If you want to know how much more difficult the challenges have become for the Utah and BYU football programs, you need only look at the results of this week’s letter of intent day. It was not a pretty sight.
For those who are keeping score at home, 15 players signed with out-of-state Division 1 schools, including 12 by schools from one of the Power-5 conferences — Oregon State 3, USC 2, Stanford 2, Wisconsin 1, Ohio State 1, UCLA 1, Washington State 1, Michigan State 1. Among the biggest fish to escape: Osa Masina, (USC) Porter Gustin (USC), Andre James (UCLA), Branden Bowen (Ohio State) and Gabe Reid (Stanford).
How bad was it? Of the top dozen in-state recruits, all but one left the state. BYU landed only two of three players from Timpview High, their neighbor and unofficial farm team. Four so-called “legacy” players chose to wear red in college — Britain Covey, whose uncle and brother played quarterback for BYU, signed with Utah; Houston Heimuli, son of former BYU running back Lakei Heimuli, signed with Stanford; and Reid, son of former BYU linebacker Spencer Reid, signed with Stanford. Still another legacy player, James Empey, whose father played and coached for (and got fired by) BYU, signed with Utah.
All four of those players plan to serve LDS Church missions, which only adds to the Cougars’ pain. If they aren’t even getting the top LDS athletes, where do they turn?
Utah fared about the same, with eight in-state recruits signing with the Utes’ Pac-12 rivals. They can rue the day Gary Andersen, Urban Meyer and Steve Sarkisian rose to prominence as coaches or players at Utah schools. Credit (or blame) Andersen for taking four top recruits out of state — Christian Folau, Lopini Katoa and Noah Togiai signed with Oregon State (Andersen’s current employer) and Austin Kafentzis signed with Wisconsin (Andersen recruited him there before leaving for OSU). Sarkisian signed two at USC and Meyer signed one at Ohio State.
Now that hurts.
What is going on? Is this a glimpse of the future? The state has seen blue-chip recruits leave previously (Haloti Ngata, for one), but have there ever been so many? Will other recruiters, seeing this week’s results, recruit Utah more in the future?
If talented preps were ever a secret in out-of-the-way Utah, that is certainly no longer the case with the proliferation of recruiting services, increased interest in recruiting, YouTube, offseason football camps and seven-on-seven leagues. There are few secrets.
The continuing rise of Polynesian players — which began decades ago — certainly would add to the interest in Utah recruits given the large population of Polynesians in the state (at least eight of those out-of-state signees are Polynesian).
But the recruiting game has changed in another way more recently. Last month the NCAA voted to increase scholarships by thousands of dollars to cover the incidental expenses of attending school. That removes another incentive to attend an in-state school, where an athlete can live at or near home to save money. And now that Utah is in the Pac-12, Ute recruits know Mom and Dad will have opportunities to see them play.
BYU and Utah both face big challenges ahead that are entirely different.
BYU lacks the advantages of conference affiliation — conference championships, all-conference teams, better bowl ties, better scheduling. Fair or not, the Cougars have slipped to a middle-tier status behind the 65 schools that belong to the Power-5 conferences. Last spring two Power-5 conferences, the ACC and SEC, mandated that their schools play one nonconference game against a member of one of the other Power-5 conferences, with one exception: Notre Dame, an independent like BYU, would count as such an opponent. The Cougars were ignored. It was a ridiculous decision, and recently the ACC reversed field and announced that the Cougars would be counted as a Power-5 nonconference opponent. But it underscores BYU’s precarious place in the football world.
Ironically, Utah’s membership in the Pac-12 is also problematic. The Utes face an unavoidable disadvantage in trying to recruit largely from California (as most schools do) while most of their top conference rivals are based in California. The vast majority of Utah’s recruits are going to be those passed over by the California schools, as well as powerhouse Oregon, and you could go right down the Ute roster to prove the point (for instance, their best running back, receiver and quarterback last season are all from California and were ignored by home-state schools).
So, it is a double whammy if the other Pac-12 schools get first dibs on California recruits and now Utah recruits, as well.
Time will tell if the Utes and Cougars can answer the challenge from the glamorous out-of-state schools.
Doug Robinson's columns run on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Email: drob@deseretnews.com