The Best 2011 College Football Recruiting Classes by Positional Group

By now, many of you should know the biggest names in the 2011 recruiting class, (and if you don't, give the B/R 100 some love).

Landing a blue-chip recruit is great, but some teams prefer to spread the work around among three or four four-star prospects.

Today, we salute the best 2011 recruiting classes by positional group only. Which class is tops in wide receivers? Where are the best defensive linemen heading?

Take a look at where I cast my votes.

Best Wide Receivers: Alabama

We begin with the first surprise, but certainly not the last.

The Alabama Crimson Tide lead the 2011 recruiting class with four great wide receiver commitments, including three elite prospects: three-star Daryl Collins, and four-stars Bradley Sylve, Marvin Shinn, and Danny Woodson.

Shinn and Woodson are like USC's great 2010 signees, Kyle Prater and Robert Woods, who mesh size with speed, while Sylve and Collins are shorter, dartier slot men. That picture above is of Sylve running track culled from a great New York Times profile.

What's helping Alabama's coaches sell the eighth-ranked passing offense in the SEC to top wide receiver recruits? I'm guessing that national championship helped a bit.

Also being considered: Clemson (Charone Peake); Oklahoma (Trey Metoyer)

Best Running Backs: Clemson

USC may have the strongest signee in DeAnthony Thomas, but Clemson has two elite ones in Marlin Lane and Mike Bellamy.

Lane is a "big back" out of Daytona Beach, FL who as a sophomore, "outshined the likes of Lache Seastrunk, Aaron Green and Malcolm Brown" at a Top Gun camp, per Rivals' Barry Every.

He's a 6'0", 205 lb buster who will carry the load in Clemson's short yardage and red zone situations and may have one of the more successful careers in the class when it comes to TDs.

Bellamy has been hailed the CJ Spiller of the 2011 class, so it should come as no surprise that the real CJ Spiller was involved in getting him to commit to Clemson. The all-purpose star and five-star back ran for 2,000+ yards and 31 touchdowns as a junior in Punta Gorda, FL. Here's a great in-depth read on what Clemson is getting in Bellamy.

That's about as balanced a thunder/lightning combo as you can get.

Also being considered: Texas Tech (Kenny Williams and Bradley Marquez); Oklahoma (Danzel Williams and Brandon Williams); LSU (Jeremy Hill and Kenny Hilliard); Stanford (Amir Carlisle and Remound Wright).

Best Offensive Linemen: Texas

This was agonizing to decide, but eventually I had to concede that Texas edges Nebraska and Notre Dame for best offensive line class so far.

The Longhorns hold verbals from the two recruits who I consider the second and fourth-best tackles of the class, Christian Westerman and Garrett Greenlea.

Westerman is a blue-chip run-blocking tackle with the ability to maul lesser players and the technique to bait good ones into mistakes. He's a great heads up player who can pursue blocks downfield.

Greenlea is a monster, fated to be one of the best left tackle prospects in whichever draft he enters (provided Texas's offensive line coaching improves a tick). At 6'7" and 285 lbs he's in line for a redshirt year, but that should bring him up to speed on pass protection and get him in physical shape to absorb the best rush ends the Big 12 has to offer.

Guard Sedrick Flowers is the No. 1 overall prospect at his position to Rivals, with blue-chip size (6'3", 280 lbs) and strength and excellent feet.

I'm not as familiar with Josh Cochran, a four-star player and No. 16 tackle according to Rivals, but his size is somewhere between Westerman's and Greenlea's (6'6", 278 lbs) and his frame, like that the other two signees, foreshadows a great career.

Runners up: Nebraska (Tyler Moore, Ryne Reeves, Ryan Klachko, Zach Sterup); Ohio State (Brian Bobek, Antonio Underwood, Tommy Brown); Notre Dame (Tony Springmann, Conor Hanratty, Matt Hegarty); LSU (La'El Collins, Trai Turner).

Best QBs: Nebraska

I like Nebraska's two QB signees, four-star players Bubba Starling and Jamal Turner, to edge out USC's Max Wittek and Cody Kessler.

Starling and Turner were both incredibly accomplished QBs at their respective high schools. Starling rushed for 1,381 yards and 19 touchdowns and threw for 1,433 yards and 18 more scores as a junior to become the No. 3 dual-threat prospect in the class.

