Sunday, January 14, 2007

Success means beating USC, UCLA, Cal off the field

CFN, a publication I've never been able to fully endorse, has a respectable list of Top 30 players in the Pac-10 regardless of position.

ASU had two players make the list for this past season, Zach Miller and Ryan Torain. One has announced his NFL eligibility, while the other probably thought long and hard about it.

Meanwhile, USC, UCLA, and Cal racked up 19 of the top positions between them. The thin spread of premium talent doesn't appear to change much next year. Only Oregon State's Sammie Stroughter breaks the monopoly on those three schools stranglehold of Top 10 returning talent.

If you are a Pac-10 program wanting to challenge for top dog status, you have to beat those three schools in recruiting -- two of them in their own backyard. There's no other path. We've seen forays in Texas, Illinois, and the Midwest the past 20 years with very mixed results. Winning the battles in SoCal have produced two Rose Bowl teams. There's no alternative.

1 comment:

Stew said...

I agree Gad and ASU has a really good chance at 2 top Cali kids this year. The future is even brighter for the future as well.

The only AZ kids that project to top 30 PAC players are Griffen and maybe O'Dowd and Burkes.