What program do we most need to up our game against in recruiting?

YellowSnow

Lots of good posting going on of late about Pete laying out a recruiting footprint that is "sustainable" (footnote for @Tequilla here) and sets us up for long term success. And, of course, there is the we will never beat out USC or UCLA for So Cal kids (unless Jimmy Lake is involved, in which case we might have shot) narrative. That said, if we use our MBAs (or lack thereof) and get all SWOTy, what is the one school that we need to improve against to achieve our goal of being competitive on a national level?

GrundleStiltzkin

dnc

UCLA (see above)

Dawgman and RealDawg

AZDuck

Oregon (keep pulling BC's out of their state)

Please recruit the fuck out of Oregon.

dhdawg

The Tree (we're building a huge fence and you're gonna pay assholes)

never gonna beat USC.

YellowSnow

The Tree (we're building a huge fence and you're gonna pay assholes)

AZDuck said:

Please recruit the fuck out of Oregon.

Yes, perhaps poor wording my part. Edit: beat Ducks for occasional BC that comes out of Oregon, and beat them for guys we want in the rest of the western footprint. You can fill Coach T's bus with all the Florida guys who are just dying to be Eugene for 4 years.

dnc

UCLA (see above)

And honestly, I don't think it really has much to do with stepping our game up against Program X. Our? challenge as the program becomes known as a powerhouse will simply be to do a better job of presenting Washington across positions. I think Tequila and DDY's work outlining our success in different recruiting areas is chinteresting and chinsightful. We? need to get a presence in Hawaii again (come on down Zion!), and otherwise take recruiting of OL, DL, QB and perhaps LB/RB up a notch. I don't think targeting any specific enemy program is the solution, it's simply evaluating and improving from within.

If we can get back into Hawaii, make OL recruiting respectable and get a QB every year we'll be well on our way. I honestly think a lot of this will take care of itself as we keep winning.

We should be at a minimum in the race for the #2 average star rating among P12 programs every year going forward, with at least one of out every 2 or 3 years being the clear #2 program. So that means we need to pass Stanford and Oregon and catch up to UCLA.

That level of recruiting + our coaching = national contender.

dnc

UCLA (see above)

Forced to choose, I picked UCLA. We'll never consistently beat USC, and Stanford recruits nationally so it's rare we go head to head with them (though it would be nice to stop losing in state OL to them).

I think UCLA is the biggest target. They recruit areas of SoCal where we "have a shot" at getting kids,they get lots of talent and they consistently underachieve with it. If I were to spend time crafting a strategy to take recruits from one specific school, they would be it. Even so, we'll lose more battles with them in So Cal then we'll win, but if you added even two or three wins vs UCLA a year to where we already are, that's a pretty bad ass caliber of class.

backthepack

The Utah Schools (for all that Intermountain West talent)

We need the big polys

dnc

UCLA (see above)

backthepack said:

We need the big polys

I agree, but recruiting Utah is problematic. 1. There are some kids who are just going to go to BYU 2. There are some kids who are just going to take a mission and who knows what happens after that. 3. Of the kids who aren't going to do 1 or 2, a bunch of them are going to be seduced by USC.

There's still a good chunk of talented kids who don't fall in any of those three categories, but we don't have any specific advantage for them other than a winning program. We're not especially Poly on the staff or the team anymore, we're not especially close to Utah.

I'm all for establishing a presence in Utah, but I really see it as Eastern Hawaii (Hi Ruth!). We don't have any built in advantages there anymore, so expecting it to be a serious pipeline is probably unrealistic. If we could pull a kid or two every year that would be awesome.

backthepack

The Utah Schools (for all that Intermountain West talent)

dnc said:

backthepack said:

We need the big polys

I agree, but recruiting Utah is problematic. 1. There are some kids who are just going to go to BYU 2. There are some kids who are just going to take a mission and who knows what happens after that. 3. Of the kids who aren't going to do 1 or 2, a bunch of them are going to be seduced by USC.

There's still a good chunk of talented kids who don't fall in any of those three categories, but we don't have any specific advantage for them other than a winning program. We're not especially Poly on the staff or the team anymore, we're not especially close to Utah.

I'm all for establishing a presence in Utah, but I really see it as Eastern Hawaii. We don't have any built in advantages there anymore, so expecting it to be a serious pipeline is probably unrealistic. If we could pull a kid or two every year that would be awesome.

Agreed

YellowSnow

The Tree (we're building a huge fence and you're gonna pay assholes)

dnc said:

Forced to choose, I picked UCLA. We'll never consistently beat USC, and Stanford recruits nationally so it's rare we go head to head with them (though it would be nice to stop losing in state OL to them).

I think UCLA is the biggest target. They recruit areas of SoCal where we "have a shot" at getting kids,they get lots of talent and they consistently underachieve with it. If I were to spend time crafting a strategy to take recruits from one specific school, they would be it. Even so, we'll lose more battles with them in So Cal then we'll win, but if you added even two or three wins vs UCLA a year to where we already are, that's a pretty bad ass caliber of class.

I suppose the amount that we compete directly for the same kids as Stanford is probably overstated- e.g., Garnett and Fozzy defeats were 5 years apart.

dnc

UCLA (see above)

YellowSnow said:

dnc said:

Forced to choose, I picked UCLA. We'll never consistently beat USC, and Stanford recruits nationally so it's rare we go head to head with them (though it would be nice to stop losing in state OL to them).

