The North/West Division Split: Will It Impact Football Recruiting?

Seastrunk, Dontae Williams and Huff, so we may double that. Keep in mind that CK had a full year to recruit his players this time around, not mostly bellotti’s guys, and that while Bellotti was a duck by way of Chico State, Kelly came from New Hampshire, so there will be more recruiting inroads there than in say, Arizona.

We’ve done quite well with the SoCal players that USC didn’t want (USC took Stafon Johnson, we got Jeremiah Johnson). USC and UCLA can only take so many players after all.

But up until recently we did play an unbalanced schedule where we weren’t guaranteed games in SoCal. I haven’t looked at the games NW schools missed during that period and the amount of recruits we all used to pull during that time but I plan on doing it some time.

I know our school used to recruit Texas when we were good and we obviously didn’t have games there.

In basketball, recruits get non conference games near home promised, but my feeling is that it isn’t as big of a factor in football as we fans make it out to be. The coaches seem to be taking an oh well approach.

Win and recruiting is easier.

Since so many of our players come from SoCal I share Matt Daddy’s concerns. But, how much does seeing us play an away game affect a recruits decision. Sure being in the same town makes it easier to meet with them, (though do the coaches really take that much time out of prep for game day for house calls?) Making the most of recruits visits to Eugene seems like the best way to showcase our school. Seeing us play at the Mausoleum in no way compares the the excitement and majesty of Autzen on game day.

The rest should take care of itself. Powerhouse players want to play on powerhouse teams, and beyond that every recruit has a different set of reasons for wanting go one place or another. Of course, that’s a substantial oversimplification.

I will say that I’m not concerned. Oregon in just the past couple years appears to have reached a point where their coaches are seeing many more open doors in Texas and in SEC country than in the past. We seem to have momentum on our side, for the moment. Assistant coaches with valuable regional contacts and relationships may become even more important with a North/South split.

The big question I’m waiting to hear answered is how many conference games will we play? If we play nine, which I favor, I believe North teams will play a game in LA more times than they won’t. Maybe one of you smart guys can do the math on that…I’m having a beer and I don’t feel like it. Also, how far out will conference schedules be announced? That may be vital for those recruits that need to know how many times they might play at home in front of friends and family.

Change requires adjustment. The best recruiters – often assistant coaches – will win more recruiting battles than they lose. The Ducks have an excellent hold on marketing their product, and a big part of that is winning on Saturdays. In Chip I trust.

From 1986 until 2002, Oregon played 8 Pac10 games per year. Of course, this means that every season, one conference opponent was missed. (Prior to ‘86, the number of conf games varied between 7 and 8, making comparisons too complex to be valuable. Besides, we don’t want to talk about The Suffering.)

Reviewing the records of missed teams, in the context of the impact on Playing Games In L.A., which is the big issue on everyone’s mind these days, shows a few surprises.

Games and Teams Missed, ’86 – ’02
Cal – 4 (88, 97, 98, 02)
USC – 4 (89, 90, 95, 96)
UCLA – 3 (86, 93, 94)
Arizona – 3 (87, 91, 92)
Stanford – 2 (99, 00)
Wash – 1 (01)

The oddity here is how ASU managed to avoid the schedule miss. But the “misses” were evenly distributed between NoCal and SoCal.

More interesting is a look at the California road trips during this period. Oregon did manage one California road game each season from ’86 to ’02, and more often than not had two Cali road games.

California Road Games, ’86 – ’02
Bay and L.A. - 9 seasons (87, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 99, 01)
Bay only - 3 seasons (90, 93, 96)
L.A. only - 5 seasons (86, 88, 98, 00, 02)

Given that Oregon missed a trip to the LA area in only 3 seasons out of 17 before round-robin play, it’s clear that the unbalanced schedule, in and of itself, can’t be said to have had a significant impact on Oregon’s recruiting presence in California… especially considering that this period coincided with Oregon’s conference resurgence.

The problem is that division play can’t be compared with an unbalanced schedule. During those years we only missed one team in the conference. With a two-division league, assuming an 8-game schedule, we’ll be missing three — only two of which can be Colorado and Utah, and we won’t be able to get away with missing them every season.

