Oregon Football Recruiting: The Times they are a changin'

Too fast. I’m old, not ancient, but you don’t have to be anywhere near my age to remember recruiting as being a whole lot different than it is now .. especially for Oregon.

The focus here has changed. Instead of dreaming of a five-star picking Green and yellow, and it was green and yellow then, we expect one .. at least one .. each season. Top 5 rankings in the competition may be an annual event, now. We wouldn’t be happy with less.

But what does that mean?

First of all, with the portal, a commitment is something other than what we defined it being even twenty years ago. Four years, five if with a red shirt season, not long ago? Now, is it more than one, or even one?

They come with dreams of the NFL at the level Oregon recruits. There are no limited talent room fillers. I’m sure they are not offered more than a plan and a chance to follow it along with, perhaps, some NIL cash.

In truth guys without pro-level, and some even with it, may never see many minutes on game day with the Ducks. Ask Tyler Shough. There will be more like him who leave, star elsewhere, and get drafted but couldn’t make the top rung in Eugene.

As tough as it is to break through now, it won’t be long before it gets tougher. Why would a kid want to lock himself into that environment without a key to get out?

That’s a big change from when I sat in a half empty smaller Autzen Stadium and watched a 2-9 team with players lucky enough to get a scholarship at a level we now call D1 football. Occasionally an NFL future star inhabited a room full of average guys.

Recruits? We never knew much about them before we read the signing day article in the Register-Guard back when there was only one signing day. We probably didn’t want to see where Oregon’s class ranked.

So, the news and the players and the rules are a lot different but that’s only the start.

At least one D1 player has signed his letter of intent then left for another suitor without even attending a practice. I can’t imagine the courts pulling him back to honor his promise. Intent is now merely a passing fancy perhaps to be replaced by binding contract .. if even that is possible. Contract, especially in sports, is another word that has changed in meaning over the past 50 years. Will it stand as binding for as long as a year in the near future?

We need to brace ourselves for a whole new world, likely to arrive as early as the next couple of years because the times really are a changin’ quickly. Too quickly.

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