I think UCLA is the biggest target. They recruit areas of SoCal where we "have a shot" at getting kids,they get lots of talent and they consistently underachieve with it. If I were to spend time crafting a strategy to take recruits from one specific school, they would be it. Even so, we'll lose more battles with them in So Cal then we'll win, but if you added even two or three wins vs UCLA a year to where we already are, that's a pretty bad ass caliber of class.

I suppose the amount that we compete directly for the same kids as Stanford is probably overstated- e.g., Garnett and Fozzy defeats were 5 years apart.

We lost the snowboarder to them too but supposedly we cut him loose when he set up his trip (unlike, say, Ty Jones). So it's hard to say how badly we really wanted Connor

Dennis_DeYoung

The Tree (we're building a huge fence and you're gonna pay assholes)

YellowSnow

The Tree (we're building a huge fence and you're gonna pay assholes)

dnc said:

YellowSnow said:

dnc said:

Forced to choose, I picked UCLA. We'll never consistently beat USC, and Stanford recruits nationally so it's rare we go head to head with them (though it would be nice to stop losing in state OL to them).

I think UCLA is the biggest target. They recruit areas of SoCal where we "have a shot" at getting kids,they get lots of talent and they consistently underachieve with it. If I were to spend time crafting a strategy to take recruits from one specific school, they would be it. Even so, we'll lose more battles with them in So Cal then we'll win, but if you added even two or three wins vs UCLA a year to where we already are, that's a pretty bad ass caliber of class.

I suppose the amount that we compete directly for the same kids as Stanford is probably overstated- e.g., Garnett and Fozzy defeats were 5 years apart.

We lost the snowboarder to them too but supposedly we cut him loose when he set up his trip (unlike, say, Ty Jones). So it's hard to say how badly we really wanted Connor

God damned fucking boarders! Shout out to @89ute for having 2 out of 3 of the last US ski resorts that still don't allow knuckle draggers.

Tequilla

The Tree (we're building a huge fence and you're gonna pay assholes)

Stanford is the choice because not only are they the main competition for us in the North, but they are most like us from an ideological standpoint. Where we need to up the game against Stanford is in destroying the myth that you can only get a combination of great football and education at Stanford. There are a number of anecdotes out there (including from @Gladstone) that talk about how the athlete's degree from Stanford is viewed at least in Silicon Valley. Beyond that, their specialization is on recruiting the OL which is our biggest weakness ... in the last decade or so we've lost DeCastro, Garnett, and Fozzy out of state down to Stanford ... so that's a huge issue for us going forward at a position of need.

I'd give a close 2nd to UCLA only from the standpoint that we don't know how much longer Mora's going to be at UCLA (his contract is a massive albatross - their version of Romar's contract) so I do think that there may be an opening here and there for us to get a kid from SoCal that would ordinarily go to UCLA that may choose us going forward. The other part of that is that Mora's all of a sudden really targeting recruiting the Seattle area and we have to make sure that were in a good position to respond to that.

USC is USC so whatever on that ...

As for Oregon, I'm as concerned about what they are doing as what Andersen is doing at Oregon State. It is in our best interest going forward to continue to make sure that we're able to get the 1-2 players out of Oregon each year that we want ... particularly on the OL/DL. Should both of these programs rebound a bit that will probably make for a more competitive landscape. I'd rate higher but it's really not a huge target area for us ... and I don't see either being able to come into Washington and start pulling guys from us.

Utah is a huge challenge to me because there's a lot of different things going on. First, you're fighting against BYU ... it's helped that they are an independent right now and don't have a great path ... but it's still BYU. Utah has IMO the 2nd best coach in the conference in Kyle Whittingham and they are a player. What hurts us here is that beyond those two programs, they play in the South ... so it's not a guarantee that we're going to be playing in front of their family often as every 8 years we will miss them 2x in a row. But the big beast to me is that USC has also targeted this area for OL/DL prospects and if kids are going to leave the area, they look like they are wanting to take advantage of the glitz and glamour that SC has to offer.

Hawaii is the area that we need to get back to getting some kind of presence in as that's an area where we could really get our 1-2 prospects that we need from areas outside of Washington and California.

rodmansrage

dnc said:

I agree, but recruiting Utah is problematic. 1. There are some kids who are just going to go to BYU 2. There are some kids who are just going to take a mission and who knows what happens after that.

problem solved if chip peterman converts to lds, imo.

come to montlake, soak all the bitches you want.

AlCzervik

The Tree (we're building a huge fence and you're gonna pay assholes)

Bread

Oregon (keep pulling BC's out of their state)

Stanford gets recruits from everywhere. I feel like if we take the 2-3 recruits a year we fight over it wont make much a difference for them.

USC is in LA we fucked unless they rehire sark.
UCLA sucks.
Who cares about mountains. This is the Pacific Coast Conference!

Take all of oregons good recruits and they are done. Then we just have the tree to beat to get into pac12 champion game.

Southerndawg

backthepack said:

We need the big polys

I hear Hawaii is a pretty good place to recroot big polys too.

Ice_Holmvik

The Utah Schools (for all that Intermountain West talent)

backthepack said:

We need the big polys