The Hotline is delighted to provide West Coast fans with a regular dive into the recruiting process through the eyes and ears of Brandon Huffman, the Phoenix-based national recruiting editor for 247Sports. He submitted the following report on Dec. 11 …
The coaching carousel can go one of two ways: slow and deliberate, not unlike the carousel at the heart of Disneyland; or it can be similar to Space Mountain, jarring, abrupt, dark, uncertain and leaving you nauseous.
It has raged across the college football world this season and may have reached a fever pitch on Wednesday, when Michigan fired second-year coach Sherrone Moore for personal transgressions.
And that’s not even taking into account what went on with Mississippi — the will-he-or-won’t-he of Lane Kiffin — and the ripple effect with LSU and Florida’s coaching searches.
Across the former Pac-12 footprint, where the Happiest Place on Earth resides, there were plenty of changes but much less drama than has surfaced in other regions.
Stanford made the earliest coaching change, firing Troy Taylor in March and then holding an interim coach (Frank Reich) for eight months before hiring an alumnus, Tavita Pritchard.
UCLA and Oregon State made in-season changes, dismissing former players, DeShaun Foster and Trent Bray, respectively.
Cal made the latest coaching change, firing Justin Wilcox with one week left in the season.
Like Stanford, the Bears hired an alum, Tosh Lupoi, who will continue working for his previous employer, Oregon, through the College Football Playoff — just as UCLA’s Bob Chesney will stay with James Madison and Oregon State’s JaMarcus Shephard will remain with Alabama.
Washington State was blindsided by Jimmy Rogers’ departure (to Iowa State) after one year on the job in Pullman. At the point this column was published, the Cougars had not named a replacement.
Of the incoming Pac-12 schools, only Colorado State has a new coach, with Jim Mora set to take over in Fort Collins.
With the carousel in mind, here’s a look at the recruiting outlook for each of the five new hires.
Cal
In Lupoi, the Bears hired arguably the best recruiter on the West Coast over the last two decades.
His passion for his alma mater will be at a fever pitch now that he’s back in Berkeley after a 14-year absence. Yes, there were hurt feelings when Lupoi left. The Bears had an elite recruiting class coming in with Shaq Thompson and were the frontrunners for Arik Armstead. But Lupoi’s departure for Washington sent Armstead to Oregon and had Thompson follow him to UW.
Lupoi has been named Recruiter of the Year nationally and in his conference on multiple occasions. Now, he’s back home.
With Cal making major waves in Hawaii — Lupoi is Polynesian, as well — this may be the best hire of any of the five listed here, at least when it comes to recruiting.
Colorado State
Mora will have something to say about Lupoi’s status as the top recruiter among the region’s new coaches. His name will resonate the most with prospects given his energy and ability to recruit as a head coach.
During Mora’s tenure, UCLA recruited at a level it hadn’t reached in more than a decade. And Mora was recruiting quite well during his recent stint at Connecticut.
Colorado State has the resources to attract prospects and is committed to finding in-state talent, something its neighbor, Colorado, could learn from.
While CSU isn’t quite UCLA, Mora has shown repeatedly that recruiting is something he loves — and is quite good at.
Oregon State
While Shephard hasn’t spent a lot of time out West, with one year at Washington State and two at Washington, he coached in a national championship game with the Huskies and recruited well on Montlake.
That success continued when he followed Kalen DeBoer to Alabama. (Shephard was instrumental in securing star receiver Ryan Williams.)
His energy is palpable, and he should have success recruiting to Corvallis given that he coached there while with the Huskies and knows what the Beavers are capable of.
Stanford
The Cardinal might not recreate the recruiting success it enjoyed under Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw — not in the era of the transfer portal and NIL — but Pritchard knows the university and knows just how well Stanford should be able to recruit.
It doesn’t hurt that general manager Andrew Luck takes a hands-on approach when it comes to recruiting and could alleviate a lot of the pressure on Pritchard, a first-time head coach.
The Cardinal didn’t have a permanent coach for eight months and nonetheless finished with a top-40 class despite the academic restrictions, playing in a conference across the country and limited spending on NIL.
Imagine what it can do with a head coach in place.
UCLA
Chesney may look like the biggest fish out of water here, especially given how little time he’s spent coaching on the West Coast. And by that, we mean none — all his experience has been in the Eastern time zone.
But in one week, after reports surfaced that he would take the job, the Bruins flipped a James Madison commitment, landed a quarterback and a running back Chesney had been recruiting to the Dukes, and flipped a Michigan State commit (who has a brother at UCLA).
The staffers expected to run his recruiting in Westwood come from Florida State and JMU but were previously at Oregon State and Fresno State, so they have West Coast ties.
Plus, Chesney seems to lean into recruiting and brought in talent in the two years after his JMU predecessor, Curt Cignetti, left a bare cupboard when he took the Indiana job.
While Chesney might not have the regional ties, he has the energy and a history of successful recruiting.
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