If you were to think up the perfect college football recruit, he might look something like Sam or Josh Lee.

The seniors at Central Catholic are dream students — Sam has a 4.2 GPA, Josh a 4.0 — and matchup nightmares as receivers for the powerhouse Fighting Irish.

Flip on the tape, and the 6-6, 215-pound twins leap off the screen, snaring balls high above defenders, then smoothly peeling rubber past them.

Sam broke out with 47 catches for 1,081 yards and 14 touchdowns in his second year as a starter. Josh has 21 catches for 513 yards and six scores in his first.

Both have prototype size, speed, hands, smarts, you name it.

They have it all, but for one thing.

A scholarship offer to a Division I university.

In a head-scratching sign of the times — as a pandemic-induced backlog of college rosters and the explosion of the transfer portal conspire to limit opportunities for high school athletes — the Lees are a steal in wait.

So far, Sam has an offer from Division II Hillsdale, and the brothers have been courted by Toledo, Northern Illinois, and Kent State to come aboard as preferred walk-ons.

I’m not a college coach — I only play one in the newspaper — but after watching the brothers on tape and once in person, it’s impossible not to wonder: What am I missing?

“Nothing,” assured our Steve Junga, who is high on both brothers and suggested Sam, in particular, is as puzzling of a recruiting case as he can remember in his three-plus decades covering prep sports for The Blade.

“It makes no sense,” he said.

“They are Division I players,” added Central Catholic coach Greg Dempsey, who has coached more than his share of them. “In the recruiting world, people talk about long and athletic. They’re that — and then some. Then you want to see production, and they have that. This doesn’t have anything to do with them. It’s the current state of affairs in recruiting.”

Well put.

I don’t mean to single out the Lee brothers, who, in an interview this week, were more comfortable talking about their Fighting Irish team — who will face Avon in a Division II regional final on Friday — than themselves.

But kids like them — representatives of the best of amateur athletics — deserve the spotlight.

And their story lends a telling window into the inopportune landscape confronting senior high school football players everywhere.

“I’ve been doing this for 43 years,” said Tom Lemming, a recruiting analyst for CBS Sports, “and I’ve never seen scholarships as limited as they are this year.”

Another longtime national recruiting insider agreed.

“This cycle is unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” said Jeremy Crabtree of On3.com. “There are going to be some really, really good players that are under-recruited and under-ranked that become hot commodities over the next few weeks leading up to the start of the early signing period [on Dec. 15].

“Coaches at a lot of Power Five schools I’ve talked to are hoping some of these guys remain under the radar and they can get some steals. That’ll be especially true for mid-level Power Five programs or even Group of Five conference coaches, like in the MAC.”

Why the diminished scholarship inventory?

Simple.

“All of the coaches have pretty much said they don’t have room because of the transfer portal and all the seniors from last year coming back,” Sam Lee said.

Indeed, it’s the perfect storm, beginning with, yes, college football turning into a free-agent market.

Where college programs once filled their recruiting classes almost exclusively with high school prospects, the relaxed transfer rules have changed the game.

Consider: During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS players entered the portal, up from 1,681 in 2019-20 and 1,709 in 2018-19. Some schools are pounding the portal as hard as the prep ranks — see: Michigan State’s overnight success after adding 20 transfers last offseason — and no one will be surprised if more follow.

The thinking: Why project what a prospect will be when you can know what a player is?

For instance, let’s say a coach envisions the Lee brothers evolving into 245-pound hybrid tight ends by their junior year. If the coach is in a crunch, he might just as soon recruit a college junior who already is exactly that.

Now, I don’t know if Transfer-palooza is sustainable — I mean, high school players will have to replenish the college pipeline at some point — but that doesn’t help prospects in the 2022 class.

Nor does the other temporal hurdle to snaring a scholarship, which is that college rosters are more stuffed than 16 clowns in a Mini Cooper.

That’s because the bill on the NCAA’s well-meaning decision to grant athletes an extra year of eligibility — and allow football programs a one-time pass to blow past their 85-scholarship limit this season — is coming due. Now, as teams work to get back to the traditional threshold and only one class graduating, incoming spots are at a premium.

Even, say, Toledo, which largely builds from within, might have room for 15 high school prospects in the ‘22 class.

And, of course, many will have less, leaving kids like Sam and Josh Lee to play the waiting game, their futures bright but uncertain.

One former college coach who was impressed by the Lee brothers this season laid it out plainly.

“Players like the Lee twins who would be considered late bloomers would have had opportunities in the past for what we termed ‘senior offers,’” said St. John’s Jesuit coach Larry McDaniel, a 20-year college assistant, including at Indiana and four MAC schools. “Now with the extra year and the transfer portal, high school seniors are getting the short end of the stick.”

Here’s hoping someone gives the brothers a chance.

And here’s betting they won’t regret it.

“It’s frustrating to watch,” Dempsey said. “But I also know they’re going to be OK. They’re great players, great students, great kids. Somebody’s going to benefit from giving them the opportunity.”

First Published November 17, 2021, 10:37 p.m.