He was seriously mulling over his Notre Dame offer and had taken a well-publicized trip to South Bend earlier this month before selecting Nebraska, which is closer to his home in Kansas.

Turner, aside from saying all the right things in his must-read interview, rushed for 1809 yards and 19 TDs and passed for 1816 and 13 more scores, which are incredibly balanced numbers.

It's exciting to wonder whether these great dually-talented QBs foreshadow a major overhaul of Nebraska's offense towards something similar to the Tommie Frazier days.

Also being considered: USC (Cody Kessler and Max Wittek); Georgia (Christian Lemay and Nick Marshall)

Best Defensive Linemen: Ohio State

The Buckeyes have, hands down, the best defensive line class you could ask for, one that combines mammoth size with speed and athleticism.

DTs Michael Bennett, Chase Farris, and Joel Hale are all mid-to-high four-star players who will be elite run-stoppers in the Big Ten for years to come.

Bennett is Rivals' top defensive tackle and the second-best prospect in the state of Ohio. Farris is a 6'6", 295 lb machine who could slide out to play strongside end or beef up and create havoc from the three-technique position.

What's more, the Buckeyes are still in play for DT Kevin McReynolds, a four-star tackle and fireplug who is blogging about his experience on the trail for U Recruit.

DEs Kenny Hayes and Steve Miller are fearsome. Hayes is Rivals' No. 2 strongside end, a bullrusher with a great first step. Miller has speed around the edge but can also hold up at the point of attack, making him a blue-chip player at weakside end. Together, they're the next Cameron Heyward and Thaddeus Gibson.

Knowing what great Ohio State defensive lines can do, I and every other Big Ten fan who doesn't bleed Scarlet and Grey should be terrified.

Also receiving votes: Oklahoma (Jordan Wade, Cooper Washington, Jordan Phillips, Marquis Anderson); LSU (Anthony Johnson and Quentin Thomas); Texas (Desmond Jackson and Cedric Reed); Virginia Tech (Kris Harley and Corey Marshall).

Best Linebackers: Stanford

The second big surprise of the 2011 class is Stanford getting the best linebacker corp.

While most of us can barely peel ourselves out of bed, Stanford's coaches went across the country and grabbed the No. 5 inside linebacker, James Vaughters, out of Tucker, GA and the No. 7 outside linebacker, Anthony Sarao out of Absecon, NJ.

Vaughters is a 6'2", 233 lb blue-chip linebacker with 4.6 speed. His final list of Stanford, Ohio State, Georgia Tech, Georgia and Alabama should give you an idea of his pedigree. Sarao held offers from Nebraska, UCLA and Boston College. Both give great interviews about why they chose Stanford here.

DE/LB Charlie Hopkins is another awesome grab out of Spokane, WA who could slide over to outside linebacker or blitz linebacker if necessary.

I suppose a defense of this pick over Alabama's linebackers is called for. For one thing, I believe LB Brent Calloway is overrated at No. 9 and a benefactor of the National Championship effect (and those sentiments are echoed here). I have no animosity towards LB Shannon Brown, the Tide's other big signee, but I think Stanford has a lot tougher job of recruiting from New Jersey than Alabama has of recruiting from Georgia, so the former wins in a tiebreaker.

Runners up: Alabama (clearly); Texas (Steve Edmonds and Kendall Thompson).

Best Defensive Backs: Texas

With the addition of cornerback Josh Turner, Texas's 2011 recruiting class went from "guaranteed No. 1 overall" to "we've fallen into a universe where Colt McCoy is Jesus, and the Longhorns have everything good happen to them because he died during the national championship" territory.

Nowhere is this truer than in defensive back recruiting, where everything the Longhorns touched turned to burnt orange.

No. 2 safety Sheroid Evans, No. 2 cornerback Turner, No. 3 cornerback Leroy Scott, No. 5 cornerback Quandre Diggs, plus Mykkele Thompson, a four-star athlete whom Burnt Orange Nation predicts will wind up at safety, are all in the fold for 2011.

Is your face melting off yet, sinner?

Also receiving votes: Georgia (Corey Moore, Nick Marshall)