There a some good things to say about recruiting for sure.

[ProudUte]

I beleive this is the highest number of 4 star recruits that have ever signed with us an that is very impressive.  I’m excited about the wide receviers and defensive backs who signed yesterday.

Many are making excuses for our lack of sucess with in-state kids.  The fact is we have failed on many very good in-state kids the last three years.  The most painful losses came to BYU, but most of the losses went to our rivals within the conference.  I understand that recruiting against USC and Stanford is very hard.  Hey, if my grandchild was recruited by Stanford – I would say, you have to listen.  A degree from Stanford is worth a lot more than most all universities.  But, that being said – we need to do better with these in-state athletes.  We should rarely lose a kid to BYU now-a-days.  We wil lose some for obvious reasons, but it shouldn’t be the norm IMO.  If we show that we can compete for the PAC12 championship, we whould eliminate some of the poaching that is going on.  We had our chance to play for the PAC 12 championship this year and screwed it up.  We need to win in November and then we will start getting top 20 and maybe even top 10 recruiting classes.

Off my soap-box.

 

[UtesMuss1]

Agreed. Utah needs to start winning the South minimally and the conference. It’s hard to blame a local kid to ignore the allure of Los Angeles. It is important that Utah starts to sign the high-end local talent though. The tds will always be a thorn just because of the religious aspect, but a kid can get the same or similar experience at Utah with a higher caliber level of football/basketball.

[vcsg01]

As long as we get good recruits I’m happy. Kids either want to play here at home or they dont. Sometimes there’s not much you can do to keep them home.

[Onlyu]

Losing Tufele hurt…keeping 5 star talent home is the next step. That said, we have plenty of talent on the D-line and I can tell you that all 3 studs we signed last year (Fotu, Anae and Tupai) all said “he ain’t coming in and taking my playing time!!

Now as far as the other local products, we wanted Katoa who signed with SC as well. Langi T. the Bingham 4 star kid that signed at the Y called Utah before decommiting from Oregon. Asked if we had room. Based on what we expected to sign (including Jay T.) we told him we’d see what we had available…NEVER called him back. Wasn’t a priority. By the way NO one called him outside of BYU to try to reel him in. Good player but didn’t fit above what we have or thought we had coming in.

Very similar with Ah You – helicopter kid. Good player…teams dropped off of him (specifically UCLA) after an average Senior year. UCLA essentially refused his commitment. BYU gets him and it’s a big deal.

Tofa has a Younger brother who is projected to be a much higher rated prospect…his offer was almost exclusively based on that connection. No one in our program believes he is a difference maker and would ever be better than what we have…question his toughness. We lose him to BYU and it’s touted as a big win.

There were others that would have fit in just fine and would be nice depth to the roster but most likely backup type guys in state this year.

At the end of the day the 3 star Utah kids this year are good players but we went out of state and got higher rated talent in every case. Keeping Utah kids home is critical for sure but the right kids that fit our needs. Tufele was wanted and will be a stud but knew he would have a difficult time playing at Utah early. He 100% would have eventually but at SC with a depleted D-line he’s gonna play very early…and it’s USC!! Hate to say it but they’d be pretty damn tough to say no to for a hundred reasons. I could be full of crap so you can take this all with a grain of salt. I’m very excited about the future.

Bottom line is that the talent that we signed yesterday AND last year far exceeds ANYTHING we’ve ever come close to bringing in. We need to find a way to win 8 or 9 games this year but the 2-3 years after that could be very special with some luck and limited injuries.