FRISCO, Texas – The Opening Finals is the ultimate summer recruiting showcase. It’s also the offseason’s most fertile recruiting ground. One Florida commit was talking up a potential future teammate near the water cooler last Tuesday. We'll keep both unnamed. As he walked away, the commit said a bit too loudly about his target: “He’s a Gator.” Seconds later, as he realized he walked past a media member, the player added quickly: “Oh, I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

That's par for the course at The Opening.

As the NBA drops billions on free agents and superstar players backchannel their way to the same marquee teams, college football’s top recruits do much the same.

“At the end of the day, it’s trying to put together one team that’s going to a national championship,” five-star running back Kendall Milton said. “Getting as many players as you can get there is all that matters.”

Milton, who ranks as the No. 21 player in the 247Sports Composite in 2020, is presently uncommitted. But even he is recruiting other top players to play with him. The California native said he talks to other elite rushers “on the daily” as he attempts to create an all-star backfield. “I view it as keeping tread on your tires. Being in the SEC having someone there with you that’s a good thing.”

So, Milton is SEC-bound? He said “we’ll see.” His Snapchat from the week says otherwise. Here’s Milton trying to recruit the nation’s No. 35 overall player, MarShawn Lloyd, to play with him at … Georgia?

This is nothing new. Players have long recruited other top players to play with them. But there is a different feel to the 2020 race. Notably, only a few teams are truly involved with the majority of the top 2020 prospects.

Of the presently committed 18 five-star prospects, 13 of those players are pledged to just five teams: Clemson, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and LSU. Expand those numbers out, and 21 of the 34 top-50 prospects who are committed and 35 of the 70 committed players in the top 100 of the 247Sports Composite are committed to those programs.

“There definitely is an arms race between Georgia, Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama, LSU, those type of schools,” Georgia quarterback commit Carson Beck told 247Sports. “All the top talent is going to get truly split between those schools unless one school comes together and form that No. 1 class that’s just unreal.”

For those unfamiliar, Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State have combined for every national championship in the College Football Playoff era. Georgia, under Kirby Smart’s direction, played for a national championship in 2017 and has pulled in three straight top 3 classes. LSU, the fifth team in this perceived group, is among the steadiest producers of NFL talent. Or, as the parents of five-star corner Elias Ricks quickly put it when asked, is "DBU.”

This is not to say other programs aren’t landing five-star prospects or recruiting well. It's that this quintet is dominating the race for the top class in 2020 to the point it’s almost inconceivable another team could crack the upper crust.

“There is a growing interest from high-profile prospects, from coast to coast, to play in the SEC,” 247Sports Director of Recruiting Steve Wiltfong said. “From the College Football Playoff to the NFL draft to the big stadiums and huge fan bases, these kids are very excited about playing there. Clemson and Ohio State are SEC programs in a different league. The perception is the same as the others with the way they churn it out in the draft year in and year out."

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Clemson commit Tre Williams puts it bluntly when asked why top recruits tend to flock to other top recruits: “Nobody wants to play with bad people.”

The No. 62 overall player in the 247Sports Composite, Williams was one of the first commits in what could be a historic Clemson class. The Tigers’ 2020 class sits at No. 1 nationally, a group that includes five of five-star players.

Bryan Bresee leads that contingent. A 6-foot-5, 290-pound athletic freak, who happens to be the No. 1 player in the Top247, committed to the Tigers over Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and a handful of others. Bresee called it an easy choice as Clemson came off its second national championship in three years.

“The best players want to play with the best players,” Bresee said. “Clemson is just somewhere people want to be, a great atmosphere, great coaches and just a great place to play football. The coaches that are there are people you want to play for. It sells itself, to be honest.”

When it’s pointed out Clemson’s class looks a bit like an NBA superteam, Bresee quickly adds: “We’re like the Warriors.” He meant the Warriors of yesteryear. Or, in NBA terms, about a month ago. But the point still sticks.

A few select teams have dominated college football since its inception. Naturally, national championship-caliber programs tend to continually recruit the best players. There hasn’t been a first-time national champion since Florida in 1996. As it happens, there hasn’t been a national champion in the recruiting rankings era to do so without a five-star on its roster.

