These Star Football Recruits Are Elite Track Athletes, Too

* Gatlin Bair is a top 50 football recruit and MileSplit's No. 2 track athlete in the Class of 2024

Photo Credit: KTVB

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Burrowed within the top 50 track and field recruits in the country are quite the formidable bunch of football players. 

In fact, 14-percent of MileSplit's top 50 recruits in the Class of 2024 are NCAA Division I football commits with glittery pedigrees. Two more top 200 football recruits, Jerrae Hawkins (IMG Academy) and Caden Durham (Duncanville) are among the top sprinters in the nation -- and members of two prestigious prep track programs.

Four more athletes on our honorable mention list are also top-level football recruits, with two of them ranked as three-star athletes -- Will Henderson and Armani Cargo. 

The crossover appeal of track and field has long been known in football circles. 

But perhaps what's different in 2024 is the amount of elite, five-star-level recruits on both sides of the sporting landscape during this signing period. 

Of the seven track and field recruits on our top 50 list who are also football signees, three of them are top 100 players nationwide in football -- meaning they're rated as four-star recruits on the gridiron.

In total, we counted (at least) 13 crossover athletes this signing period who could make a massive difference for collegiate track programs as well as football teams.

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MileSplit's Top 50 Boys Recruits In The Class of 2024

MS50 Rank	Name	High School	COmmitment	247 Rank
No. 2	Gatlin Bair	Burley (ID)	Boise State	No. 35
No. 4	Jelani Watkins	Klein Forest (TX)	Louisiana State	No. 96
No. 6	Jordan Washington	Long Beach Jordan (CA)	Arizona	No. 221
No. 9	Ernest Campbell	Refugio (TX)	Texas A&M	No. 405
No. 10	Micahi Danzy	Florida (FL)	Florida State	No. 238
No. 11	Dwight Phillips	Pebblebrook (GA)	Georgia	No. 171
No. 23	Brayden Platt	Yelm (WA)	Oregon	No. 50
NR	Jerrae Hawkins	IMG Academy (FL)	Florida	No. 183
NR	Caden Durham	Duncanville (TX)	Louisiana State	No. 195
HM	Will Henderson	Gilmer (TX)	Not committed	No. 1,313
HM	Armani Cargo	John Ehret (LA)	Tulane	No. 1,097
HM	Jazonte Levan	Seaford (DE)	Old Dominion	NR
HM	Kameron Franklin	Frisco Heritage (TX)	Not committed	NR

An additional two recruits on our top 50 list are top 200 recruits, while if we added Hawkins and Durham to the mix, that number would rise to four top 200 football athletes

The only question worth pondering after National Signing Day is exactly whether any of these athletes will ever don a track uniform again. 

Four of our top 10 recruits in the Class of 2024 are all football players -- Gatlin Bair, Jelani Watkins, Jordan Washington and Ernest Campbell. 

Our No. 2 recruit, Gatlin Bair, told MileSplit last year that once he's on campus at Boise State, he will likely never run track again. 

But Watkins and Campbell might be interesting candidates to go two-ways.

Watkins is a multiple-time state track champion in Texas who is set to attend LSU, while Campbell is a small-school phenom who has racked up accolades in football and track and is headed to Texas A&M.

Both the Tigers and Aggies have won track and field national titles before. Watkins and Campbell could add dangerous levels of ability to both of those teams. 

Brayden Platt, meanwhile, has already confirmed he's set to compete both ways while at Oregon, long considered the nation's premier blue-blood track program.

Platt won a national outdoor title in the javelin last year with a mark of 228-1 -- the nation's No. 1 mark. 

This much is true: these football players will have a step on their counterparts in 2024.