How One of the Nation's Top Programs Handles Recruiting

by Dan Greenspan, The Daily Trojan

Spend any time at Howard Jones Field on the campus of the University of Southern California and you'll see them - NFL scouts for the likes of Houston, Minnesota and Pittsburgh.

They are looking at juniors and seniors eligible for the next draft, because before 40 times and vertical leaps are measured they want to know what kind of work ethic they have and how ready they are for instruction. Pete Carroll, head football coach for the USC Trojans, is doing the same thing evaluating high school players.

"We try to do it exactly the same. We use the same mentality, same process.

"The only different being when the coach of the Trojans does it, web sites and message board take notice."

Welcome to the world of recruiting, the second season of college football. To win games, USC needs to sell itself to as many as 25 recruits every year. It is, as offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian said, a business.

"Recruiting is a lot like sales," he said. "We've got a product here, we've got a pretty good product. If you like our product, we've going to give you a $50,000-a-year scholarship to come to school at a great university.

"ESPN The Magazine senior writer Bruce Feldman describes what the process is like for one program in his new book "Meat Market." Feldman spent a year with Ole Miss and its coach Ed Orgeron, a name familiar to fans of USC, as it put together the class of 2007 with no ground rules or restrictions.Orgeron, the Trojans defensive line coach from 1998 to 2004, made his mark recruiting and developing the likes of Shaun Cody and Mike Patterson.

"I absolutely without hesitation trusted everything that Eddie did while he was here," Carroll said. "He was a huge asset."

The gruff Cajun, who traded an addiction to alcohol for recruiting, found himself trying to land the nation's hottest recruit, a Louisiana running back named Joe McKnight.

But McKnight, who signed with USC and has rushed for 253 yards and one touchdown as a freshman, became caught up in the intense scrutiny and pressure of the process. "Once I narrowed it down to three schools, I stopped taking phone calls," McKnight said. "It's hard to deal with the expectations, not to mention the distractions. Even for the kids with the solid family backgrounds, it's hard if their heads get blown up by the attention from the recruiters and the media and the fans."

Sarkisian said with the growth of online recruiting media, its nebulous evaluations and rankings can drastically impact a recruit. "The Internet has totally changed everything," he said. "There's so many more opinions now of players. The kids believe that opinion so much now that you not only fight other schools but you deal with the Internet stuff as well. "You can take any kid's 12 or 14 game schedule and put together a really nice highlight video. As coaches, we do a lot more game watching - what kind of effort does the young man play with. We find out a lot about their heart and effort in that manner."

Former All-American center Ryan Kalil proved himself in just such a manner to Orgeron, Sarkisian and the Trojans during a summer camp in 2002. They found Mike Williams playing basketball. Their methods produced recruiting classes that were among the best in college football history.

But even mighty USC has had to adjust, including taking verbal commitments from juniors.

Four players - wide receiver Randall Carroll, offensive lineman Kevin Graf, tight end Morrell Presley and linebacker Marquis Simmons - have made nonbinding pledges to join the program in 2009.

Kids are getting influenced to where they think they should make the decision as sophomores or juniors. Some schools will offer guys that early in hopes that they might consider them and some kids get their heads turned.

"I'm really in favor of slowing the process back down and giving these kids time to see schools and go to camps."

Carroll likened the acceleration in the process to letting underclassmen declare for the NFL Draft."They don't want freshmen coming out. They want a chance to evaluate the players, see them grow and mature and ensure their evaluations can be accurate and complete."You can't possibly make choices as well in that kind of evaluation process."

But Carroll said despite some changes, he still approaches recruiting the same way. "We like to be really thorough and make our decisions very judiciously."