The last few recruiting cycles (2008 & 09) have been disappointing and I've be spending most of my time commenting on and pondering the Broncos. I do come back for important events (such as the coaching change or switching conferences) and around NLOI day but my postings here have become rare lately.
It's going to be a lot more exciting to follow recruiting during the next cycle. The staff's brief recruiting period demonstrated an astonishing ability to sway recruits and that can only get better with a full recruiting period and a larger number of scholarships to offer.
Additionally, my expectation is that that recruits will view us differently now that we're a Pac-12 team. It's a hard idea to explain but part of the decision to attend CU is based on our conference. The issue of incongruent academic standards has been raised here many times but that incongruence or poor fit extended to other areas. We were a Pac-10 type of school competing -- with all due respect -- in a farm school conference. In the best of times, we did quite well. But in the worst of times, we were offering Pt de foie gras to athletes who were often looking for a meat and potatoes environment.
I'm also intrigued by the change of fortunes at UCLA and USC. Neuheisel's ship is sinking and USC has to pay the piper eventually. Both developments put us in a good position to further penetrate the mammoth Southern California recruiting market. We've always done well in Cal but not with the top recruits, who didn't view us as a true alternative to Pac-10 schools. We can now offer prospects from Cal the opportunity to return and play in front of their friends and family on a yearly basis. Perhaps more importantly, we can now offer recruits the chance to appear on TV for those recruit's friends and family -- but the real advantage is in the amount of exposure we'll be receiving on the Pac-12 TV network. The advertising we'll receive will enable a lot of recruiting opportunities that weren't available previously.
Besides SoCal, there are recruiting areas that are producing prospects that wouldn't immediately occur to people because they lack a large population base. It's obvious that Hawaii has produced a number of recruits, both over time and quite recently, but areas such as Nevada and Utah shouldn't be overlooked. It's not a question of drawing a far greater number of recruits but of being a reasonable alternative for a few, especially important ones. Arizona has been a relative emphasis lately and will be even moreso. Arizona is a surprisingly talent rich region and has the population to provide numbers. Washington also has a larger population (than Colorado) and I expect that we'll eventually appeal to athletes from that area because we offer an area that can compete with the Pacific Northwest in terms of scenic beauty.
I guess that the best way of expressing the current scenario is that, amazingly, there were prospects who were willing to spend four years in Lincoln rather than in Boulder. Have you ever been to Lincoln? With all due respect, anyone willing to live in Lincoln is operating on a different desideratum than I would. My guess is that future recruits will likewise have a different menu of choices and orientation to their preferences. We have advantages that should appeal to many recruits, just as they have in the past, but there are both better athletes and a far greater number of them who will seriously consider us now.