Nice Pull...

by Paragon SC on Feb 7, 2008 7:28 AM PST in Recruiting

Well as far as I am concerned football season ended yesterday. Pete Carroll and his staff did a great job of pulling in a pretty good recruiting class that lacked any star power at either the QB or RB position. This recruiting class was all about needs. The offensive and defensive lines were the most important issues that needed to be addressed. Defensive backs were also a need and SC did and adequate job in addressing some of those needs.

With a late flourish, USC managed to finish seventh in the Rivals.com rankings. However, the Trojans could slip a spot if the nation's No. 1 player, Terrelle Pryor, signs with Ohio State or Michigan.

Either way, a top-10 finish is not bad, although it is the lowest-ranked class for Carroll since 2001. Scout.com was particularly unimpressed with the class, ranking it 13th.

"There's no quarterback or running back, but I really feel like we're in the top three," Carroll said.

We did miss out on some skill position players like Will Hill- Florida, Chris Polk- Washington and Patrick Johnson- LSU just to name a few, but that happens. Losing Joe Adams to Arkansas doesn't look like a real big surprise to the coaching staff as Pete Carroll noted here:

Carroll said Adams' decision to sign with Arkansas was not entirely unexpected.

"We just knew it was going to be a struggle the whole time," he said. "A kid really has to be strong about it to leave and know what he wants to do. . . . At the end it just was too hard for him to leave."

Missing out on some other players like Arthur Brown- Miami, or Jerrell Harris- Alabama is disappointing but with PC's ability to even be in the hunt for these out of state recruits shows just how strong he is when it comes to recruiting. PC pulled both T.J. Bryant and Nick Perry out of state, Bryant being he real surprise as PC broke the chain of kids from Lincoln High School in Tallahassee that always ended up at Florida State. Perry was the second player that PC was able to get out of Michigan for a second straight year.

If you care about rankings than you'll like to know that a number of the so-called "recruiting experts" thought that both the offensive and defensive line signee's were the best in the country when taken as a whole. Pete Carroll called it "a big class" in reference to their size.

Pete Carroll called it "the big class."

But not in numbers. The "big" in the 2008 football recruiting class USC signed Wednesday describes a 19-man group that's top-heavy with 10 large linemen.

"A little bit different year," Carroll said of a close-to-top-10 class, depending on the recruiting service.

The Trojans, who have been No. 1 in the nation in four of the past five seasons according to most rankings, still could finish as the best in the Pac-10, despite the smallest numbers of any top-25 class (equaled only by Ohio State).

As I noted yesterday, it's easy to get caught up in all the hype, but regardless with the "low numbers" of this class that PC has put them into a top-10 spot is pretty remarkable. Sure, the top teams listed in the rankings grabbed some pretty good talent in their right but a lot of those classes had over 25 or even 30 players signed so the quantity aspect of judging talent was more prevalent in those cases. Either way this class looks to be solid based on the numbers that the recruiting services have thrown about. I would prefer to wait until these kids take the field to see how they will perform but I am happy with the result so far.

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