College football's most homegrown teams: Programs with highest number of in-state players in 2026
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- Texas Tech leads all 134 FBS programs in homegrown talent with 64.8% of its 2026 roster made up of in-state players, despite mass portal additions in the last two recruiting cycles.
- TCU tops all Power Four rosters at 72.6% homegrown, anchored in the DFW Metroplex; the Horned Frogs signed 21 freshmen and 12 transfers in the 2026 cycle, with every first-year player hailing from Texas.
- Georgia ranks as the SEC's top homegrown program, with 110 of 129 roster players (85.3%) recruited directly from high school — a preference Kirby Smart defended by saying Georgia's development beats taking 'second-, third-, fourth-year' transfers someone else developed.
- Oregon (No. 119 nationally, 13.6%) and Notre Dame (10.6%) are notable title contenders who rarely go in-state, forced to recruit nationally because their states produce too few FBS-level prospects.
- Hawaii ranks dead last nationally at less than 1% homegrown, with Army at 1% and Air Force (8.5%) and Wyoming (9.8%) also near the bottom — extremes driven by geography and recruiting mandates rather than effort.
- The Big Ten averages the lowest homegrown share in college football at 30.3% due to its coast-to-coast footprint, while the rebuilt Pac-12 leads conferences at 36.3% — yet the Big Ten just produced its third consecutive national champion (Indiana).
- Six Texas programs — Texas Tech, UTSA, TCU, Baylor, Houston, and North Texas — rank among the top 15 nationally for local signings, a reflection of the state's unmatched FBS-level talent volume.
Why it matters: Programs in talent-rich states like Texas and Georgia can build sustained rosters from in-state high school pipelines, a self-sufficient edge that Kirby Smart champions, while programs in talent-sparse regions like Oregon and Notre Dame have no choice but to recruit nationally and lean on the transfer portal just to fill FBS rosters — making homegrown dominance a luxury of geography, not a guaranteed path to titles.
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