Carlsbad’s Julian Sayin (left) and Mater Dei’s Elijah Brown have both been invited to the Elite 11 national finals next month. Photos: @Elite11 / Twitter.com & @MDFootball / Twitter.com.
As spring practices and showcases have mostly ended with 7-on-7 passing events coming up in June, here’s an updated look at the state’s most heavily recruited players for the Class of 2024. Mater Dei of Santa Ana has four of the top nine ranked players, which isn’t a surprise since the Monarchs have perhaps the best collection of returning talent in the history of high school football. Defending CIF Open Division state champ St. John Bosco isn’t far behind with three of the top 10. QB Julian Sayin of Carlsbad also is still holding on to the top spot, but his national standing by some networks has slipped.
Note: We also have player rankings for boys basketball and will do a first state ranking for the Class of 2025 in football in the coming weeks. All player ranking charts (past and present since 2013) are for Gold Club members only. This is a great time to sign up and you can get all of our content for just $3.99 for one month. For details, CLICK HERE.
The 2022 season State Junior of the Year, quarterback Elijah Brown from Mater Dei of Santa Ana, was slotted one position higher than Carlsbad’s Julian Sayin in recent player ranking updates by the 247 Sports recruiting network.
Sayin, however, is still higher according to Rivals.com and ESPN plus his commitment to national powerhouse Alabama hasn’t gone anywhere. Sayin thus remains as the No. 1 player in the state for the Class of 2024 HOT 100 player rankings. He also has a clear path in front of him to have a great senior season even though his Carlsbad team (or any other team perhaps in the nation other than St. John Bosco) won’t be playing and beating Mater Dei.
