FanNation - The Republic of Sport

            I'm excited, fellow college football fans. It's not about recruiting, nor the announcement of very key players returning to my Buckeyes for their senior seasons. The reason I am excited, is the fact that it would appear as if the rest of the Pac 10 is trying again outside of USC.

            UCLA's hiring of Rick Neuheisel as head coach and more recent hiring of Norm Chow is the next step towards knocking the USC Trojans off of their perennial Pac 10 perch. Neuheisel has had success everywhere he has gone to coach. On the field that is. And Norm Chow is an offensive mastermind who makes average quarterbacks into Heisman winners at will.

            These hirings are music to my ears. No longer will we have to rely on a huge upset for USC to lose (see Stanford v. USC). Over the course of Pete Carrol's career at USC, they have become the only consistently great team out of that conference. UCLA  has always been a threat just because it is a rivalry on the last game of the season, but now that they might be on their way to having an adequate team for the first time in almost a decade, it could get interesting.

            The biggest kicker in all of this however, is recruiting. The only way USC will get knocked off of their perch is if they have someone to compete with them on and off the field west of Texas. For years they have taken advantage of it, and have been consistently reeling in the best prospects in the country. They have gone three straight years without having a recruiting class finish lower than number 2 in the country. Not only are they getting all the best recruits in the most populous state in the union, but they are going eastward to get more recruits (see Joe McKnight).

            The decline of the Trojan Empire has started. Dennis Erickson is getting recruits (John Elway's son, Jack) and bringing the Arizona State program back into the picture. The most current ESPN class rankings have ASU at 23. Oregon will get some Cali boys if they continue to play well and remind Duck fans of the Joey Harrington days. They are moving up in the recruiting world too, ranking 19.

            However, the most important one is UCLA. They are so close to USC that they will be going after many of the same recruits. They were before, but there is a huge difference right now that before Neuheisel and Chow got there. Now they are actually beating USC for some of them. They rank 14^th in the country now in terms of recruiting.

            All of these small resurgences are taking their toll on USC. As I said earlier, USC has gone three straight years with atleast a #2 recruiting class. That streak will end this year. USC ranks 8^th on the ESPN class rankings, which is pathetic by their standards. It's still going to be a very good recruiting class, but it won't be on par with their recent successes.

            So, slowly but surely, the walls of USC dominance come crashing down. It starts with a down recruiting class, then losses, then a poorer recruiting class, then more losses. All of this will greatly accelerate if Pete Carrol leaves for the pros. He was the first one, along with Ed Orgeron, to realize that they have so much talent in California and so little competition that they can just rise to power with just extra recruiting effort. With him gone, it will be done.  Cut the head off the snake, and the body dies.