[socalstanfan1]

Truly disappointing finish to this recruiting season, barring some out-of-the-blue development.  Who knows, maybe the guys we managed to land this year end up blowing the doors off of the college football world over the next 4 years.  That would not be too surprising with Burns, Owusu, and Kalambayi, in particular.  Perhaps Cotton and Taboada are revelations at the TE position.  But over the long haul we really can't afford to keep swinging and missing on top-ranked players if we want to continue to challenge for BCS bowls.

I think this year, to some degree, our continued success may have been partially offset by the resurgence of a couple of our rivals: UCLA and Notre Dame.  Every year we seem to battle over a sizeable number of good recruits with those two schools in particular (to a lesser degree you coud also throw in Michigan), and the recent success of those programs may have hurt us a bit.

But this situation bears watching.  Last year was the first recruiting year with Shaw at the helm and, obviously, was a fantastic success.  This year, very disappointing.  Up to now most of the posts I've seen on here about the 2014 class have been very optimistic.  Personally, at this point, I'm taking a wait-and-see approach.

[socalstanfan1]

Truly disappointing finish to this recruiting season, barring some out-of-the-blue development.  Who knows, maybe the guys we managed to land this year end up blowing the doors off of the college football world over the next 4 years.  That would not be too surprising with Burns, Owusu, and Kalambayi, in particular.  Perhaps Cotton and Taboada are revelations at the TE position.  But over the long haul we really can't afford to keep swinging and missing on top-ranked players if we want to continue to challenge for BCS bowls.

I think this year, to some degree, our continued success may have been partially offset by the resurgence of a couple of our rivals: UCLA and Notre Dame.  Every year we seem to battle over a sizeable number of good recruits with those two schools in particular (to a lesser degree you coud also throw in Michigan), and the recent success of those programs may have hurt us a bit.

But this situation bears watching.  Last year was the first recruiting year with Shaw at the helm and, obviously, was a fantastic success.  This year, very disappointing.  Up to now most of the posts I've seen on here about the 2014 class have been very optimistic.  Personally, at this point, I'm taking a wait-and-see approach.