Is BYU’s 2025 football class unfairly underrated due to a “flaw” in transfer assessments?

247 Sports currently ranks BYU transfers Keanu Tanuvasa, Andrew Gentry, and Tausili Akana as average players. I strongly disagree with that assessment.

With BYU flipping four-star edge rusher Nusi Taumoepeau from Stanford, many in the BYU recruiting community expected a rise in the team’s 2025 recruiting rating. However, that didn’t happen, and it’s not Taumoepeau’s fault. Some of the blame falls squarely on the primary source of these rankings: 247 Sports.

After analyzing BYU’s modest 2025 recruiting ranking of No. 66 nationally, I dug deeper and discovered an odd pattern in the way 247 Sports rated three of BYU’s high-profile recent transfers.

Recent additions—defensive tackle Keanu Tanuvasa, offensive tackle Andrew Gentry, and edge rusher Tausili Akana—were highly regarded talents, but their 247 Sports transfer ratings are perplexingly low.

Let’s take a look at the 247 Sports high school rankings for BYU’s recent transfers, then compare them with their strangely low transfer ratings:

Keanu Tanuvasa, DT

High school: .8663 (3-star) -> Transfer: .8600 (3-star)

It’s hard to understand how a redshirt sophomore coming off an All-Big 12 Honorable Mention season is given a .8600 rating, but that’s what we’re dealing with. Tanuvasa has been a key player on a solid Utah defensive line for the past couple of years. He’s not a mid-level three-star player—plain and simple.

Andrew Gentry, OT

High school: .9628 (4-star) -> Transfer: .8600 (3-star)

Gentry was ranked No. 147 in the nation by 247 Sports when he finished high school in 2020. Fast forward a few years, and after a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he spent three years at Michigan. There, he appeared in 26 games (two starts) and won a national championship in 2023. While he didn’t secure a starting role at Michigan, it’s hard to believe that he’s fallen from one of the nation’s top high school prospects to a mid-level 3-star transfer.

Tausili Akana, Edge

High school: .9397 (4-star) -> Transfer: .8500 (3-star)

Akana was one of the best prospects in the class of 2022, ranked No. 52 nationally by 247 Sports. Over two seasons at Texas, he played sparingly, appearing in nine games with just one tackle. Despite that, it’s odd that 247 Sports has downgraded him from one of the top high school recruits to a below-average Power Five player as a transfer.

It seems there’s a flaw in how 247 Sports evaluates transfers who haven’t started at powerhouse programs like Michigan and Texas, where nearly every player is a 4- or 5-star talent. Just because players like Gentry and Akana didn’t start for elite teams doesn’t mean they regress into average 3-star talents when they enter the transfer portal.

Ultimately, the ranking a player receives from 247 Sports is secondary to their actual on-field performance.

I’m expecting big things from Tanuvasa, Gentry, and Akana in 2025 for the BYU Cougars.

Don’t be surprised if they greatly exceed their questionable 247 Sports ratings.