0 of 25

Credit: Scout.com

College football recruiting has grown into a year-round, never-ending beast. Once one yearly recruiting cycle ends, the next begins, fraying fans' nerves and building program expectations on a constant basis. There’s one really fun thing about the whole process: seeing players excel on the field and develop into consistent performers and stars for their new programs.

With the advent of early enrollment, that process has already begun for 2017. A wave of freshmen are going through spring practice with their programs of choice, and more will join them this summer in pursuit of playing time, production and glory. Which players will make the biggest impacts? It's an inexact science, but we're going to take a look at the guys we think can make a splash.

We looked at players from the class of 2017 as well as players who redshirted for various reasons last fall and will compete as redshirt freshmen this season. Recruiting rankings from Scout.com for 2016 and 2017 were used as an initial guide, but potential playing time was also considered as an issue. Here's a look at the top 25 freshmen of 2017.