Washington’s Place in the Recruiting Hierarchy

Trying to figure out recruiting success based solely on offers is a bit of a fool’s errand. There is no accountability system out there to verify an offer. Every recruiting service has stories of schools texting/calling an outlet to say we didn’t actually offer that kid. But coaches can’t say anything publicly. And even if they did say the words “we’re offering you a scholarship”, there’s no way to verify that an offer is still valid 1, 3, or 6 months later.

That’s why going off of official visitors is a bit more of a reliable method even if it lowers your sample sizes. Teams are required to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to flying a prospect and their family into town and paying for their meals and lodging while there. The bigger the school, the more likely they’re willing to bring someone on an OV that they don’t really want all that badly. But most of the time if a player takes an official visit it means they’re at worst a high plan B option for the school.

Washington brought in 43 players this cycle for an official visit and 22 of them are committed to the Huskies with a chance at a few more. Those players took an average of 3.3 official visits this spring/summer so for most of them there was a clear indication of who else the Huskies competed against for their commitments.

What better way then to get a sense for how well Washington is recruiting than to look at what schools they were competing against for OVs and how well each school converted for those prospects?

I put together a little formula for each school that essentially shows how much better or worse UW did at getting a commitment from those mutual prospects than the other school. If neither school got a commitment then it doesn’t count in either team’s favor.

There were 8 schools who Washington shared at least 4 prospects on OVs this cycle. Here they are in order of best to worst for the Huskies to get a sense for where UW stands against their most frequent competition (higher numbers are better and zero is roughly average).

Arizona State: 60.0% (5 prospects: 3 to UW, 0 to ASU)

Mutual players: TE Vander Ploog, TE Baron Naone, S Rylon Dillard-Allen, ED Smith Orogbo, LB Cyrus Polu

There was some serious competition for tight end help between the Huskies and Arizona State this cycle. Three major targets ended up between the two schools as ASU wrapped up AJ Ia early on while both Vander Ploog and Baron Naone took visits to Tempe. Washington ended up being just find that Ia decided to commit before visiting Seattle because the Huskies wound up with both Ploog and Naone who are rated above him in the 247 rankings.

Washington was less happy when Arizona native and four-star safety Rylon Dillard-Allen decided to commit to home state ASU early on this spring before he could take an official visit to Seattle. The Huskies and other schools kept on recruiting RDA though and he eventually decommitted, took several more visits, and picked the Huskies over SEC schools Alabama and Texas A&M among others. Both schools missed out on four-star edge rusher Smith Orogbo (Texas) and LB Cyrus Polu (Utah).

California: 57.1% (7 prospects: 5 to UW, 1 to Cal)

Mutual players: WR Chris Lawson, TE Vander Ploog, WR Deji Ajose, TE Baron Naone, ED Devin Hyde, S Aiden Manutai, OL John Mills

For a while this looked like it would be close to a clean sweep for the Huskies. The lone player in this group to commit to Cal was Hawai’i safety Aiden Manutai. Washington seemed to be out front for Manutai after they got his last visit but they ended up also landing Rylon Dillard-Allen and are in the thick of it for Ladarian Clardy, each of whom is ranked higher than Manutai. He could be a great pickup for the Bears long-term but the Huskies have to feel okay that they ultimately didn’t end up with his commitment.

The one player who got away from both schools was OL John Mills who ended up committing to Texas. We’ll get to the Longhorns later on but there’s no shame losing out to their recruiting these days.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that Washington came into Cal’s backyard for most of these commitments. Three of the Huskies’ commitments came from players in the greater Bay Area with Chris Lawson (San Francisco), Deji Ajose (Oakland), and Devin Hyde (Menlo Park). The other two were Vander Ploog who is from Southern California and Baron Naone who is mostly in between the two schools in Oregon. No matter the context, Washington pretty soundly kicked Cal’s butt going head-to-head.

