Jimmy Lake stirring the pot with Oregon

[D-train]

Oregon is not going to put up anywhere close to 70 on the Dawgs. I think the score will be something like 35-24

Yeah our D is better than our O so I think its more likely that we get shut out than they score 70 or even 50.

[D-train]

SEATTLE — If Mario Cristobal really wanted to lean into this thing, here’s what he would say at his next media availability, at which he inevitably will be asked about Jimmy Lake’s Monday comments suggesting Washington does not consider Oregon a primary recruiting rival:

“My apologies, folks — as the coach of a school lacking in academic prowess, I’m having a little trouble counting. Where was our 2021 recruiting class ranked? What about 2022? And where did Washington end up?

“I guess Coach Lake was right: We really don’t recruit the same players, do we?”

He won’t say any of that, of course. Cristobal is unlikely to participate in the smack-talking portion of college football’s most underrated rivalry, which frankly is too bad. If nothing else, Lake has given fans of both schools something to … discuss this week. I was going to say argue, but even Washington fans seem flummoxed by Lake’s suggestion that UW more often recruits head-to-head with schools that “have academic prowess like the University of Washington,” and not a school like Oregon, which enters Saturday’s game at Husky Stadium with a 7-1 record and ranked No. 7 nationally.

The perception of recruiting competition between UW and Oregon, Lake said, is “way more pumped up than it is,” and Washington is more likely to go “toe to toe” with schools like Notre Dame, Stanford and USC, citing academics as the common denominator among that group.

If only there were a way to measure such a thing — like, say, an analysis of which schools sign the most prospects with UW offers, maybe covering the 2018-21 classes to provide a legitimate sample size.

What luck! It turns out I wrote precisely such a story in January, and the data points directly to two schools as Washington’s chief rivals for recruiting West Coast talent.

One, as Lake said, is USC, which signed 31 prospects with UW offers between the 2018-21 classes, second-most of any competitor.

Care to guess who was first?

It was Oregon, of course, with 34 signatures from players to whom UW offered a scholarship, according to the 247Sports database. In other words: If you had to bet on which school a UW target might sign with, and you knew it wasn’t going to be Washington, the statistically proper bet would be on the Ducks.

The thing is, none of this is surprising. Of course, Oregon and USC are Washington’s primary recruiting rivals! Who else would it be? Lake did include the Trojans in his brief list of schools on par with UW’s “academic prowess,” but UW doesn’t cross paths with Stanford or Notre Dame nearly as often. In the same four-class study, Stanford signed only 12 prospects with UW offers, and Notre Dame signed only seven.

Only one 2021 UW signee — Seattle O’Dea offensive lineman Owen Prentice — held a Stanford offer. Only two Stanford signees — tight end Shield Taylor and defensive back Mitch Leigber — had offers from Washington. Notre Dame offered one player (cornerback Dyson McCutcheon) who signed with the Huskies, and only two of UW’s offers went to prospects who signed with Notre Dame.

The 2021 class — Lake’s first as head coach — did, however, provide a striking example of Oregon’s recent dominance. Between UW and UO’s signing classes, 15 prospects held offers from both schools. Thirteen of those players signed with the Ducks; only two UW signees, cornerback Zakhari Spears and receiver Jabez Tinae, held offers from Oregon. That figure becomes even more damning when considering Oregon put out 244 scholarship offers in that cycle, compared to just 103 by UW.

And it’s not as if UW backed off or didn’t pursue all those Oregon signees. There was a time when the Huskies were believed to have a realistic chance of landing receiver Troy Franklin and tight end Moliki Matavao, two freshmen you’ll see on the field Saturday. UW also recruited tailback Byron Cardwell, who also is already playing for the Ducks.

Oregon enjoys a similar edge in the 2022 class. Eight of the Ducks’ 22 commitments had UW offers, including defensive linemen Sir Mells and Ben Roberts, each of whom was originally committed to the Huskies. Only three of UW’s 10 commitments — wideout Germie Bernard, running back Emeka Megwa and tight end Ryan Otton, who happen to be the only blue-chip recruits in UW’s class — had offers from the Ducks.

If that trend were reversed, and the Huskies were signing the majority of the prospects with offers from both schools, Oregon might be able to reasonably argue that, well, it offers far more prospects than it actually seriously pursues. But UW can’t make that case. Former coach Chris Petersen took particular pride in offering fewer scholarships per cycle than nearly every other Power 5 program, and Lake has more or less followed the same strategy. One of UW’s biggest selling points is that a scholarship offer from Washington means more because it’s one of the most exclusive in major college football. So if one school is signing 13 of the players UW deemed worthy of a scholarship offer in a single class, would you not consider that school a recruiting rival?

