The early signing period is two and a half months away, and while that might seem like a decent amount of time, the recruiting walls are actually closing in on everyone pretty fast.
And it’s an interesting time in West Coast recruiting. The Pac-12 has crumbled and the departing schools have landed in three different conferences. Not to mention the remaining Pac-2, whose short- to medium-term future remains up in the air. All of the moving pieces have added up to make recruiting a bit more interesting out West.
So with that in mind, let’s get into some West Coast recruiting thoughts.
1. When the Pac-12 was down a few years ago, there was non-stop talk about how the region’s best players, particularly California’s, weren’t staying out West to play college football.
The Pac-12 has improved immensely on the field since the peak of that talk three or four years ago. Teams are playing in big games on big stages that will likely only get bigger. Schools like USC, Oregon, Washington and UCLA have found a home in one of the sport’s premier conferences — the Big Ten, and Colorado has (obviously) received a tremendous amount of buzz and attention this year.
But the struggle to keep the West’s best players within the footprint has resurfaced during this recruiting cycle. Seven of California’s top 15 prospects are committed to schools that will play in the SEC next season — with an eighth (five-star defensive lineman Aydin Breland) projected to land in the conference as well.
And let’s not lay all of the blame at the feet of the Golden State. The top prospects in Washington, Colorado and Nevada are committed to either SEC or ACC schools.
“It’s seemingly happening again,” 247Sports national recruiting editor Brandon Huffman said. “These kids still seem to be looking outside the West Coast footprint. Whether it’s Aydin Breland, Brandon Baker (Texas), Nate Frazier (Georgia), obviously Julian Sayin (Alabama). … I don’t think there’s the momentum to keep a lot of these West Coast kids local like we thought we might see.”
Oregon has a proven track record of closing strong — just look at last cycle — and could easily vault into the top 10 nationally by the time the early signing period closes. But at the moment, no West Coast program is ranked in the top 10 and only three are in the top 30.
2. Of course, when the topic of struggling to keep the West Coast’s best prospects comes up, USC gets pushed to the forefront.
There’s been some anxiety within the fan base because the Trojans, whose 2024 class is currently ranked 18th, are about to go 0-for-5 on fringe top-100 prospects from Mater Dei, a traditional pipeline for USC.
But look beyond Mater Dei. There are 36 blue-chip prospects in California this cycle, and USC has commitments from just four of them.
Huffman said he wouldn’t be too concerned with the Trojans’ local recruiting “because I think there’s been a concerted effort by Lincoln Riley and his staff to go after more national kids,” he said.
“If (USC) is not getting anybody and taking second-tier guys from Southern California or the West Coast, then I’d be concerned. But they’re basically swapping a top-100 kid locally for a top-100 kid nationally. I think the tradeoff is not a net loss.”
USC’s average player rating is really solid at 91.64, which is better than some of the teams ranked ahead of it. But the Trojans have only 15 commitments, are ranked fifth in the Big Ten for the Class of 2024 and have not landed commitments from enough elite players along the defensive front — which is where they need talent the most.
3. Colorado’s been the talk of college football most of the season, but that has not led to a surge in commitments. The Buffaloes rank 76th nationally with only eight players in its class.
It’s Deion Sanders, which means there are bound to be some surprises late in the process, but it’s difficult to imagine there being enough star-studded flips to allow Colorado to jump into the top 25 of the composite rankings. That being said, a couple of reminders for this class. One, recruiting results typically lag a year behind on-field results, so this season will likely have more of an impact on the 2025 cycle.
And two, Sanders is always going to be a very active portal presence, and now he’ll have proof of concept to offer.
“I think if they’re going to get any kind of bump down the stretch, it’ll be kind of like USC last year,” Huffman said, “Now Colorado gets to be more picky and choosy with who they bring in (through the portal).”
4. Dan Lanning was super impressive during his first full recruiting cycle at Oregon and has maintained that momentum. Lanning and his staff have done a good job recruiting nationally, with blue-chip commitments from nine different states, but they’re also doing well on the West Coast with six blue-chip commitments from California.
“I think Oregon is being a lot more deliberate about the players they’re recruiting, and they’re still recruiting them at a high level,” Huffman said. “Whereas SC might say, ‘OK, we might lose a local kid, we’ll go national.’ Oregon is the school that’s kind of making them lose the local kid.”
5. The most compelling Western prospect to watch over the next few months is four-star defensive lineman Jericho Johnson, a top-150 prospect from Fairfield (Calif.) Armijo who has USC, Oregon, Washington and Utah in heavy pursuit. Why? Because 6-foot-4, 300-pound defensive linemen are simply a rare commodity out West.
It also might be worth monitoring five-star edge rusher Elijah Rushing, who stunned the recruiting world this summer when he committed to Arizona. There’s been no talk of Rushing backing off his pledge, Huffman said, but since his high school teammate Keona Wilhite just decommitted from Arizona, “There’s just been more buzz like, ‘Hey, if his teammate’s decommitting from Arizona, the hometown school, does that mean he might be open?’” Huffman said.
6. We won’t know how the recruiting dynamics out West will be impacted by the death of the Pac-12 until years from now, but it’ll certainly be interesting in the meantime. The Arizona schools and Utah make sense regionally in the Big 12. USC and Oregon have a national presence, and Washington and UCLA are still solid brands in the Big Ten’s expanded footprint. Stanford can recruit nationally.
But what about Cal? All of these changes leave the Golden Bears in an intriguing recruiting spot once it moves to the ACC next season. The Golden Bears have shifted to the transfer portal of late in order to help build their roster, but they’ll still need some sort of high school presence. Will they try to recruit nationally or instead maintain a regional focus?
“For a lack of a better term, is Cal pulling a Rutgers or Maryland where you have a strong regional base but no identity in the conference you’re going to?” Huffman said. “Yes, they’ve got the lifeline of a new conference, but regionally this is going to be very fascinating how this works out for them.”
Cal’s class currently ranks 64th nationally, with only 12 commitments, and only seven of the 12 are ranked in the top 1,000.
— This article originally appeared in The Athletic.