Recruiting

[Tyler Henry]

Any news on recruiting? Feel like it’s been a second since anything’s happened with recruiting.

[The Miami Ute]

I heard Whitt say something interesting regarding recruiting during yesterday’s presser. Essentially, words to the effect that the Utes were going to de-emphasize recruiting in California and place more focus on recruiting in Texas.

[AZUTE]

I think you will definitely see an increased focus on Texas and Florida. I’d love to see Utah get into Louisiana more.

Heard a couple of recruits will visiting on Saturday.

[UtahMan17]

Will be difficult to recruit as well in Texas as we do in California, imo. Culturally the CA kids are open to wherever if the big Pac12 powers don’t want them, while Texas kids would rather go to TCU, Arkansas, Texas Tech, etc. over a school like Utah. Texas will be huge of course, and we have to hit it hard, but we really have to keep working the south too, esp Georgia, Louisiana, & Florida. With the SEC finally looking average, those kids will be much more open to going elsewhere. Plus kids like Cole Bishop are weirdly underrecruited in those areas. Texas is a little overrecruited.

[22Ute22]

I agree and disagree with some of your points.

You’re right that Texas is recruited heavily. Not only does Texas have 13 (YES THIRTEEN) FBS teams that have a huge advantage (play at home), but SEC teams also heavily recruit the state. Texas is the state that is probably recruited the most tbh. The west coast schools don’t recruit the east coast states much, and vice versa. But Texas is in the central region of the country, so it’s easily open to so many teams. Of course Whitt and Co. are the ones making millions of dollars, and they probably (99.99% chance) know more than me, but I don’t feel like reducing the Cali recruiting is the correct answer. I feel like Harlan should try his absolute hardest to schedule teams in California, whether it be at the FBS or FCS level. That way, we can still pitch to recruits that we regularly play in the state. Let’s be honest, we aren’t going to get many recruits from Georgia, Louisiana, or Florida. Losing the Cali pipeline would be a huge blow, especially because USC, UCLA, UW, and UO would probably lock down west coast recruiting. Those schools aren’t going to lose recruits to Iowa, Indiana, Rutgers, Maryland, etc. It’s not like Ohio State, PSU, and Michigan are going to steal all of the California recruits from the four west coast B1G teams. Without having to contend as much with Utah, Colorado, Arizona, ASU, and WSU/OSU, those four west coast B1G teams will dominate recruiting imo. Can’t let that happen.

[2008 National Champ]

I went through the list of offers about a week ago and pretty much the only kids who haven’t committed were local. Either some new offers need to go out or Utah needs to start flipping.

I ran my mouth for years that Utah needed to do a better job in-state when they were only getting one or two a year and none of the blue chips. I’m not sure taking half the class from the state is better though. Seems like 3 or 4 of the top 5 and the rest being high 3 star or higher from out of state would be optimal.

[krindor]

There’s some non-local guys with offers
Zacharyus Williams
Ikinasio Tupou
Jericho Johnson
Jason Mitchell
are all highly-rated out-of-state recruits listed as warm for Utah

[2008 National Champ]

Crap. I went through and linked all open offers and then hit cancel instead of submit.

There are 27 open offers not including the four you did so 31 total. 12 of the 31 are in state kids so I was off there. 177 offers, 9 commits. Would need a really high hit rate to finish off the class with what is currently available.

Looking good for Utah:
IOL – Nuku Mafi (UT). .8611 composite. #8 in state. Utah in top 3
DL – Alvin Puefua (UT). No composite. #15 in state. Crystal ball
LB – Ephraim Asiata (UT). .8552 composite. #7 in state. Crystal ball
S – Jason Mitchell (CA). .9095 composite. Utah in top 3
ATH – Isaiah Suesue (UT). No composite. #20 in state. Crystal ball

Crystal balled elsewhere are:
QB – Maealiuaki Smith to Oregon State
OT – Ikinasio Tupou (CA) to Washington
S – Davis Andrews (UT) to Notre Dame
S – Maquawn McCraney (WA) to CAL
RB – Jason Brown (WA) to Michigan State / Washington

Not is top x:
TE – Roger Saleapaga (UT). Top 3 of Auburn, Tennessee, Oregon.
DL – Aydin Breland (CA). Utah not in top 7
CB – Sione Laulea (JUCO). Top 3 of Miami (Fl), USC, Oregon

[DataUte]

Kids will go where they go, but let’s just take Jericho Johnson, a 4* DL. 247 says he’s warm between UW, UO, USC, and us. How hard is it to talk about playing at any of the other 3 and having to fly 4-5 hours to some games in a time zone 2-3 ahead of pacific? Maybe the B1G is appealing vs Big 12, but the realities might be different. He’s a CA kid, so totally get either playing at USC or in UW/UO would probably play in CA where at Utah, he’d maybe only play in front of family for occasional non-conference or bowl games.

All I’m saying is we sell the family culture and a good steady successful program, but for the next few cycles, using the travel issues for all the CA schools and UW/UO should be part of the discussion.

[Caliman]

I heard Elijah Brown might be reconsidering his commitment to Stanford given its mediocre performance against Sacramento ST. Utah could be a landing spot for this talented 4* QB. He’ll be at the UCLA game on Saturday.

[22Ute22]

Why would we need Elijah Brown, and why would he come anyway?

Utah will have NJ, Rose, Wilson, and Howard next year for QB, and I guess even Barnes. That’s not even considering the possibility of a transfer, although I would not want a transfer QB next year. Why would he come to play for Utah when he probably wouldn’t even play for 3 years at minimum, if ever? Additionally, if he chose Stanford, he might value academics and Stanford is second to none in that regard, especially for schools with P5 (P4 now?) football programs. If we do get some players from Stanford, I hope it’s because some of their better players decide to transfer out of their dumpster fire of a program. We’ve seem to have built a nice Stanford to Utah pipeline. Hopefully Damuni and Gabe Reid can put in a good word to their former teammates.

[2008 National Champ]

It would really highlight the coach’s opinion of the QB room if they were to bring in 2 QB’s this cycle with presumably Johnson, Rose, Barnes and Howard already on board.

[Caliman]

Because it’s highly likely that more than one QB will transfer out of Utah, I can see NJ, Rose, Howard staying, Wilson is going on an LDS mission so probably Barnes and the rest are moving on. 100% sure KW, and AL know this and are prepared to bring in a QB from the portal. Why else would Brown be at the UCLA game?

[22Ute22]

Is Barnes graduating? I don’t feel like he’d transfer and potentially screw up his chance at a free education. As for Wilson, I didn’t realize he would take a mission trip, but even so, it makes no sense to take Elijah Brown. It’s highly unlikely that he would play anyway. If the coaches wanted another QB, a veteran transfer QB would be the best option.

[The Miami Ute]

Barnes isn’t moving on. He’s a Utah kid that’s not in college to develop a football career.

[2008 National Champ]

If Wilson was going to go on a mission, his brother didn’t, that would be public knowledge by now. We knew long before signing on Clegg, the Hawaii kids last year, Ritchie, Fotu, Hansen, Covey.,, Mission kids don’t hide their intentions.

Also, Whitt has made it clear in the past with Tuttle and Costelli that once he had his guy, he would close the QB recruiting for that cycle. Rose/Johnson were an exception coming out of covid and having an empty QB room.

Wilson has too many offers to not lock himself into the best spot possible.

[J Rocksville]

I wonder what California kids think about that. On one hand they get to play for the school they might have grown up following, and it’s in a “better” league… But on the other hand there’s a decent chance it’s less competitive in that league and it’s not playing any of the schools they grew up watching their team play.

[Author]

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