For dedicated college football fans, the first Wednesday of February is a holiday.
It’s National Signing Day: the time when high school seniors sign the National Letter of Intent to play college football for a given school. Fans get excited because so much of their program’s futures are determined by the next recruits.
Recruiting is an inexact science that every program must perform well in order to win football games. Quality signings can change a program for years, but if some players do not meet expectations, it can set a program back. For Oregon, much of the defensive struggles this season can be traced to one poor recruiting class.
The Ducks recruiting class of 2013 had 8 of 20 players dedicated to defense. The class overall was ranked No. 19 nationally by 247Sports and No. 4 in the Pac-12. Oregon’s Mark Helfrich praised the staff’s efforts in the wake of Chip Kelly’s departure. Signing eight defensive players, however, gives the program little room for error if a player underperforms. But if a player is recruited to the school, then coaches must have faith in him.
“If I have any doubts, or second thoughts about a young man, I am not going to recruit him,” offensive line coach Steve Greatwood said. “I mean, there has not been one time where I haven’t believed, wholeheartedly, that he is going to develop into a great player for us.”
Because of the inexact science of recruiting, players do not always meet those expectations for a variety of reasons.
Again, take the 2013 class, whose players should be the senior leaders on defense. Of the eight defensive players, four of them are no longer at Oregon for a variety of reasons. That group includes Tyrell Robinson, Chris Seisay, Joe Walker and Torrodney Prevot. Walker came to Eugene as a junior college transfer and has since graduated, and Prevot is currently suspended indefinitely and being investigated for a criminal offense.
Three of the four remaining players — Danny Mattingly, Juwaan Williams and Elijah George — find themselves buried on the depth chart. Of the eight players in the 2013 class, only Tyree Robinson is starting.
More signees from Oregon’s 2016 class, specifically Troy Dye and Brenden Schooler, are starting rather than seniors from the 2013 class.
One missed class can hurt a team for multiple years. The Oregon defense is the perfect case study.
“You’re always constantly evaluating how you evaluate,” Helfrich said. “You know, trying to get the true story on Johnny blue chip, and try to figure out, ‘OK, so the information we got on this guy, why did this not work?’”
Recruiting misses — like the 2013 class — demonstrate how thin of a line coaches walk between success and failure, and programs either fly or fall partially based on incoming classes.
“[The] recruiting process and evaluations is nearly the hardest thing we do,” secondary coach John Neal said. “I learned a long time ago that I am a really good coach when I have good players.”
The pressure is now on younger players to perform at a high level from the time they step on campus. It is amplified by external pressure that Oregon has built for itself as a program. One missed recruiting class can lead to a bad season, which puts coaches on the hot seat and can get them fired.
Ducks fans hope that more recent ‘holidays’ have bared more lucrative players, so the program can recover and find its old form.
Follow Jack Butler on Twitter @Butler917