I use a 24/7 Sports Composite Rating of 87.5 and up to distinguish "Blue Chip" recruits. That rating generally corresponds with the top 15% of all recruits and a rating in that range usually means that at least one service has rated the player as a 4-star.
In the five cycles since Petersen took over, the Huskies have closed on 16 of 24 (67%).
During the illustrious reign (5 recruiting cycles) of mythical recruiting god Steve Sarkisian, the Huskies received commitments from 10 of the 22 players (shit %) that were rated that high from the state of Washington.
But wait, there's more.
Of those that didn't sign with the UW under Petersen, I know that Dontae Powell (JC), Rypien (Spoklefuck), and Harrison (Garfield) did not have commitable offers.
On the the topic of how darn hard everything is...
The University of Washington recruits the bulk of its players from further away from home than any other team in the Pac-12 not named Stanford. It is also #2 among ALL Power 5 programs. WSU is just a whisker behind on that metric, but are clearly doing so much less successfully, as judged by recruiting rankings and results on the field.
Comments
Nationally, among Blue Chips, about 40% stay within 150 miles of home. Petersen and staff are getting over 2/3 of the guys they want in that radius from UW.
But over 75% of Blue Chips stay within 500 miles of home. Every Blue Chip recruit UW lands from California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii (obviously) is outside of that radius.
Where does Notre Dame rank?
And here are the bottom 15:
Take Purdue, for example. People in the Midwest make fun of West Lafayette being in the "middle of nowhere", but it is under 300 miles from Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Cincinnati. Those aren't necessarily the most fertile recruiting grounds compared to the South, or Southern California, or Eastern Ohio & Pennsylvania, but they are urban areas with A LOT of people combined, which by simple math, leads to a significant number of potential recruits.
Compare that to a school like WSU, which really is on the fucking dark side of the moon.
Yet for some reason, Purdue has one of the higher median distances for recruits. Actually the reason isn't mysterious...the last couple coaches they had prior to Brohm were dipshits.