Eight best freshmen standouts in 2024 college football season: These 5-star prospects lived up to lofty hype

In today’s college football where players can play for nearly a decade and late bloomers are all the rage, freshman phenoms still wowed us throughout the 2024 season. And when the young players who lived up to the billing happen to be five-stars, what’s better than that?

Here are the five-star prospects (according to 247Sports’ 2024 recruiting rankings) who did the most damage in their college football debuts throughout the 2024 season.

It’s not often a freshman shows up with the ability to wow right out of the box like Smith did. From the moment he showed up on campus, nobody at Ohio State did anything to temper excitement about what he can do, and once he hit the field (besides dropping the first target of his career), he was add-water instant superstar. From dazzling one-handers all the way to icing the national championship game, Smith was as advertised, and it seems beyond belief that we get to watch him for two more years. 

With nine sacks as a freshman, Simmons was a young pup ready to step on the edge of a veteran defensive line and do damage. He has the third most sacks in a single season by a freshman defensive player in Texas football history. Next year, with an even more problem minent role in the Texas defense, the sky is the limit for Simmons. 

Lagway wasn’t initially supposed to start this season, but after Graham Mertz went down early in the season, he showed flashes against an FCS team that forced Florida to at least play him in packages. Then, when Mertz was out for the season, Lagway’s explosive play may have saved Billy Napier’s job showing s-tier arm talent and the explosive ability to take Florida’s offense to another level in the future. 

There’s a reason Colorado was able to cut its sack total from 56 to 43 despite playing an extra game, and that’s because Sheduer Sanders’ blindside was protected by Seaton. Being a Day 1 left tackle is no easy feat, and after allowing two sacks against Nebraska, he didn’t allow one more until CU’s bowl game according to Pro Football Focus. 

Bolden was a significant contributor on the backend to Georgia’s defense, appearing in every game while starting two and tallying the fifth-most tackles of any Bulldog. With Malaki Starks heading to the NFL Draft, Bolden is set to be the new star on the backend for UGA. 

Leading a surprising Gamecocks defense was its defensive front and leading the front was Stewart, one of the highest ranked recruits in school history. His 6.5 sacks were just shy of Jedeveon Clowney’s freshman record (eight). 

Look past the Patrick Mahomes impressions and see the best freshman passer in Huskers history. He both threw for the most yards and had the highest completion percentage of any Nebraska freshman to date and will look to take the next step to get Nebraska back to national prominence next season. 

Williams’ pirouetting game winner against Georgia will forever etch him in Alabama lore, but his eight-touchdown, 865-yard season wasn’t half bad, either. Perhaps you heard that Williams did all that last season while being only 17 years old. As Bama turns to a better passer next season, Williams should be able to do even more on the outside for the Crimson Tide and join the ranks of other great Alabama wideouts.