Fact or Fiction: Washington's academics limit its recruiting efforts
In today’s Fact or Fiction national columnist Mike Farrell looks at three big recent topics in college football and decides whether each statement is indeed FACT or if it’s FICTION.
MORE FACT OR FICTION: Clemson's struggles will impact Arch Manning's recruitment | Wake Forest would beat quality teams ranked behind it
CLASS OF 2022 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | Position | Team | State
CLASS OF 2023 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | Position | Team | State
RIVALS TRANSFER TRACKER: Stories/coverage | Message board
RIVALS CAMP SERIES: Info/coverage on 2021 camp series
*****
1. Washington’s academics limit recruiting.
Farrell’s take: FICTION. Jimmy Lake recently claimed it wasn’t an even comparison between his Washington program and the Oregon Ducks in recruiting because Washington’s academics are so superior. Well, that’s kind of what he said in a nutshell as he compared UW to teams like Stanford, Notre Dame and others when it comes to academic recruiting hurdles.
That’s all well and good but ... give me a break. Oregon may be able to get a few more kids into school than Washington, and that’s a big maybe, but this isn’t Vanderbilt vs. the SEC and the Huskies certainly aren’t on the academic level of Stanford in their own conference.
In fact, you can easily make a case that Cal and UCLA are better academic schools. This sounds like excuse-making to me.
*****
2. Recruiting is not a priority for Dan Mullen at Florida.
Farrell’s take: FACT. Can we take a look at Mullen’s comments from Monday when he was asked about recruiting? He essentially said that recruiting time is after the season ends, and it has infuriated Florida fans for good reason.
I’ve been saying since he arrived at Florida that recruiting hasn’t been important enough to him, and I’ve been told stories behind the scenes about his approach that confound me. Florida loses a ton of recruiting battles, and not when they go down to the wire. They are eliminated before things even get close, and that never happened under Urban Meyer or even Will Muschamp.
Recruiting was an issue under Jim McElwain, and it’s more of an issue now, and I don’t see it changing unless Mullen starts to care about it more.
*****
3. QB Myles Brennan is a Power Five talent in the portal.
Farrell’s take: FACT. Brennan has been around forever and he has had injury issues, but when healthy he can put up some numbers. Last season was a good example as he completed 60 percent of his passes (average), but had a great TD/INT ratio (11-3) and he threw for 1,112 yards in only three games before getting hurt.
South Carolina, Ole Miss or someone else with a smaller quarterback room would be smart to give him a look.