UCLA: 57.1% (7 prospects: 4 to UW, 0 to Cal)

Mutual players: LB Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, WR Dylan Robinson, S Rylon Dillard-Allen, ED Devin Hyde, TE Kaleb Edwards, OL Darius Afalava, OL Demetri Manning

Washington also ended up with 4 of the 7 mutual players who took official visits to both UCLA and UW but this time it was a clean sweep. Edge rusher Devin Hyde is the only player that took visits to all 3 of Cal, UCLA, and UW so it wasn’t just that there was significant overlap between all 3 schools. The Bruins were able to get visits from four-stars Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, Dylan Robinson, and Rylon Dillard-Allen but Washington was ultimately able to win for all 3 prospects (in addition to Hyde).

Both schools missed out on offensive linemen Darius Aflava (Oklahoma) and Demetri Manning (Oregon) as well as TE Kaleb Edwards (Alabama). The average player who took a visit to UCLA as well was higher than for Cal with a rating of 0.8943 compared to 0.8834 which is roughly the difference between a high three-star and low four-star player.

Utah: 33.3% (6 prospects: 3 to UW, 1 to Utah)

Mutual players: TE Vander Ploog, CB Dylan Robinson, WR Deji Ajose, LB Cyrus Polu, OL Darius Afalava, CB LaRue Zamorano

The Utes have been extremely feisty on the recruiting trail with their sustained success but it looks like Washington still managed to best them for the most part this year. Utah was viewed as the primary contender for TE Vander Ploog but the Huskies were able to close out that recruitment. Four-star CB Dylan Robinson and WR Deji Ajose both took official visits to Utah but didn’t seem to be among the final few schools for either so Ploog was the only true heads up recruiting battle in which Washington prevailed.

Utah was able to land in-state linebacker Cyrus Polu but Washington countered by landing a pair of four-star in-state linebackers of their own to counter the blow. Both schools thought they had a chance with Darius Afalava who was one of the better offensive linemen out West and who ended up picking Oklahoma. CB LaRue Zamorano ended up committing to Michigan State after seemingly being a UW lean for several weeks before Dylan Robinson committed in what may have been a “one spot for two guys” situation.

Oregon: 0.0% (4 prospects: 1 to UW, 1 to Oregon)

Mutual players: WR Chris Lawson, OL Demetri Manning, TE Kaleb Edwards, DL Josiah Sharma

Technically, both schools were equal here as each one got one commitment out of the group and saw 2 players commit elsewhere. So UW is recruiting just as well as Oregon then, right? This cycle saw more evidence that Jimmy Lake may have been right that UW and Oregon aren’t rivals on the recruiting trail. Oregon has been focused mainly on the national stage in this recruiting class and only have 5 of their 14 current commits from California, Oregon, and Washington. That has led the Huskies to nab the top player from each state and if recent Minnesota OT decommit Zac Stascausky pulls the trigger it will mean Washington has taken 3 players from the state of Oregon who the Ducks didn’t target.

Washington won a battle to end up with WR Chris Lawson who had both the Huskies and the Ducks in his final 3 schools. They also lost the battle for OL Demetri Manning from Bellevue, WA which definitely stings. Manning is currently Oregon’s lowest rated commitment though.

Oddly enough, both Washington and Oregon have at times earned commitments from DL Josiah Sharma who took official visits to both schools. Sharma committed to Washington under DeBoer then decommitted after the coaching change. He pledged to the Ducks at the end of June in what was viewed as a bit of a surprise but less than a month later flipped to Texas who were the favorites the day before his June commitment to Oregon. Both schools missed out on TE Kaleb Edwards who committed to Alabama.

USC: -16.7% (4 prospects: 1 to UW, 1 to Oregon)

Mutual players: OL Champ Taulealea, OL Elijah Vaikona, LB Matai Toga’i, WR Donovan Olugbode, WR Andrew Marsh, WR Phillip Bell

This is the one entry with the most potential for change. Two out of the 6 players who took visits at both schools are still uncommitted with four-star WRs Andrew Marsh and Phillip Bell. Most recruiting folks have Bell as a contest between Ohio State and USC but he has been high on the Huskies. Meanwhile, Marsh has recently been viewed as a heavy Michigan lean but was on campus at Washington this week and told Dawgman that UW is likely in his top-2 right now. Either would be a massive pull for the Huskies but the smart money is for the reigning Big Ten powers (Ohio State and Michigan) to win out for the pair.