If you watched Oregon’s game against Colorado on Saturday, you might have seen a graphic explaining the Ducks’ national recruiting efforts. They’ve pulled prospects from far-away states like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Maryland as Cristobal has expanded the program’s reach. But California always will be the state most important to Oregon’s recruiting efforts, and the same is true for Washington. With the exception of Texas, the Huskies more or less exclusively recruit within the Pac-12 footprint. If they’re not beating out Oregon (and USC) for the top prospects in California, they’re just not keeping up.

The most charitable interpretation of Lake’s remarks is that he was mostly referring to the truly heated battles that came down to UW and one other school, such as dueling with Notre Dame for Asa Turner in 2019, or with the Irish the previous season for defensive back Kyler Gordon. Stanford was the runner-up for Prentice in last year’s class, and in 2022, Stanford was the primary competition for committed four-star tight end prospect Ryan Otton. There are other examples, too. The 11th-hour decisions tend to stand out the most, and Lake had a lot of success as an assistant recruiting against Notre Dame, in particular, so he can be forgiven if the Irish and Cardinal come immediately to mind.

There haven’t been as many high profile, mano-a-mano recruiting battles with Oregon, but it would be silly to discount the Ducks as a recruiting rival solely on those grounds. Several prospects in recent classes have included both the Huskies and Ducks among their finalists. A couple of players on the current roster — safety Cam Williams and tight end Devin Culp — were even committed to Oregon at one point. So was 2018 quarterback signee Colson Yankoff. And does anyone remember which school Budda Baker committed to before signing with UW in 2014?

Lake could easily have pointed to any of those recruitments — especially Baker, considering Lake’s involvement in it and the impact Baker made on the program — as evidence of UW getting the better of Oregon on occasion. One of those “they win their share, we win our share” sort of remarks. An acknowledgment that yes, he recognizes the importance of recruiting against Oregon, and yes, the Ducks’ commitments sometimes flip to UW, too.

Instead, Lake used the opportunity to further a message that felt more aspirational than authentic. His comments provided a window into the way his staff sells the UW experience, but are we to believe UW holds itself to the same minimum academic standards as Stanford? If the Huskies don’t consider Oregon an academic equal — a subjective and ultimately irrelevant diss — and therefore not a recruiting rival, why do they offer scholarships to so many players who sign with the Ducks? Some have accused Lake of elitism, but that would be true only if UW actually eschewed Oregon’s targets in favor of those recruited by such institutions with “academic prowess,” which it simply hasn’t. The Huskies wanted Franklin. They wanted Matavao. They really wanted local five-star defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau, who signed with Ohio State but strongly considered the Ducks. And they wanted Roberts and Mells badly enough to accept their commitments.

Perhaps Lake is enjoying the social-media meltdown he initiated with his comments. Maybe he doesn’t care at all. Regardless, it’s another example of the coach inviting even more scrutiny and placing even more pressure on himself in a season already defined by performance lagging behind his own stated expectations.

A win Saturday could dramatically alter that perception. The Huskies could move into a tie for the North Division lead, after all. But the fact is that when it comes to recent recruiting rankings, only one of these programs has cause to look down at the other, and a Stanford degree is not required to identify which is which.

[Michael K.]

Wow! Lake is a fucking idiot.

Hey DT, who wrote the article you posted?

[Captain 97]

I think what he was intending to get across is that there are players on Oregon's team that would not be able to get into UW because of the higher academic standards. He didn't do a very good job of saying it though.

[Sibelius Hindemith]

Wow! Lake is a fucking idiot.

Hey DT, who wrote the article you posted?

Christian Caple of the Athletic.

[AZOldDawg]

Come on Jen. Jimmy just opened the door and gave you some fodder to put him on notice. Grow some.

[Michael K.]

I think what he was intending to get across is that there are players on Oregon's team that would not be able to get into UW because of the higher academic standards. He didn't do a very good job of saying it though.

Then why is it that no other school signs more kids with U of W offers than Oregon?

I get what he was getting at, shitty English or not, but it was a stupid point that was easily proven false.

[D-train]

He is now back tracking lol. Weak.

[Sibelius Hindemith]

What he should have said is UW can't compete with a professional football team.