When it comes to the recruiting world of college football, Oregon Duck fans are feeling pretty high and mighty right about now. After landing 5-star OT Josh Conerly Jr. over USC on Friday night, fans in green and yellow are currently enjoying a victory lap that is taking place a lot sooner than expected. With a change in coaching staff over the offseason and an uphill climb to get back into recruiting relevance, Dan Lanning has done wonders over the past couple of months and landed the No. 1 recruiting class in the conference for the 2022 period, and No. 16 in the nation.
Nothing wrong with celebrating that fact in Eugene, but soon it will be time to look ahead to 2023.
In 2023, the USC Trojans deserve a lot of credit.
While most of their work in the 2022 period was done via the transfer portal under new head coach Lincoln Riley, the Trojans have gotten a jump-start on the 2023 class, where they currently dominate in the Pac-12 rankings after landing a trio of 5-star prospects for next year, including one of the top quarterbacks in the nation, Malachi Nelson.
None of this is to say that USC has built an insurmountable lead in the conference rankings. If we’ve learned anything from Lanning and Co. over the past few months, it’s that they take big swings at highly-rated prospects and have shown a propensity to be able to land them.
At the moment, though, they have a lot of ground to make up. How much? You be the judge, according to these Pac-12 recruiting rankings from 247Sports: