Pretty impressive, and to have both freshmen starting corners within an hour driving distance in Maryland, (how far is THAT from Oregon?) shows that Oregon's recruiting nationally is working due to the skills of this staff.

Hmmmm...wonder if that number also includes Linemen (huge, beefy, fast Linemen) from the Pacific isles, and kickers from Australia???

Global talent recruitment agenda! Go Ducks.

16 hours ago, Charles Fischer said:

Pretty impressive, and to have both freshmen starting corners within an hour driving distance in Maryland, (how far is THAT from Oregon?) shows that Oregon's recruiting nationally is working due to the skills of this staff.

Great post, Charles, thank you. Oregon makes up for its (beautiful, no doubt) location by having an aligned and energetic recruiting operation—this and the money invested in recruiting. Oregon is doing this notwithstanding being a half-share Big Ten partner through 2030.

As many others have asked over the years, what are Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, and Nebraska (!), for example, doing with all of the Big Ten money? I ask, why does an 18-team Big Ten with the revenue the conference is bringing in and shared equally across the board, have but five Blue Chip Roster teams? (I give small private school with sterling academics, Northwestern, a pass. Especially, a portal pass.)

Many B1G members with the same revenue share are not spending the money to compete in the conference and on the national stage. If the PO committee has a metric that gives appropriate weight to the strength of schedule, no more G5 teams ranked 9th in the nation please, conference performance top to bottom will matter.

G6 Tulane put up 269 rush yards against Northwestern. Once every 30 to 40 seasons, the Willdcats will rise up and play terrific football. But that's it.

I get the populist appeal of every member team receiving the same slice of revenue. But IMO this should be conditioned on every member investing an agreed-upon minimum for football and men's basketball. Otherwise, why should the top spending teams that produce positive results share with those unwilling to spend the money?

Mississippi State just defeated ASU. Vandy blew out VA Tech on the road. (OK, I hear you. Florida did lose to USF 😁.) Could the bottom third of the B1G win these games?

As Dan Lanning said, Oregon spends money to win! Oregon's partners should do the same or IMO, be treated like junior partners.

Going the extra mile is paying off for OBD.

One of the things I think is most telling isn't just that Oregon will go anywhere to get guys, which they will. The State of Oregon doesn't have much talent but the Ducks do put their own fence up around the state and do take whatever top talent the state produces though often as walk-ons now (Which is crazy!). Washington and California both have bigger talent pools and Oregon happily raids both now but between the three west coast states there isn't enough talent to win a national championship.

So going elsewhere is required.

And this little chart is telling because the last two National Champions, Ohio State and Michigan, are both exceeding 700 miles. Both are far more centrally located within the country, as Oregon is on the far left coast, but Ohio State and Michigan know there isn't enough talent in their backyards to win it all and have to go elsewhere. Oregon is frequently competing with both of those schools for recruits and the fact that we are winning on the recruiting trail means Lanning is doing it right.

What is remarkable to me is how nearly two-thirds of the conference only have recruits travel only a third or half as much. We have a tall disadvantage to overcome, as prior coaches knew, but Lanning and his staff overcome these barriers.