After watching USC swoop in on short notice(by recruiting standards) and take Katoa and Tufele, it painfully obvious how much more work Utah has to do moving forward. The catch-22 that winning will get you talent, but talent is required to win is very true when you are trying to climb the ladder of the Pac-12.
We are basking in the glory of the best back to back recruiting classes in school history. The amount of talent that the coaches have brought in is remarkable. Yet, the reality is that this is the level of recruiting that we are going to need to sustain success in the Pac-12. We will need to reel in a similar class year in and year out.
And to climb higher on the ladder, we are going to need to pick up even more high end recruits, like JT. And it is this fact that has led to some of the doom and gloom that has been prevalent the last 2 days.
The reality is that we have not earned the right to feel like we can expect high end talent to consistently stay in state and choose the Utes. We have a good thing going, and we can point to our ranking and our wins over Stanford, USC, UCLA, etc. But we still haven't finished above USC in the standings. We still haven't played in one of the top 3 bowl tie ins for the conference, still haven't won our division.
And before the doomsday crowd chimes in about lost opportunities, blah, blah, blah. The reality is that Utah has had a signficant talent gap(on the field and in assistant coaches). And that talent gap leads to losses that on the surface look bad. But even this year, Oregon and Cal both had superior talent from top to bottom on the roster. We are just now to the point that we have Pac-12 depth. But it is still average Pac-12 depth.
When you look at the talent of the recruiting classes from 2012-2014(29th, 43rd, 67th) you can see just how much Whittingham has overacheived to have a 28-11(16-11 Pac-12). Utah has out-punched its weight class the last 3 seasons.
It is that ability to overacheive that has me smiling ear to ear. Give Whittingham better talent, and he will turn better results. And those better results will lead to better recruiting, and better retention of high level instate players.
We will never be USC. No one in this conference will be. But, if we can sustain the recruiting level of the last 2 classes, we can consistently place ourselves in the upper 3rd of the conference. We can be the team that the national press considers a perennial challenger to the USC throne.
Baron and ilinati clash to what Utah's ceiling. Ilinati is correct that we will never be USC, but Baron is correct that we can become a perennial preseason and post season top 10-20 team in the nation. I like our trajectory. I like the talent coming in. But I also know that we are going to have to continue to out-punch our weight class to keep moving upward.
We are basking in the glory of the best back to back recruiting classes in school history. The amount of talent that the coaches have brought in is remarkable. Yet, the reality is that this is the level of recruiting that we are going to need to sustain success in the Pac-12. We will need to reel in a similar class year in and year out.
And to climb higher on the ladder, we are going to need to pick up even more high end recruits, like JT. And it is this fact that has led to some of the doom and gloom that has been prevalent the last 2 days.
The reality is that we have not earned the right to feel like we can expect high end talent to consistently stay in state and choose the Utes. We have a good thing going, and we can point to our ranking and our wins over Stanford, USC, UCLA, etc. But we still haven't finished above USC in the standings. We still haven't played in one of the top 3 bowl tie ins for the conference, still haven't won our division.
And before the doomsday crowd chimes in about lost opportunities, blah, blah, blah. The reality is that Utah has had a signficant talent gap(on the field and in assistant coaches). And that talent gap leads to losses that on the surface look bad. But even this year, Oregon and Cal both had superior talent from top to bottom on the roster. We are just now to the point that we have Pac-12 depth. But it is still average Pac-12 depth.
When you look at the talent of the recruiting classes from 2012-2014(29th, 43rd, 67th) you can see just how much Whittingham has overacheived to have a 28-11(16-11 Pac-12). Utah has out-punched its weight class the last 3 seasons.
It is that ability to overacheive that has me smiling ear to ear. Give Whittingham better talent, and he will turn better results. And those better results will lead to better recruiting, and better retention of high level instate players.
We will never be USC. No one in this conference will be. But, if we can sustain the recruiting level of the last 2 classes, we can consistently place ourselves in the upper 3rd of the conference. We can be the team that the national press considers a perennial challenger to the USC throne.
Baron and ilinati clash to what Utah's ceiling. Ilinati is correct that we will never be USC, but Baron is correct that we can become a perennial preseason and post season top 10-20 team in the nation. I like our trajectory. I like the talent coming in. But I also know that we are going to have to continue to out-punch our weight class to keep moving upward.
Last edited:
