USC fans got good news today that Graham Harrell is not going to the Philadelphia Eagles, but now learn that Helton has hired a defensive coordinator who was just fired from Texas. Texas was #108 in total defense in 2019. Orlando did not coach in the bowl game (might have saved his job if he did) and he was just hired by Matt Wells at Texas Tech. Ouch!
Utah connections outside of Utah reaaly do not matter for Stanford, USC, Oregon, and UW recruting in Utah. These teams are in a different recruiting market than Utah. School name, reputation, and history speak for themselves.
That said, Utah’s brand continues to grow and this year proved some higher level talented kids are creating a recuiting theme of at staying home to play together. Hopefully this will carry over to future recruiting classes.
USC did not get Fillinger, Carlson, Ritchie or Harrison. Looks to me like connections matter. A coach at Corner Canyon played for Orlando at Utah State and connected Orlando and Texas to Fillinger. When Texas fired Orlando, Fillinger de-committed. If Orlando was a USC in 2019, Fillinger might be a trojan.