Ten schools start to pick up steam, this class should end up more in the middle of the pack for the Big Ten.

Iowa Hawkeyes (Big Ten Rank: 4, National Rank: 12)

Iowa has always been one of those programs that puts together a sneaky-good recruiting class, even if the recruiting rankings don’t always show that. Iowa’s class of 2020 ranked No. 35 nationally with the past several classes before that ranking in the 40s or 50s of the Rivals.com team recruiting rankings.

Where Michigan and Minnesota have recruited under more of a national approach, the Hawkeyes have been able to focus in-state more and have eight of their 15 recruits out of the state of Iowa. Of the remaining seven players in the class, only one comes from a state that does not border the Hawkeye state and that would be Arland Bruce out of Kansas and that may as well be a border state.

The Buckeyes were very interested in Iowa’s highest-rated recruit with offensive lineman David Davidkov picking the Hawkeyes over a solid offer list. But beyond that name, not a lot of players that Ohio State recruiting fans would be familiar with. But when you go up-and-down the Iowa class, you will see that the recruiting numbers are tightly bunched and there are no reaches at this point, at least as rankings go.

Rutgers Scarlet Knights (Big Ten Rank: 5, National Rank: 14)

Greg Schiano is back, and Rutgers is going to do everything that it can to try and keep Jersey talent home. Has it worked so far?

10 of 20 commits are from the state of New Jersey but the top players in the state have not given a pledge to Rutgers at this point. But it still is a step in the right direction in trying to keep in-state talent from going elsewhere. It just may take some time to get those top-five players from within the state to buy-in and want to stay home.

Things have changed a lot since Schiano was last head coach for Rutgers, they are in a new league and recruiting has become more national in many places. What has not changed is that Rutgers will face an uphill battle in many recruitments, and it is going to take a real movement among the in-state players to all opt to stay home.

This class is already sitting at 20 players and will surely move down in the Big Ten rankings as time goes on, but it is still fun to talk about Rutgers being near the top of any list at this point (positive lists), even if it is going to be short-lived.

Penn State Nittany Lions (Big Ten Rank: 6, National Rank: 17)

It is not that Penn State is not recruiting well, the Nittany Lions are just sitting with 12 players at this point and it is hard to stand out in the rankings with, so few players compared to some other programs. Landon Tengwall is a Rivals100 player on the offensive line and leads the class, but Jaylen Reed and Kalen King are both impressive players out of the state of Michigan that either of the Michigan schools will come to regret not landing. Christian Velleux may be overshadowed by some of the other quarterbacks out there nationally but he will be an interesting one to keep an eye on.

Penn State will likely finish the year as a top-three class in the Big Ten, it is just going to take a little time to get to that point.

Maryland Terrapins (Big Ten Rank: 8, National Rank: 20)

The Terps have some bigger names toward the top of this class with guys like Marcus Bradley, Demeioun Robinson and Taizse Johnson, but what else is there beyond that?

Maryland once again is set to be a deep state in terms of talent and Mike Locksley is a heck of a recruiter, but once again we are seeing it tough to keep all of the top kids home.

Maryland is sitting with 16 players right now, so there is some room to move in the rankings but it will be tough for the Terps to really make a climb, especially when they are going to have to play a lot of defense on the three top players in the class out of the DMV (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) area.

It does seem rough saying that a current top-20 team is not getting it done, but just wait until the SEC recruiting apparatus is finally powered on and seven of the top-10 spots in the final rankings will likely belong to teams from that conference.

Nebraska Cornhuskers (Big Ten Rank: 9, National Rank: 33)

Scott Frost has not been the savior everyone in Lincoln (Neb.) was hoping for, at least to this point. It is too early to sell on Frost, but people are starting to get restless as there seems to be a turnstile to the transfer portal forming and recruiting just really has not been up to snuff yet.

The Huskers are sitting with just nine players at this point, meaning that there is a lot of room to move up, but are the Huskers really being mentioned as a top destination for many of the top national players?

Nebraska has one four-star and he is an in-state player with offensive lineman Teddy Prochazka giving his pledge months and months ago to the Huskers. The last five recruiting classes have been ranked in the national top-25, but this one might break the streak, even though it is extremely early to be making such proclamations.

Michigan State Spartans (Big Ten Rank: 11, National Rank: 40)

Mark Dantonio is out, Mel Tucker is in. It takes time to fire the machine up when you are not one of the top-10 national programs each year. The Spartans definitely have a lot to market, but nobody is really jumping on board at this point.

If there is a school that gets hurt by the dead period, it is Michigan State as these new coaches have to go out and essentially re-offer kids who have been offered and start developing relationships with kids who may not have been regionally on the board of anyone who was part of the regime in Colorado.

Charles Brantley is the top player in this class as a defensive back out of the state of Florida. Four of the 10 commits are from the state of Michigan and this might be a year where the Spartans have to focus heavily on in-state ties to fill out this class.