Conference realignment adds to ‘Wild West’ for high-school football recruits

SEATTLE – In the world of college football recruiting, there’s something nearly everybody seems to agree on – things have gone a bit crazy.

Because of a combination of factors such as the transfer portal, name, image and likeness (NIL) money and conference realignment, high school recruits are having to operate in what many are calling “the Wild West.”

With the Washington football program joining Oregon, USC, and UCLA next season in the Big Ten, players are dealing with the fallout as some of the schools making that conference shift have, at least temporarily, changed the way they do business by relying more on the transfer portal at the expense of some high school recruits.

Oregon doesn’t seem to be doing this as much, according to 247Sports.com recruiting editor Brandon Huffman, as evidenced by their highly regarded 2024 freshman signing class, but the other three Big Ten-bound schools are hitting the portal hard.

Washington signed 15 players to go with four transfers last December, many of whom have hit the portal or have been released from the letters of intent after Kalen DeBoer’s bolt for Alabama.

Though the Huskies have been among college football’s recruiting elite for the past couple of seasons, their 2024 class was ranked only No. 29 in the country and didn’t include any players from the state of Washington. Since Jedd Fisch’s hiring, the Huskies have added six more transfers from Arizona, with more expected.

Oregon signed 26 players and brought in 11 transfers, while USC and UCLA have 19 and nine Class of 2024 players signed, respectively, with 11 transfers apiece.

The reasoning for the portal emphasis is simple, Huffman says – the teams don’t want to enter their new conference with a splat. By relying on older, more established players when they begin play against programs such as Ohio State and Michigan, they will be putting themselves in a better spot for immediate success.

“I think Oregon is kind of positioned the best of the four, but I think it’s more a temporary thing,” Huffman said. “I think they’re all just trying to get themselves ready so that, you know, they’re not 2-10 next year.”

Lake Stevens coach Tom Tri has seen this uncertainty leave some players who would’ve been hot commodities in years past wading in uncertain waters, as their time to pick a college football program rapidly approaches.

Vikings quarterback Kolton Matson is one player Tri points to as an example. With Matson’s sterling high-school resume, Tri is baffled why the 6-foot-2, 185-pound junior with three state title game appearances hasn’t received more attention from big-time programs.

Matson won the Gatorade State Player of the Year Award after throwing for 3,388 yards with a 66% completion rate, 49 passing touchdowns and just six interceptions.

“There’s a kid that takes care of the ball and can do everything,” Tri said. “In a typical year, I think this kid, I think Kolton’s got some offers right now.”

Matson, a three-star recruit and the state’s top Class of 2025 quarterback, doesn’t have any collegiate offers, but said that he has been “creating a lot of relationships” with coaches from schools such as UW, Oregon, Washington State, Oregon State, Idaho, Hawaii and Montana State.

Matson hopes to boost his stock by attending as many quarterback camps and skills events as he can in the coming year, but he knows that his recruitment journey still might look different from players in years past.

“I do feel as if the transfer portal could have an impact on it,” Matson said. “A buddy of mine, Jayden (Limar, a former teammate, who is at Oregon), was talking to me and saying how, you know, it can be really tough for high schoolers right now because … a lot of coaches are looking to get all these transfer-portal guys and are maybe underlooking the high school recruits. But I don’t really like to think about that type of stuff. I just like to keep my head down and keep on working, because I know my time will come.”

To Huffman, the Huskies’ recent head coaching change could also impact the attention local recruits are getting. Keeping with his reputation as a skilled recruiter, Huffman sees Fisch bringing the Huskies back to a focus on high school players in the coming years.

“I think with DeBoer, they were trying to focus on, ‘Let’s get California kids,’ where (Chris Petersen) was like, ‘I want the best kids in the state to come here and I want the best kids in California and Arizona and Nevada.’ And (Jedd) Fisch is going to be much more of a, ‘Hey, let’s look up the top five, seven players in the state.’

“… I think there’s going to be a shift back toward keeping those local kids here.”

