Very interesting article on USC. Sounds eerily familiar.

It happens a lot more often than our fans would like to think, same issues happened at Texas when Charlie Strong was there. A lot of the best kids in Texas immediately jumped off the ship & we're going elsewhere.

Kids respect winning that's all they really care about, you either build a winning program that can compete for conference titles/playoffs or you have to pay big money upfront to get the high caliber prospects, it's really that simple.

The difference between us & USC is SC pays & we don't. We won't be able to turn around local South Fla recruiting until we either start paying, or start winning.
And only West Coast schools attempt to challenge USC unless its a seemingly can't miss prospect which is the exact opposite here. Sucks that the NCAA takes a blind eye to the bags especially after SMU way back in the day but it holds us back now and we have to win big to combat it
 
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Not old enough to remember that

I remember Hackett and Robinson (still towards the end of his tenure) signing top-10 recruiting classes. It didn't translate to winning, but they did well with recruiting. Not on the level of Pete Carroll, but still very good

In-fact, the 02-04 teams were carried by kids that were signed by hackett.
 
Overall I think it’s been easier at USC. We are less than a days drive from multiple traditional national powers that have been relevant in these recruits’ lifetimes.

For the most part USC has been the only game in town on the west coast for 15 years.

Think the biggest part of this story is there’s ZERO homefield advantage anymore unless you’re winning big and even then, one bad season and you can lose recruits to the latest flavor of the month.
 
The Pac-12 and the ACC (except Clem$on) are very similar in that there are really no dominant teams in conference. Most of the Cali kids seem to stay in the Pac-12 whereas we have to not only compete with FSPoo and Clem$on, but the SEC as well.
 
Whoever the AD is at USC is terrible. You can’t get a great coach to move to LA?
From what I've read, it sounds like the AD (Lynn Swann) is essentially tying himself to Clay Helton, because the BoT wants him out unless they turn it around next season. He probably didn't think he could bring in a new coach and survive a year of growing pains.

Remember, this is the guy who didn't want to let Kliff Kingsbury interview for an NFL coaching job, even though that's the standard procedure, especially for coordinators. Dude is holding on for dear life
 
The Pac-12 and the ACC (except Clem$on) are very similar in that there are really no dominant teams in conference. Most of the Cali kids seem to stay in the Pac-12 whereas we have to not only compete with FSPoo and Clem$on, but the SEC as well.
Geography. ACC and SEC overlap. PAC 12 has the whole west coast to itself.
 
Oklahoma now has a pipeline to recruiting in LA too. But USC is king and always will be. They just need a real deal HC
 
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When Miami and USC had great coaches, they won and got recruits.

Money whatever, few top kids will trust their career to a crap offense run by a loser.
Besides the Carroll years
Sc really dominated when there were no scholly limits
They would offer every good kid and give him a ride and park their asses on the bench
McKay was really the one back in the day as he figured if they were on his bench they couldn’t play for another school and hurt him now w tv and better programs that rival sc it’s tougher to keep em all
 
Besides the Carroll years
Sc really dominated when there were no scholly limits
They would offer every good kid and give him a ride and park their asses on the bench
McKay was really the one back in the day as he figured if they were on his bench they couldn’t play for another school and hurt him now w tv and better programs that rival sc it’s tougher to keep em all
Bottom line in cfb is you dnt have reliably great programs without great coaches. Maybe ohio state is that close to a machine it was close to great with lots of coaches. Alabama struggled before saban. Georgia struggled under Richtbation. Miami won with great coaches (coker cashed in the goat team put together by the goat evaluator). Sure, you get a Vince Young or Cam Newton who breaks through, but those programs went back down afterwards.
 
The four important parallels are a) both are national brands b) both once were true regular national powers c) both sit on very fertile recruiting grounds (though they are quite different) and d) neither has won anything that really mattered in more years than current recruits have been alive.

You simply cannot build or maintain the area recruiting "fence" if you can't win big.

Flipside, if you win big, you can recruit anywhere. 247 just had an article that showed the big winner in 2018 Florida recruiting was...Alabama. The same article showed that the big California winner was Oregon.

Can add e) private school with difficult admission standards to the list.
 
"“It’s almost like you lose street cred if you go to the Pac-12,” Biggins said. “It’s like big boy football is in the South. Right now, the Pac-12 has a black eye from a national perspective.”

Ouch!
 
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Bottom line in cfb is you dnt have reliably great programs without great coaches. Maybe ohio state is that close to a machine it was close to great with lots of coaches. Alabama struggled before saban. Georgia struggled under Richtbation. Miami won with great coaches (coker cashed in the goat team put together by the goat evaluator). Sure, you get a Vince Young or Cam Newton who breaks through, but those programs went back down afterwards.
Very true
 
It happens a lot more often than our fans would like to think, same issues happened at Texas when Charlie Strong was there. A lot of the best kids in Texas immediately jumped off the ship & we're going elsewhere.

Kids respect winning that's all they really care about, you either build a winning program that can compete for conference titles/playoffs or you have to pay big money upfront to get the high caliber prospects, it's really that simple.

The difference between us & USC is SC pays & we don't. We won't be able to turn around local South Fla recruiting until we either start paying, or start winning.
Facts
 
You obviously dont remember what it was like before Pete Carroll

Thank you. I commented on this that during the lean years of SC; when Colorado became contenders, when Washington became contenders, when WASU became contenders, when UCLA was playing for Rose Bowls, it was due to SC being in the dumps.

The thing was SC was still getting A Pete Marinovich, A Keyshawn Johnson, A Johnnie Morton, A Willie McGinnest, or A Kareem Kelly. The problem was, they were ONLY getting one to, maybe at the most, two blue chips a year from their recruiting areas, and the rest of those recruiting classes were flooded w mediocre players b/c a lot of other high profile recruits from The West were going to rival schools.

This happens everywhere. The fact is, these kids ain’t never been loyal to the home teams. They grow up rooting for them when they’re young, but at the end of the day, it is business. Go look at Texas bleeding out recruits to OU, A&M, LSU, Bama, etc during their lean years after 05-08. Go look at PSU bleeding out recruits prior to Franklin or LSU prior to Saban and during those sketchy years of Les.

These kids ain’t loyal unless u give them something to be loyal about. Both us and SC get put on front street for these issues due to how hot our recruiting areas are, so our problems are 100x magnified when we bleed out recruits.
 
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