Football Recruiting Notes

Man there is just too much going in Bruin Nation these days.

Here are some quick football related recruiting notes that have piled up from last few days. In case you didn’t read it (and you all should read ever single post going up in FanPost and FanShot sections on the right hand side) hicalliber and HE HATE ME noted about CRN and co. landing a big get in securing the commitment of Greg Capella.

That’s the second OL commitment in recent weeks, which follows the provisional commitment of JUCO transfer Donovan Edwards (who is working to get academically qualified this summer).

While Capella’s commitment was the big news, Bruins also suffered a setback in losing the commitment of Byron Moore who went over to the other side:

"He's been going to their camps since he was in the seventh grade. There was something in his heart that said he wanted to go there,'' said Byron Moore Sr. ``At the end of the day, he felt in his heart he wanted to be at USC.''
USC offered Moore a scholarship last week when he attended a summer camp.

"It's been tearing at him even before that,'' his father said. ``UCLA's been very good to us. They are a good group of guys.''

I know lot of Bruin recruitniks who live for this stuff on a day to day basis and ride the recruiting roller coaster train were disheartened by this news. Yet, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Even though Neuheisel and his current staff represent a huge upgrade over the previous coaching staff, Pete Carroll and the Trojans are the unquestioned kings of Pac-10 football.

They will remain so until we beat them on the field. That process will take some time, which will require patience given the hits this program has taken by producing almost a decade worth of underachieving seasons since the days of number 18. That’s a huge hole to climb out of. And while I am optimistic that we now have the right fit in CRN, the rebuilding process will take time and it will go through it share of set backs here and there. So I am not all that worried about it. 

Besides within 24 hours of that Moore news, UCLA rebounded with a commitment from aforementioned Capella. Now Moore’s decommittment means that we will have more spot open up for OLs. And it is clear from the steady stream of recruiting news last few months that coaches are working hard to get OLs in a year without a deep pool of talent in the Western US. In addition to Capella and Edwards, they also got a transfer in Kai Maiva and a serviceable walk on in Brett Downey. So they are doing everything they can.

GO BRUINS.