Charles Fischer Administrator No. 1 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Heck no! I want Oregon to always clean-up, and we are like never before under Coach Mario Cristobal. I gauge our success in recruiting by how many 4-Star and 5-Star players (rankings by Rivals.com) the Ducks sign. Up until recently--the best was 12 signed in a year (twice) by Mike Bellotti and Chip Kelly. Two years ago Coach Cristobal shattered through that with signing 14, and now this year has busted through that again with an astounding 18 of the coveted players out of a total of 23 signed thus far. Oregon is still pursuing JTT, and will leave an opening for any attractive transfers that appear in the portal. But it certainly appears that the conference is going to become quite top-heavy concerning talent before long. The number of 4-Star and 5-Star players that choose the other schools... The Top: Oregon 18 USC 17 35The Rest: Washington 6 Utah 4 Arizona St. 4 UCLA 3 Cal 2 (No wonder DeRuyter left, as the only two were on offense!) Stanford 1 (How far they have fallen in recruiting!) WSU 1 Colorado 1 Arizona 0 OSU 0 22 Oregon and USC have 61% of all the best players signed (35) for an average of 17.50 of the 4 and 5 Star players each. Ten other teams share only 39%, or only 22 of the best players for an average of 2.2 per team. Thoughts? I know that I not only don't mind it, but am pretty pleased... 1 Mr. FishDuck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 2 Share Posted February 3, 2021 For the conference's competitiveness it is a problem... HOWEVER, if the Pac-12 is to be "saved" or is to survive in this current environment it is less important to have many good teams and more important to have 1 or 2 really good teams. Clemson carries the ACC and has given the ACC football relevance even though most of the ACC is terrible. Alabama elevates the SEC and while the SEC is more prone to having other programs rise up year to year Alabama is a mainstay. The B1G needs Ohio State more than Ohio State needs the B1G at this point as OSU is the premier program in the B1G. We saw this last season the conference bend over backwards to make sure OSU had a shot at the playoff. The Big-12 may be in a similar position as the Pac-12 if it wasn't for Oklahoma reaching the playoff as often as they have... granted they haven't won a single playoff game but they bring the Big-12 a level of relevance as winning the conference with only one loss is a way to make the playoff. The Pac-12 needs one or two very strong teams that can make the case that the Pac-12 can field a playoff team. If Oregon and USC are able to take control of their respective divisions and make the Pac-12 championship a win-and-in (the playoff) game then all the better for the conference. Spreading out the talent at this point only serves to maintain the status quo of the conference, irreverent in the eyes of the college football world. Though spreading out the talent would help solve some of the long term problems of college football... but that would take some significant institutional change at the highest levels. So for now... Oregon and USC need to battle it out and forget the rest of the PAC. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
UtahDuck No. 3 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Arguably outside of the SEC, most conferences have 1 Elite team. The Big Ten has Ohio state, Big12 has Oklahoma, ACC has clemson. Each of these conferences has a secondary team who has the talent but curfuddles it every year(Michigan, Texas, Miami). Oregon doesn't need a balance of talent they need to hog everything they can, take as many elite west of texas players possible and fill in with some national players. The only other option is for the pac 12 relevancy is for USC to hire competent coaching and maintain their level of recruiting. I don't think anyone here will be arguing for the second option. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Fischer Author Administrator No. 4 Share Posted February 3, 2021 17 minutes ago, David Marsh said: So for now... Oregon and USC need to battle it out and forget the rest of the PAC. I really hate this, but the truth is...we need USC to be good for the national perception of the conference. If they are good and we beat them... 1 Mr. FishDuck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