Both Washington and USC were able to win out when they did battle for offensive linemen with the Huskies getting a commitment from Champ Taulealea and USC for Elijah Vaikona. USC already had a commitment from four-star linebacker Matai Togia’i but he opted to take a visit to the Huskies anyways. It doesn’t look like that got him to change his mind but it showed the coaching staff was willing to take a shot by getting him on campus. The other prospect was WR Donovan Olugbode who ended up committing to Missouri with the Huskies seemingly finishing second.

Alabama: -25.0% (4 prospects: 1 to UW, 2 to Bama)

Mutual players: S Rylon Dillard-Allen, CB Dijon Lee, TE Kaleb Edwards, DL Josiah Sharma

Given that Alabama just stole away Washington’s head coach and most of their staff, it’s not a surprise that this matchup has gone in the Tide’s favor. Husky fans will no doubt be irked to see that DeBoer and company have been on fire recruiting at Alabama and that includes winning battles for California four-stars Dijon Lee and Kaleb Edwards. Both were looking like potentially elite pickups with heavy interest in Washington before the coaching changes but instead are following DeBoer to Tuscaloosa.

Washington did manage to get a commitment from Rylon Dillard-Allen who had Alabama in his final five and did take a visit there. It’s worth noting that Alabama currently has 0 committed safeties in their class of 2025 so it’s not as if the Tide already had multiple higher rated safeties in the boat and didn’t have room for RDA. Both schools missed out on Sharma as he flipped from UW to Oregon to Texas.

Texas: -42.9% (7 prospects: 0 to UW, 3 to Texas)

Mutual players: ED Smith Orogbo, DL Josiah Sharma, OL John Mills, WR Andrew Marsh, LB Madden Faraimo, TE Kaleb Edwards, CB Dijon Lee

Now we get to the only school that has been a complete sweep going against Washington. It’s not a completely foregone conclusion. The aforementioned WR Andrew Marsh as well as four-star LB Madden Faraimo haven’t committed anywhere yet. There’s still a chance that the Huskies win out for one of them. But despite having beaten Texas on the field in consecutive seasons, Sark has been whipping UW on the recruiting trail.

It was no surprise that they were able to get in-state four-star edge rusher Smith Orogbo to stay home. It would be a shock if UW beat the Longhorns for a priority recruit from the state of Texas. They were able to go into California though and win battles for both Josiah Sharma and OL John Mills who were both three-star prospects at the time. You might expect Texas to not need to come into California for that caliber of prospect but this year they did and it dented UW’s class potentially.

Conclusion

The results from this aren’t particularly surprising. Washington was able to win almost every time that they went head-to-head with any former Pac-12 school other than Oregon or USC. That includes against UCLA who is headed to the Big Ten with a bigger financial share but obviously has had a lot less recent on-field success.

Things have been tilted in Oregon and USC’s favor but this cycle when they’ve gone head-to-head the Huskies have been able to beat each school once for a four-star player. It’s not a given that Washington will win any given battle against either program but it shows that there are going to be isolated contests for very good players that UW can win against them.

We’ll see whether Kalen DeBoer continues to recruit the west coast as heavily at Alabama as we move along and his ties become stronger in the Southeast. But this year the connection between the coaching staff meant the two schools went head-to-head more often than they normally do and it isn’t a shock that the Tide won more than they lost.

The big thorn in Washington’s side has been Texas who overlap with Washington in both California and Texas and who UW hasn’t had success against in recruiting in a long time, not just this year. No school had more mutual targets against the Huskies this year and no team has beaten them off the field more consistently. If you ever want an indication that recruiting isn’t about on-field head-to-head results (2-0 for UW in the last 20 months), you’re looking at it.