Just when we started to think that water was wet and the sky was blue, Rivals goes and pulls a move like this... and totally redeems Lane Kiffin.
In the late hours of Signing Day, the Trojans pulled two elite recruits, snatching four-star Junior College defensive end and UCLA commit Marquis Jackson away from the Bruins, and four-star fullback Soma Vainuku, only days after a last minute visit and offer. Apparently those two commits, and the rest of the star-studded class, were enough to push the Trojans slightly ahead of the Gators, according to Rivals’ complex mathematical formula.
(I’d ask JT to explain it to all of you, but Florio and the guys at NBC didn’t supply us with calculators...)
Here’s how you know that this was a crazy recruiting season: the two top teams in the country had a coach that either wasn’t with their program on New Year’s Day or announced he was retiring from the profession.
But Lane Kiffin and Urban Meyer are anything but your average coaches. In Kiffin, USC has a coach that’s willing to push the limits that USC has become so famously known for pushing. And in Meyer, Florida has a coach that’s bulletproof. Even when he openly abandons a commitment he allegedly made to his faith, family, and health, he’s able to recruit a class full of athletes even more thoroughly committed to playing for him, regardless of character concerns.
While recruiting national championships are an exercise in subjectivity, maybe USC and Florida’s ascension to the top of college football goes to show you that when it comes to recruiting -- especially with Lane Kiffin and Urban Meyer -- everything isn’t quite as it appears.
