Recruiting Roundup: Taking A Look At How Will Moving To The B1G Impact Recruiting

Happy Sunday Husky fans. After a week hiatus I wanted to talk about the proverbial elephant in the room, how will UW’s move to the B1G impact the 2024 class and beyond. Deboer himself, when asked by local media how big of a deal realignment was in recruiting talks, admitted that it came up in almost every conversation with recruits who made their way to Montlake for a visit.

First and probably foremost, likely playing in Southern California at least 1x a year will help the coaches recruit the talent rich area (southern California has and probably always will be the largest recruiting net the Huskies cast for potential recruits. Being able to tell recruits that they can play in front of their families 1x a year is important to some recruits (probably less now). It’s also easier for recruits families to hop on a direct flight from California and be on campus after a 2 ¹⁄₂ hour flight.

The second benefit the move to the B1G should have is the larger geographical recruiting footprint that should exist. Now that UW will be traveling regularly into the Midwest and East Coast we should start to see some more players join the program from those areas. It’s no secret that the Midwest and East coast have a ton of good football players, and with some of the connections that the Husky staff already have, plus telling recruits that they will be able to play in front of family regularly, selling those recruits just became much easier.

The third and probably most important benefit that a move to the B1G will provide is: the ability for Husky coaches to tell recruits that they are in a top conference and will play for a chance to win a conference title and championship. As we have started to see over the last several years, recruits from the west coast have been flocking to schools in the B1G, and SEC and are being told they have a better chance to win in those conferences. At UW that shouldn’t be a sticking point anymore for some top end recruits who are thinking about coming to Montlake. As we start to see recruiting classes shift from being 100% high schoolers to more and more transfers, the chance to win big will be a big factor and with what sounds like a bigger transfer class anticipated in the 2024 class, should help the Huskies.

Even though a move to the B1G will provide more $$ for the program, I don’t think we will see massive change in recruiting strategy from the Husky staff (I.e. they won’t be involved in bidding wars on the 5 star guys), but I do think the caliber of recruit will start to get higher. Some of that will be that the overall competition on the field is better in the B1G across the board, and it will force the UW to level up their recruiting to be compete.

As I mentioned above I do think the biggest impact to the 2024 class is that we will see the UW land some high caliber transfers in the 2024 class, and with the remaining spots in the high school ranks coaches will be selective (it sounds like they are targeting 3-4 more high schoolers).

That is all for today and if you want to share your thoughts about what a move to the B1G will do feel free to share in the comments section.