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Technology has changed the way we receive the majority of our information forever. We don’t bother to call people because we can convey our feelings on a social networking website. If we need to give information as quickly as possible, we don’t dial a number, we turn on our T9 or autofill on our cell phones and have it typed up faster than we could ever communicate it verbally. And we no longer get our sports just from Joe Local-TV, we get the information from our lap-tops and our phones as quickly as said information occurs.

Not only do we get that information as quickly as ever, it has become as specialized as ever, and recruiting is no exception. Numerous websites are focusing more and more on prep sports, offering their takes on who the best players are in the country, giving high school kids rankings and of course, the aesthetically pleasing stars, usually between one and five.

Youre going to see the Washington Huskies class rankings vary — there have been some that have it as a top 10 class, and some that have it as low as 30.

These rankings don’t tell the story of how important this 2010 class is for the Washington Huskies — nor what an amazing job coach Steve Sarkisian did assembling one of the best classes in the Pac-10.

Lets first keep in mind that this is a team that hasn’t been to a bowl game in over half a decade, and just over a year ago was coming off a season of going defeated. While there still is as much history for Washington as any pac-10 program not named USC, this history just doesn’t mean as much to 17 and 18 year old kids. Coach Sarkisian had to be able to sell these kids on the ability to win not just soon, but immediately. Yes, the Huskies had an advantage of being able to offer playing time sooner than some of the other schools they were competing against because of unfruitful classes under Tyrone Willingham, but getting to play early and not going to bowl games isn’t what these kids sign up for, they sign up to compete for conference championships and more.

And the Huskies got the good ones today. The best part of this class is not just the quality, its where the quality comes from. Nearly 2/3 of today’s class came from California, and despite it being a fairly down year for the state of Washington, Coach Sark was still able to sign seven of the top 10 from the state.  If the Huskies are going to be able to compete for Rose Bowls on a consistent basis, he’s going to have to be able to recruit not only the in-state talent, but steal the kids from down south as well. Not only that, but we once again saw the dawgs be able to emphasize their efforts on the California kids but were still able to bring in an abundance of talent from Hawaii as well. Recruiting nationally is a great advantage, but you can win when you recruit locally and have connected resources in the right places.

The depth of the class is simply astounding as well.  Everyone knows about Nick Montana, but the Huskies got quality players in every aspect of the game offensively and defensively. On offense, the interior (Colin Porter, Erik Kohler, Micah Hatchie just to name a few) the playmakers (Deonte Cooper, Kevin Smith, Jesse Callier) and of course, the leader (Montana).  On defense, the interior (Sione Potoae, Andrew Hudson, Hauili Jamora), the linbackers (Victor Burnett, Darius Waters, Chris Young) and the defensive backfield (Sean Parker, Taz Stevenson and Jamaal Kearse (though he may play wr).  The Huskies didnt just address these positions with mediocre kids whom they knew were likely to sign. They went out and they worked — hard– and signed real players, with real potential.  They weren’t competing for the same kids Idaho or Washington State were competing for. They were going after guys that were wanted by the USCs, the UCLAs and the Cals, and they won.

These are the kind of classes that you can potentially look back upon and say were the foundations for something special. And I can’t guarantee that all these kids will work out — I can’t even say for sure that any of them will. But just based on the sheer depth of the class, and a general understanding of what talent is — it’s very likely that we are looking at something remarkable beginning in Montlake.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Huskies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.