As Huffman points out, it’s hard to build a sustainable program exclusively via the portal. Most of the top-ranked schools in the country are stocked with homegrown talent, and while schools such as Alabama, Georgia and Michigan might hit the portal for an occasional upgrade if a key player heads to the NFL draft, the main ingredient for long-term success has always been homegrown talent.

Colorado is a perfect example of this balancing act. The Buffaloes relied heavily on the portal when coach Deion Sanders arrived on the scene, but suffered their way to a 4-8 record under one of the worst offensive lines in the nation, most of whom were transfers.

It’s tough for coaches to know in the meantime what advice to give players who are unsure which schools will eventually give them an offer. In Matson’s case, Tri asks, does he preach patience to see if a D-I offer is on the way, or should he advise him to look at a D-II or NAIA school where he might get to start right away?

“It’s tough to make sure that we’re trying to guide our kids in the right direction and make sure we’re doing what’s best for them,” Tri said. “And you don’t always know what’s best for them.”

Tri has seen how the added chaos of conference realignment and recruitment changes make it so that even college coaches have to sometimes scramble to keep up.

“They’re so busy trying to learn the game right now,” Tri said. “And what I mean by that is, are they recruiting high schools? Are they recruiting the portal? Are they doing a combination of both? What’s the mixture? They’ve got to look at who’s planning on staying, and who’s planning on leaving. And I think that everyone right now is just focusing on trying to figure out how to best play or navigate these current waters right now.”

Graham-Kapowsin coach Jeff Logan sees things such as the portal mostly impacting the “tweener” players, who might have once been able to find their way onto a Power Five team, but might be forced to settle for either a D-II or Group of Five school now.

“Some of these coaches are like, ‘Oh, man, I can get a guy that I know has done it, has taken classes at the college level, has proven his ability to take time management and pass school and do it,’ as opposed to taking an 18-year-old,” Logan said. “… It’s pushing all the high school kids that would be in between one level, it’s almost pushing them down one, just because there’s so many other kids available.”

While Eastside Catholic coach Dom Daste doesn’t see colleges changing the types of players they are going after, as the goal is always to get the best players possible and win titles, he sees NIL money as the “No. 1 thing” driving much of the movement within college football.

“The portal is going to be a real deal until the NCAA gets their act together and puts the proper calendar together,” Daste said. “I think NIL is pushing everything right now in terms of all that kind of stuff, but where I see recruiting changing the most is your midlevel guys who are going to be Mountain West, schools like that. They’re the ones kind of getting left out. I think the transfer portal probably helps those schools more so than the elite clubs.”

Huffman said NIL dollars have “evened the whole playing field” when it comes to schools landing transfer talent. In years past, Washington probably could be confident that Arizona players would want to follow Fisch to Seattle, but with heaps of NIL money being thrown at players from big-time programs, it makes pursuing them a bit more complicated.

“It’s 2024. It’s not 2015, where there’s the coach loyalty,” Huffman said. “Now it’s about, ‘Where’s my brand going to grow, where’s my bottom line going to grow the most and quickest?’ ”

Huffman predicts an eventual “recalibration” of the recruiting landscape. In his eyes, the “Wild West” isn’t a good way to describe what’s going on now, as things like this have always happened. The difference is just that the public can now see it.

For teams such as the four Big Ten-bound schools, he sees the portal stabilizing as they settle into their new conference, which could eventually mean a renewed focus on local high school talent.

“I think you’re gonna still see schools using the portal, but it’s not going to be for 90% of our roster,” Huffman said. “It’s going to be for 10% of your roster and key positions.”

Logan understands why coaches go for a “win-now” transfer player over a high schooler. Their job is to win now, after all. But it can make things a bit complicated for the players who get left behind.

So what do you tell players who are impacted by all this uncertainty? According to Logan, the main message recruits hear from college and high school coaches alike is: “be patient.”

“With today’s social-media day and age, I think it’s difficult, for sure.” Logan said. “For a lot of our high school kids to, I don’t know if it’s they want the instant gratification, but they’re wondering why it’s not coming their way. (Patience) isn’t always the easiest thing to understand.”