The five programs that consistently come up among top 2020 prospects have won recently, and their stars of yesterday remain visible. All five programs are among the top 10 in active NFL players. 247Sports spoke to eight of the 12 five-star prospects at The Opening, and they noticed that development and success.

“They’re building their players different trying to get them ready for the league,” Ricks said. “When they get to the league it transitions, and they’re ready. The play at a high level. They get drafted in the first round. That’s what five-stars want.”

How does the talent ultimately get split? A lot of it comes down to recruiting at events like The Opening.

Beck said Georgia commits have several different group chats: One for commits, one for a spattering of top targets and another for those who attended G-Day. Ricks isn’t afraid to get on his targets in person or on the phone. He’s a big reason fellow California native, and top 50 prospect, Jermaine Burton committed to the Tigers in April.

Five-star receiver Julian Fleming, the No. 5 overall player in the country, takes his role as the Buckeyes’ lead recruiter seriously. He and fellow Buckeye commit Lejond Cavazos were in the ear of a target before Fleming stopped to speak with 247Sports.

“We want to get the kids and we want to build a class that can win a national championship ultimately,” Fleming said. “If that means we’ve got to break our neck talking to some kids or go out and talk to some kids, then we going to do it.”

There are some exceptions to this gathering of talent on a select few teams.

Another five-star receiver, Demond Demas, is committed to Texas A&M. When asked why he didn’t flock to one of the many power programs that recruited him, Demas had a one-word answer: “Build.” Miami commit Don Chaney admitted many of his fellow five-stars are joining up at a few programs, but Chaney said he wanted to be a “trendsetter.”

“I just don’t follow,” Chaney said.

For others, like five-star athlete Darnell Washington, what players do outside his bubble isn’t his concern. A year out, 2021 offensive tackle and The Opening Finals Offensive Lineman MVP Donovan Jackson had a similar sentiment.

“I’m not going to college to lose,” Jackson, a 2021 prospect, said. “But I’m not looking at rosters saying, ‘Oh, this guy went there and things like that.'”

Still, the majority of five-star prospects 247Sports spoke to said the opportunity to win in college is critical. As an extension, a select few programs are in the running for the large majority of elite recruits. There’s a reason Alabama’s held the No. 1 overall class in eight of the last nine years.

“Ultimately, I feel like Georgia going to be there. Alabama is going to be there. Ohio State is going to be there. Clemson is going to be there,” Fleming said. “I feel like it’s those four. It’s those four schools that are really in the running year in and year out.

“If you want a national championship and want to be a contender, you’ve got to be at one of those schools.”

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All of this group-chat jostling and elite-prospect bunching leads to a question that’s hounded college coaches at large for generations: How does a team break through?

A myriad of factors goes into that formula: Recruiting, coaching, facilities, on-field performance, etcetera ... You could go on for a while. But how exactly is a program supposed to jump without landing elite prospects?

When polled, Tre Williams was as blunt as usual: “Recruit better.”

When it’s pointed out to Williams that most top prospects are going to the same schools, making it hard for other teams to emerge, Williams responded: “Well, Clemson did it.”

Williams is right. Another program could break through the perceived recruiting upper crust with years of building and some well-time victories on the trail like the Tigers managed to. The question is who might that team be. Wilftong suggested a few programs are in that mix: Oklahoma (due to its offensive recruiting), Notre Dame (recruiting extremely will coming off a playoff appearance), Washington (opportunity to pull a Clemson in a weaker league), Texas (blueblood program in a recruiting hotbed), USC (sleeping giant), Tennessee (won some head-to-heads against some of the bigger schools).

Again, there aren't a shortage of options. Merely, a shortage of spots at the top. Ultimately, a recruiting shift will only occur when one of the big boys falls off. Nobody anticipated Texas’ collapse at the turn of the decade just like nobody would’ve predicted Florida’s fall after Urban Meyer departed.

The question of who falls off is up for debate. As for those who will not ...

“I just don’t know when Alabama or Clemson will disappear,” Wiltfong said. “I really don’t.”