If there’s one thing that Oregon Duck fans love to brag about, it’s their own team’s ability to recruit. While Eugene hasn’t been a hot spot for top recruits for decades on end like some other top schools in the nation, the Ducks have been able to recruit as well as just about anyone over the past decade.
While there may still be some hard feelings, Oregon fans can thank Willie Taggart and Mario Cristobal for that development.
The torch has been passed to Dan Lanning, who’s done a tremendous job in his couple of years as head coach of the Ducks, putting together a pair of classes that are highly touted. He appears to be well on his way to doing the same in 2024, as well.
The landscape going forward is bound to be different, though, and that could be a good thing for the Ducks. With Oregon making a move to the Big Ten in 2024, its recruiting base is expected to grow with the prominence of the program. No longer will the Ducks be competing with just the USC Trojans for conference supremacy on the trail. No longer will recruits who go to Oregon be forced to accept the fact that their games are on fewer national broadcasts and played late at night on the East Coast. Instead, the Ducks will now become one of the top members in the preeminent conference in the nation. That will have a positive impact.
So when we look at the past recruiting success for Oregon before making the jump to a new conference, how does it compare to their future peers? We know that the Ducks have held the No. 1 recruiting ranking in the Pac-12 for the majority of recent history, but does that hold a candle to what schools like Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State do on the recruiting trail?
In order to find this out, I looked at the following over the past five years of results to get a sense of where things stand:
- Accumulative Recruiting Scores
- Average Recruiting Scores Per Year
- Highest National Ranking
- Lowest National Ranking
- Number of 5-star Recruits
I think it gives us a pretty good sense of who the best recruiting powers in the new Big Ten will be going forward.
Take a look at what I found: