California Love

CharlesMincy

The Huskies need a strong presence in Los Angeles. I don't hear much about them being down here in the mix.
Where is the SOUTHERN California Love?

BallSacked

UCLA and SC seem to have SoCal recruiting on lock moreso these days than anytime I can remember, they are on local players very early and do a good job of picking up underrated and late rising players early. ASU seems to do the next best job of getting in the mix and trying to flip commits.

After that I feel ND and Oklahoma are way more active there and continually are bumping heads with SC/UCLA more than the PNW P12 schools are. Harbaugh is also going to be very active in the area.

whatshouldicareabout

Good point. I just looked at we only have 11 commits from CA which is probably the lowest % from CA in decades. Of the 11 CA kids, 1 is from Sacramento, 2 are from the Bay, 1 is from Fresno, 1 is from SD (I'm going to call Oceanside SD) and 6 are from LA (not counting Turner as LA since he's a JUCO and that's slightly different). Of the 6 kids from LA, only Beavers and Renfro have national offers. We're still targeting some kids, but it doesn't look good for Holiday or Hawkins. We'll probably finish with less than 50% from CA for the first time in a long, long time.

I'm not sure what Petersen's connections were with LA while he was at Boise, but Petersen said he'd make it a priority to build the fence around WA state since we've had a few kids leave during Sark's tenure (Scott Crichton, Josh Garnett, Zach Banner, Walker Williams, Keivarae Russell, Max Browne, Myles Jack, Danny Mattingly... yeah, imagine if we had those kids on our team this year). So far, the instate recruiting has been great, and he's done well in the other NW states, such as getting Dissly from MT and Barlett from WY.

I have to agree with the Bruin about USC and UCLA owning LA, as well as the other national schools like ND and Oklahoma and whatnot taking some other prospects, too.

The good news, though, is that Petersen is focusing heavily on CA for 2016. Of the 51 offers out for juniors, 29 are in CA, along with 10 in TX and 4 in AZ.

Edit: To compare to this year, Petersen offered 64 kids in CA and received 11 commits. In 2014, Petersen offered 61 kids in CA and received 16 commits (this counts Lenius as California instead of British Columbian).

BallSacked

I remember when Dorrell started to stink, and I mean really stink, CP & Boise were straight up beating the bruins for SoCal players. Specifically Titus Young is a player I remember really stinging that UCLA lost out on to BSU.

So I assume he has deep connects in SoCal.

RoadDawg55

BallSacked said:

I remember when Dorrell started to stink, and I mean really stink, CP & Boise were straight up beating the bruins for SoCal players. Specifically Titus Young is a player I remember really stinging that UCLA lost out on to BSU.

So I assume he has deep connects in SoCal.

That's crazy that UCLA lost Titus Young to Boise State. You know your coach and program suck when that happens.

AtomicDawg

I think he does better in the valley and Orange County. Seems to be where most of his connections are in the SoCal area.

AEB

I'm not worried about his recruiting in the Southland. Given how bad UW has been over the last decade, few top tier recruits down there will give us a legit look particularly with Mora at UCLA and the historic draw at USC.

My opinion is we'll start to pick off the high end guys once we start going 10-3 consistently. We don't need those guys to go 6-3 in league play. We need those guys to take the next step on the national stage. But first, we have to be competitive.

As previously mentioned consistently win the state of WA and that's a big first step. Think of this team if they had kept more guys home. We'd be at that 10 win level hunting for the players that get us to the CFB playoffs.

BallSacked

AtomicDawg said:

I think he does better in the valley and Orange County. Seems to be where most of his connections are in the SoCal area.

Probably the better place to have those connections these days. OC, SF Valley, parts of Inland Empire are playing good ball. Long Beach Poly and Serra are probably putting out the most talent in SoCal these days, and those are big USC strongholds. Mora doesn't even bother to recruit Serra these days.

The past few years inner-city LA football has been a dreckfest. You don't see a lot of players coming out of Crenshaw, Dorsey, Narbonne, Compton HS, Dominguez, etc lately. Even compared to a few years ago when the Black Mamba came out of Crenshaw. I've been wondering if youth leagues and private schools are pulling the best talent out of the LA Public schools and into the private schools. Goes for basketball as well.

HuskyInAZ

Priority #1 is a CP kind of QB. After that, it's lock down the state. Imagine the talent we would have today if Sark didn't burn the instate bridges. Our OLine could include Banner, Williams, Garnett. Our DB could include Russell & Dozier. Our LBs could include Jack. Our QB situation could include Browne. I'm pretty sure all of that would have had a positive impact on last year as well as our potential for next year.

JamesChristianson

The answer may lie in the strategies and secrets of the DJ teams that had an influx of CA talent leading to 3 consecutive Rose Bowls.

AEB

JamesChristianson said:

The answer may lie in the strategies and secrets of the DJ teams that had an influx of CA talent leading to 3 consecutive Rose Bowls.

Right. But if your team sucks (like UW has for a decade plus) you're not going to compete for and win top talent in LA. DJ had a decade plus of winning before Tommie Smith signed his LOI.