4&5 star recruits on each CFP top 10 team

Going back about two decades there has only been one team that has won a national championship with less than 45 blue chip players on the roster. I think it may have been Oklahoma in 2000.

Stars matter folks, they really do. There are examples of 45+ blue chip rosters that don’t do anything. UCLA historically is one of them. They have dropped off last 2 or 3 years but they have always been loaded with talent. USC of late, same thing and UW this year. It’s easy to point to these teams and say stars don’t matter, but you will not find a team competing for national titles without a 45+ blue chip roster.

Sure, there was an exception and there could be another.

Here is another thing to consider. Wisconsin has had some great teams, but they have few blue chip recruits. Their rosters typically have a half a dozen blue chips, a lot like us. Since 1998 they have had 11 plus 10 win seasons but can never quite get good enough to win it all.

Utah recruits the ESPN Top 300. I looked the other day at all of the unsigned kids in the Top 300. With a few exceptions, Utah has offered all of them. That is particularly true for any recruit in the Pac-12 footprint. It includes Texas and Florida, and states adjacent. Utah’s recruiting tapers off in the NE, but a few had Utah offers. I suspect most of the kids who are already committed had a Utah offer.

Many if not most of these kids sign elsewhere. Clearly, Utah prepares players above their star level. Utah is getting more and more players in the NFL and if I remember correctly some metric used by the pros, Utah is elite in this. Still, the number of highly ranked kids who commit is climbing at a snail’s pace. To be sure, joining the Pac-12 has helped Utah recuit higher ranked kids and dramatically increase depth.

Its hard for me to believe that Utah will have a lower ranked recruiting class this year. But it does appear to be headed that way. It is disheartening to look at the Top 300 and see how many kids are committed to the traditional Top 10-15 programs (with exceptions), including USC, Washington, and Oregon, compared to Utah.

If you look at the suite, Utah comes in with predominately 3* kids. Again, exceptions abound, Utah has picked up great 4* kids.

I’m still baffled by this. Is Utah too far away from three coasts? Is it in the way Utah deals with recruits and parents? For example, Utah lost Jayden Daniels to ASU because (among other things no doubt) Utah would not guarantee that he would start, which is the correct answer. ASU did. Is it because some folks think Utah is a LDS school? Is it because Utah does not have the storied past of for example USC, Ohio State, Alabama, Oklahoma, etc.?

I do look forward to the time when the state’s best players want to become Utes, and not Huskies or Ducks or Trojans or Bruins.

In the meantime, I am going to enjoy Utah’s great season.