So, I’m having second thoughts about the impact of a new BigPAC-age conference alignment on the NW schools, specifically, us. Under the most optimistic scheduling, we’ll only be in SoCal every other season; more likely, it will be every 2 or 3 years. Like it or not, there’s a huge advantage when recruiting players from SoCal if you can tell them they’ll be playing a game in their ’hood at least once a season.

As others have demonstrated, we get the lion’s share of our good players from SoCal. Although we’re likely to see a temporary recruiting bump from the USC probation and scholarship losses, long term, CK and the gang are going to have to broaden the recruiting base to a more national level.. because if you’re going after players and can’t give them an assurance their homeys are going to see them play without a long road trip, you might as well go after players in Texas, Florida, etc., even harder.

So I see this as being a potential negative for Oregon, given our growing national prominence.. about the same negative for UW, assuming they are on some level of resurgence.. but — maybe — a very big negative for Wazzu and our friends in Corvallis. I don’t follow Coug or Beav recruiting, unless they’re going after the same players we want, but I can’t imagine this will help them.

All I can say is that I’m very, very glad I don’t have to figure out the conference schedules going forward. I’ll be content in complaining about them.

In my mind, the entire question of recruiting will not be an issue due to exposure. We will get exposure. Exposure will not be hurt one iota. The moves the Pac-10 are making will make the entire Pac-10 more prominent in LA, and the entire nation.

The only problem with recruiting will be if recruits from Southern Cal don’t want to go to a place where they aren’t guaranteed to play in front of their family every year. Will this affect Oregon? Maybe, but I don’t think it would to any significant level, and if this is such an important issue to the player, I doubt that Chip will be recruiting them anyway. He wants kids that want to compete first and foremost.

The thing to remember is that this is not a straight up loss. Overall, it’s a gain. We may suffer a very small amount in a certain area, but this will also give our recruiting staff advantages in other areas.

At Oregon, we innovate better than anyone else. These moves will give us that ability to an ever greater degree. Obviously, anytime you move to the unknown, it’s a risk, but I’m really excited to see what the coaching staff will do with their new opportunities.

I’ll take Chip Kelly’s view on the matter.

We should be guaranteed at least one game per year on January 1st in Pasadena, so this should be a non-issue.

:)

I think everyone is making to much of this. From my perceptive, as a Husky fan, if you win and your coach can recruit, you will be fine. I’m sure you all are recruiting just fine. We are recruiting really well in So-Cal, mainly because we have a coach who’s a great recruiter, especially down there. I don’t know how Duck fans feel, be as Husky fan, I like the northern division. Not having to play both LA schools every year sure seems like a easier path to the conference title game, and you have to get to the conference title game to win the conference. Your program will get plenty of exposure if you make it to the conference title game on a regular basis, winning your fair sure certainly helps of course. So for me, I’m good with the northern division. Cal’s good, but have been inconsistent lately. Stanford’s good right now, but how long will that last. WSU is really struggling right now. UW has been down, but has a history of being very good and even Duck fans have to admit that we are getting better. Oregon State has been very competitive, but haven’t been able to take that next step. Oregon has done, as much as it pains me to say this, been very good the last 10 to 15 years. I suspect that as time goes on, our two programs will be the dominate programs up north. Our little rivalry will grow even more intense, because now, we will only competing against 6 teams, not 10, and for many future years, we will be in each others way. Man, it’s going to be fun.

I know everyone shudders at the horrific things that happened in the last year with the Oregon football program starting with the Punch Seen ’Round the World and then the whole off season troubles with the law which hopefully ended with Masoli getting the boot recently.

I think in some ways it helped the nation know what kind of coach CK is. He has shown he is one to back up his players, give them an honest second chance, and stick to his plans if you don’t follow through with what he’s set down for you to accomplish while under his scrutiny.

That certainly gives players some thoughts to that he’s an honest, good guy, who shows he can win even with adversity. This might secure future players who are on the fence as to where they want to play their college football.