How Recruiting Shaped Utah and others…
- Utah As you would imagine, Utah’s recruiting numbers look much different from LSU’s or Oregon’s, which makes it that much more impressive that the Utes find themselves ranked inside the top 10 of the AP poll. Utah hasn’t had a recruiting class ranked higher than 38th over the past five classes and has been ranked as low as 59th most recently in 2019. That isn’t to say the Utah coaches are bad recruiters, because ultimately it’s about developing the talent they get and doing as much as possible with it. In that regard, Utah’s coaches should be viewed as good recruiters for being able to find the right prospects and turning their recruiting efforts into the No. #9 team in the country.
The team’s leading rusher, Zack Moss, who ranks 27th in rush yards and 11th in rushing touchdowns among all FBS players, was a three-star prospect in the 2016 class. Defensive end Bradlee Anae, who ranks 14th nationally with seven sacks, was not ranked in the 2016 class and had offers from only Utah, BYU, Hawaii, Oregon State, Vanderbilt and Virginia. The list can go on for Utah’s contributors, which demonstrates that the coaches have been able to build this team with under-recruited prospects. The team is made up of four ESPN 300 prospects and 16 four-stars among the past five recruiting classes, which is far fewer than are found on most of the other teams in the top 10 of the AP rankings.