Jack Tuttle appears to be a great get for our Utes.

Did you look at it position by position? Our early signees addressed acute needs and we even grabbed another Florida prospect with offers from Georgia, LSU and elsewhere. We have instant impact at DE and LB, both of which faced a dropoff. I’m happy with what we have. Sometimes local kids go where they will play. Sometimes they want to leave. The secret is out on Utah as a market. Bama, Stanford, Washington, USC, Michigan, they all regularly recruit. Saban himself and his assistants have been to St. George three times in the last month. We aren’t going to win all of these. We need to win the backyard but need to stay on top of our needs more. Looks to me like we did.

I’m not in tune with high school athletes/recruits but it’s a big country. I’m not super concerned about whether or not we get locals so long as we get solid players somewhere.

Utes better sign Tennesse Pututau or state recruiting will be a total bust ( in relationship to what was available) 

I’m curious: Does anyone have any stats on how many 4+* kids who hold offers from their local P5 school end up going somewhere else? For example, how many 4+* kids from LA end up someplace else besides USC or UCLA? I bet it’s not a small number.

Not that we shouldn’t do better at in-state recruiting, but let’s be honest: Some kids just want to get away from mom and dad or experience someplace else for college. I know I did.

It doesn’t surprise me that Utah loses a lot of good athletes to other schools. Because let’s be honest: If you don’t (or aren’t allowed to) ski, or climb, or mountain bike, and you’re not LDS, what appeal does Utah really hold?

Didnt we just sign our best ever class?

I do wish we could keep a couple more of the highly recruited local kids home every year, but the staff does a good job bringing in out of state kids to compensate for any local loss. 

Also, you can’t predict the future from this point on so you have to look at it objectively.  According to Rivals we have 2 out of the top 10 kids committed (neither signed yesterday) and three uncommitted kids we are still in play for, including the #1 recruit in the state.  Out of last year’s class we signed two, but we’ll also be receiving a transfer from Stanford (Sione Lund, #2 in 2017).  In 2016 we pulled in 3 of the top 10 including Maxs Tupai, who was #1 in the state and in 2015 and 2014 we were able to sign the Barton brothers (Jackson was the #1 recruit in the state in 2015) who are anchors on both sides of the ball for us.

I do get frustrated when we lose local kids to other Pac-12 schools, especially when those schools are trending up.  Stanford and USC are mainstays here and now Washington has signed three local kids in the last two seasons.  We aren’t going to keep everyone and I can’t fault a kid for going out of state, but I do wish and I do believe that one day we’ll be able to keep one or two Jay Tufele’s, Simi Fehoko’s, or Porter Gustin’s at home.