USC will not recover from these sanctions for a decade. What has not been discussed with respect to the recovery from the early eighties is the scholarship limits which were not this tight at that time. With and 85 limit and a max limit annually of 15 for them, they are going to be majorly depleted.
There is no doubt that the reduction of annual scholarships from 25 to 15 will have the biggest impact on the Trojans. The question is - will it set the program back a decade?
The loss of 40% of their scholarships sounds worse than it is in reality. While it is true that 25 scholarships is the annual limit, many schools are under that number. The reason is the true limiting factor is the total scholarship limit of 85. As most schools redshirt over 50% of their incoming freshmen, they get about 4.5 years out of a recruit which equates to about 112 players if you recruit 25 every year. However not all players make it to the end of their eligibility because they turn pro, get injured, transfer, or can't make grades. Some schools are better at retention than others and this is USC's last 5 recruiting classes:
| Year | Recruiting Points | Avg Stars | Recruited Players | Avg Stars | Grad/ Pro | Missing | Remaining Players | Avg Stars | |
| 2006 | 1 | 2 | 27 | 4.1 | 6 | 10 | 11 | 3.8 | |
| 2007 | 2 | 1 | 18 | 4.2 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 4.2 | |
| 2008 | 8 | 2 | 19 | 4.0 | 7 | 12 | 3.9 | ||
| 2009 | 4 | 1 | 18 | 3.9 | 3 | 15 | 3.9 | ||
| 2010 | 1 | 1 | 20 | 4.2 | 0 | 1 | 19 | 4.2 | |
| 102 | 70 |
An average college football team loses over 30% of every class due to factors other than graduation and turning pro. USC historically has run closer to about 25%. This is about the same as Ohio State/Penn State for comparison's sake. On the other extreme you have Alabama/LSU which usually lose about 40% of every recruiting class (for more details goto Oversigning). People that look to the Alabama sanctions as a comparison for USC aren't taking this fact into account.
USC still has about 70 players on their roster from the 2006-10 recruiting classes. As you can see, other than 2006, the Trojans typically take 18-20 players every year (fwiw, they took 20 players in both 2004 and 2005 as well). The main reason they are able to do this is because have the luxury to be very choosy when giving out scholarships. The most amazing thing about USC is even with the self imposed reduction in scholarships, they managed to put a record 37 players into the NFL from 2006-2009 (22 of them 1st or 2nd round picks - another record). The fact that Pete Carroll only won 1 national title with this talent is an indicator to me that his stint in the NFL will be short.
Given the fact that USC usually only has about 20 players in their classes already and given the fact they have a relatively high retention rate --- what will the impact be for USC? It isn't very hard to figure out an estimate. USC loses about 10% of their eligible players to the pro's every year. They also lose about 25% of every class for grades, injury, etc so assuming a loss of 10% of the freshmen/sophmore classes ans 5% of the junior/senior classes seems about right. I also assume that they will get about 21 in 2011 by having 6 players enroll early so they can count against the 2010 class. Here is the impact on USC over the next 5 years:
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | |
| Senior | 15.0 | 16.2 | 9.9 | 17.4 | 14.9 | 12.1 |
| Junior | 17.0 | 10.5 | 18.3 | 15.6 | 12.7 | 11.8 |
| Soph | 11.0 | 19.3 | 16.5 | 13.4 | 12.4 | 22.1 |
| Freshman | 27.0 | 24.3 | 18.9 | 17.1 | 32.3 | 32.3 |
| 70.0 | 70.2 | 63.6 | 63.6 | 72.3 | 78.4 |
Note that the freshman line includes redshirt players. There is no doubt that USC will get worse despite their talent. These numbers show that they will more than likely be playing with about 63 scholarship players in 2013 but that isn't far off from where they are today. If they are able to continue to recruiting mainly 4 star talent this lack of depth won't matter nearly as much and will just mean that freshmen and sophomore's will see the field sooner.
A cynic might say that USC's past success was because they were getting players to come to the school by paying them. Since that won't happen in the future their talent level will go down. They ignore the fact that the NCAA didn't find any concrete evidence that USC or a booster was paying players. Most players getting paid today receive the money from agents hoping to get rich when a "sure-fire" prospect turns pro. These agents don't care where a kid goes to school unless it may have a future impact on their draft status. That is what happened at USC and why most of the schools given sanctions today are due to a "lack of institutional control". The NCAA doesn't have the resources to investigate every rumor so they expect the schools to self regulate and self report. Those that ignore the issue will get hammered just like what happened to USC. You can bet that the new athletic director (Pat Haden) was hired to do just that and they will spare no expense to get clean. None of this changes the truth that California kids dream of playing for USC just like kids in Ohio and Texas dream of playing for the Buckeyes or the Longhorns. All you have to do is look at USC's impressive start to 2011 recruiting (10 players so far - 8 of them 4 stars or better) to realize that USC is going to continue to get talent. Only further sanctions (or a possibly a resurgent UCLA) could stop that.
My feeling is USC will have much better years than most expect in 2010 and 2011 and finish in the hunt for league champion. The reason is because their current roster has as every bit as much talent as they have had in the past and though those teams underperformed I place most of the blame for that on Pete Carroll. He's gone now and the situation is almost perfect for Lane Kiffin to make a name for himself. Depth will start to be an issue is 2012-4 and they will probably lose a few more games than usual but their talent will mean USC will be a factor. Once the sanctions are off in 2014 they will be set for a return to dominance in 2015 and back in national championship contention soon afterward.
End Note Disclaimer - USC currently only has 70 players on scholarship from the Rivals site which seems a bit low to me. This is something I plan to look into. My current theory is that all schools lose 5-6 players throughout a school year due to injury, academics, etc and that is part of the answer. Also they have had 3 players leave the program due to the sanctions. My guess is the other 6 players are transfers or walk-ons which Rivals doesn't track. That would make my information less useful but still essentially correct. If I get time I will look into it.
-------------
Added note (8-7-10) - After looking into the matter I found one mistake in my numbers which would give the Trojans 71 at the time I wrote this. However 3 more players left the program since I wrote this taking the number to 68 of players they recruited still on the roster. You need to add to 3 to that number because of transfers that occurred over the last few years which takes the number back to 71. Clear as mud right?? The remaining 29 players on their roster are players that they didn't recruit and were either not ranked or not listed on the rivals site. That leads me to believe they are walk-ons. It appears that Pete Carroll did this a lot which was a surprise. It is possible this was a strategy as players could expect to get playing time sooner though it could explain USC's annual mid-season lapses as they had a huge talent drop off when injuries took their toll.
I think USC made a big mistake in their 2010 recruiting class when faced with sanctions. Most schools usually have 80-85 players on scholarship (non-walkons). USC ended up with about 75 (not counting walk-ons on scholarship). USC had room for 30 on signing day but they only took 20 players. There was no reason for them not to take 25 and I have no idea why they didn't have a few of them enroll early which could have put them at 85 scholarships before grades/transfers/etc took their toll. This shows just how confident that Pete Carroll and Lane Kiffin were that they wouldn't get hit with sanctions.
Not having these players will be a big factor as time goes on. In fact I think it was a huge mistake. The key is whether they can continue to attract the top talent. The talent will be there as long as they continue to win but they didn't do themselves any favors with the 2010 recruiting class.
No comments:
Post a Comment