30Duck No. 5 Share Posted February 3, 2021 20 minutes ago, Charles Fischer said: we need USC to be good for the national perception of the conference. If they are good and we beat them... So far, the Ducks are taking care of the beating them part. USC is living on heritage and location, time for them to catch up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDucksFan No. 6 Share Posted February 3, 2021 6 hours ago, Charles Fischer said: Cal 2 (No wonder DeRuyter left, as the only two were on offense!) This of course begs the question "Why wasn't DeRuyter doing any recruiting of (4&5's) when he was at Cal ??" Maybe he did but couldn't get any ?? This just doesn't impress me about DeRuyter's recruiting ability's. 5 hours ago, 30Duck said: So far, the Ducks are taking care of the beating them part. USC is living on heritage and location, time for them to catch up. Careful, we want everyone to "think" USC is good and want them to be in the top 12 or 15 but we don't want them to catch up to us. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 7 Share Posted February 4, 2021 5 minutes ago, BigDucksFan said: Careful, we want everyone to "think" USC is good and want them to be in the top 12 or 15 but we don't want them to catch up to us. Everyone will think usc is good without any results for years to come. USC has been on the verge of a breakout season where they return to form like they were in the pete carroll days... People have been saying that since carroll LEFT USC. The assumption is usc will be just on the verge of a return to greatness for years to come. We just need to keep on beating them. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
1Funduck No. 8 Share Posted February 4, 2021 1 hour ago, BigDucksFan said: This of course begs the question "Why wasn't DeRuyter doing any recruiting of (4&5's) when he was at Cal ??" Maybe he did but couldn't get any ?? This just doesn't impress me about DeRuyter's recruiting ability's. Careful, we want everyone to "think" USC is good and want them to be in the top 12 or 15 but we don't want them to catch up to us. I'm going to take issue with 'his recruiting ability'. Recruiting is far and away about winning and the school and perception along with exposure. One would guess they are all interlinked. Oregon is pulling power house players and didn't have a DC approaching signing day. Our DC was gone. Why didn't these players leave? Any of them? None of them. Why? Brand. IMO its really that simple Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RatherBe No. 9 Share Posted February 4, 2021 It’s the same type of stratification in the other non-SEC conferences when it comes to talent disparity. If anything the Pac-12 is finally catching up. It’s also not a problem or a bad thing for the other conferences. The difference is that they are able to have one team be dominant. Part of it is that the ACC and SEC only play eight conference games, and the Big-12 basically does the same since Kansas is part of the round robin. The eight conference game season means you could have up to 14 fewer losses for the SEC and ACC, while Kansas usually takes the bullet for the other nine teams in the Big-12. Meanwhile, the Pac-12 has amazing parity. Only expanded since 2011 and by 2018 each team had a turn winning the South division. The North has had three different champs, so 75% of the teams had a division title in the first nine years. This kind of parity doesn’t help the top programs like Oregon. It would have been in Oregon’s best interest to have Jayden Daniels warning the bench at USC instead of beating Oregon with long passes. It should also be noted that the Pac-12 is having an outlier recruiting cycle, only 20 blue chips between the bottom ten programs. Maybe it’s the start of a new trend. Outside of the top-2 programs 2020 had 40, 2019 had 28, 2018 had 33 blue chip recruits. It’s probably no surprise, but over the last decade the number of blue chip recruits per conference correlates with the numbers of players drafted per team. The usual list is #1 SEC 2 Big Ten 3 Pac-12 4 ACC 5 Big-12. The Big Ten and Pac-12 trade places some years, same with the ACC and Big-12. ACC Clemson: three 5-stars, 14 4-stars Miami: two 5-stars, 11 4-stars UNC: one five-star, 11 4-stars Florida State: seven 4-stars Other 10 teams combined: 14 4-stars Big-12 Oklahoma: one 5-star, 11 4-stars Texas: one 5-star, nine 4-stars Other eight teams combined: 11 4-stars Big Ten Ohio State: five 5-stars, 13 4-stars Michigan: one 5-star, 11 4-stars Other 12 teams combined: two 5-stars, 34 4-stars 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Marsh No. 10 Share Posted February 4, 2021 Good information RatherBe, thanks for the break down. The other thing I would like to point out that this year more than most has forced schools to be dependent on hype, reputation and above all brand. Without official visits getting potential recruits on campus is incredibly difficult and if you were a young player who had to choose a school without seeing it in person what are you looking for? Relationships with coaches is always to no matter what is going on... after that it all comes down to the trajectory of the program and the program's reputation. USC has picked up a handful of recruits this year because USC has a good reputation and is close to home and is a safe choice. Alabama is a safe choice for a lot of talent because you know pretty much exactly what you are getting if you join that program. Being a Washington State or an Oregon State it must be really difficult right now more than ever... they usually struggle to get many four-star athletes and in a year where they can't get students on campus it is even more difficult to get one to commit. Branding matters... and Oregon has that in its favor right now in an abnormal and brutal year for recruiting. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducks4ever No. 11 Share Posted February 4, 2021 Btw, I don't even think there's enough talent on the west coast to share with the other teams. I took a quick glimpse at this year's 247 rankings and I didn't see a lot of highly ranked players in the pac-12 footprint. Might be a tough recruiting year coming up especially if we can't get people onto campus. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PittDuck No. 12 Share Posted February 4, 2021 5 hours ago, 1Funduck said:. Oregon is pulling power house players and didn't have a DC approaching signing day. Our DC was gone. Why didn't these players leave? Any of them? None of them. Why? Brand. IMO its really that simple 1FD makes a very good point, often when a DC or OC goes, one or more seriously talented kids go with them. Not the case in Eugene. I think the next man up mantra goes through and through. The Oregon Brand is drawing the best and brightest to usher in a bright new era of Duck football. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed O No. 13 Share Posted February 4, 2021 I'd rather have Oregon be the only dominant team in the conference (on the field, where it counts, but recruiting as a vehicle to get there) but if we NEED to have a second school that's very good, I'd prefer a rotating cast of characters... one year it's Utah, then Stanford, then even USC or UCLA occasionally (anyone but UW). I don't want USC to be consistently good on the field, though. They are uniquely positioned to really hurt our top-level recruiting given their history and location and the fast the current bubble of hope pops, the sooner we'll start getting kids like KT and Flowe out of SoCal again rather than seeing them (Foreman, Davis, Wright, this year) become Trojans. Don't get me wrong: out class kicked butt this year, but adding any of those three guys would have been huge. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDucksFan No. 14 Share Posted February 4, 2021 9 hours ago, 1Funduck said: I'm going to take issue with 'his recruiting ability'. Recruiting is far and away about winning and the school and perception along with exposure. One would guess they are all interlinked. Oregon is pulling power house players and didn't have a DC approaching signing day. Our DC was gone. Why didn't these players leave? Any of them? None of them. Why? Brand. IMO its really that simple A good point 1Funduck. Oregon does have a good national "Brand" and that does help, along with "winning". However the "talk across the coffee table" makes a big difference also. Just ask Scott Frost who thinks its was really hard to recruit to Oregon during his days here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
1Funduck No. 15 Share Posted February 4, 2021 4 hours ago, BigDucksFan said: Just ask Scott Frost who thinks its was really hard to recruit to Oregon during his days here. Maybe I'm seeing it differently, but I believe that supports my thesis. Oregon has to bring its Brand; winning, cool uni's, Nike, flashy offense. But, I would agree that recruiting needs to be top notched as well. After all, USC gets top recruits by default. We are ecstatic to have such an impressive class. Its old hat to USC. They played poorly and only got 12 recruits. They win the South last year, add a stellar recruiter promising next level success, and Boom! USC has a top 10 class and 2022 looks to be a dog fight for top 5 next year. Make no mistake, IMO, as MC goes so does Oregon. If he's our NS, then this could be a generational move in the west. Something towards the level of Clemson is what I'm seeing. Now we just need that prolific offense to return. I believe we have that in spades within 2 years. Duck on! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Sousa No. 16 Share Posted February 4, 2021 9 hours ago, David Marsh said: USC has picked up a handful of recruits this year because USC has a good reputation and is close to home and is a safe choice. Let's not forget that USC stole one of our best recruiters. He made an immediate impact. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
30Duck No. 17 Share Posted February 4, 2021 1 hour ago, Jon Sousa said: Let's not forget that USC stole one of our best recruiters. He made an immediate impact. "If you can't beat 'em, steal from 'em" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Sousa No. 18 Share Posted February 4, 2021 2 hours ago, 30Duck said: "If you can't beat 'em, steal from 'em" You can't knock Helton's decision making on this one. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
