Gap Between Huskies, Ducks on The Recruiting Trail Continues to Shrink

SEATTLE – On the day Washington introduced Chris Petersen as its newest head coach, the question that haunted his three predecessors was asked, “Coach, are you going to beat Oregon?”

UW had lost 10-straight in the series at the time Petersen took over for Steve Sarkisian, who left three days after completing his first eight-win season to take over as head coach at USC. During the same stretch only twice, first in 2006 and again in 2013, did the Huskies finish with higher ranked recruiting class than the Ducks.

Petersen didn’t take the bait, smiling with a light-hearted laugh repeating the question, rebuffing by asking “do we have to start that already?” After pausing briefly, he added “we’ll be swinging hard.”

Less than two months later his words were met with action. In the first major recruiting coup for both Petersen and then-first year defensive backs coach Jimmy Lake, UW beat out the Oregon for coveted four-star Bellevue (Wash.) safety Budda Baker, who picked the Ducks over the Huskies two weeks do the day after Petersen’s introductory press conference.

In his first two recruiting classes in 2014 and 2015, UW finished 10 and 13 spots behind Oregon respectively, and 12 spots in 2016 before cutting the margin of difference to single digits in 2017.

Ranked No. 23 in the country by Rivals the ‘17 class only had 18 signees, the lowest total of the five recruiting class Petersen has signed including 2018. But what the Huskies lacked in quantity they replaced with quality, signing seven four-star recruits with three coming in the secondary.

One of those seven, four-star West Linn (Ore.) cornerback Elijah Molden, is the son of eight-year NFL veteran and Oregon alum Alex Molden.

“I think the biggest thing was taking myself out of it. Just being that dad who’s there for support,” Molden said in an interview with TheDawgReport.com.

Nestled in a quiet suburban Oregon town 30 minutes away from Portland, Elijah was a known commodity even before playing his first season on varsity as a sophomore in 2014. He was never a major social media hound, rarely publicizing any of the seven scholarship offers he got in total during his recruitment.

The in-state Ducks were the first to offer him on June 25, 2014, during an unofficial visit to the campus. He picked up his second offer from the Huskies midway through his sophomore season before Stanford entered the picture in April 2015.

With an early three-team race and each program presenting its own unique pitch – following in his fathers’ legacy at Oregon, the academic prestige from Stanford, or create his own legacy at UW – the elder Molden had his preference, but told Elijah to make the first selfish decision in his life.

“You need to be selfish and think of yourself and what’s the best fit. Not what anybody else might think or what other people say is the best fit for you,” Molden said, emphasizing to his son that where he chose to play college football would be his decision and his decision alone.

“I had him write down the pros and cons of his top five schools and what separated one school from another. I said, ‘don’t fall into the trap because your dad went there and was a Hall of Fame Duck athlete'. Take that out of it. You worry about you and what’s the best fit. Whether it’s academic, whether its football side of things, coaching, all that good stuff.

“I said, ‘I’m going to help guide you. I’m going to give you something that I didn’t have when I was making my decision’. From there honestly it was on him. I told him really to don’t just think about four years, think about your degree and what can benefit you 40 years from now.”

The smallest gestures during the recruiting process can go a long way

When Chris Petersen made the decision to leave Boise State after eight seasons as head coach, just over a decade spent in total, he did so in part because he wanted a new challenge.

But for a coach who came to the Pac-12 Conference as a two-time Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach of the Year Award winner, two-time Fiesta Bowl champion and 2010 Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award, the challenge would turn out to be whether or not Petersen would stray away from the structure he built at Boise and change his approach.

He didn’t.

Petersen stressed the importance of recruiting the Pacific Northwest and more specifically keeping the best in-state recruits home at Washington during his first press conference. However, from 2006-13 under Petersen, the Broncos never finished with a recruiting class ranked in the top 50 on Rivals.

But in his eight years at Boise and now entering his fifth at UW, Petersen has never cared for one minute about where his team ranks come National Signing Day. He believes in his system, built on developing players into men on and off the field, and on the recruiting trail doing those one or two small things that will leave a lasting memory.

“It was so much. The biggest thing is the whole social media aspect of it. How everything is so about marketing,” said Molden said, comparing the differences in his recruitment coming out of Sierra High School (Colorado Spring, Colorado) in the early 1990s and Elijah’s in 2016.

“One thing that goes a long way is something as simple as a handwritten note from your head coach or your DB coach. Coach Petersen did that multiple times, not just to Elijah, but to my wife. Coach Petersen was the only coach that sent my wife a handwritten Mothers Day card. He was the only one. He was the only one that sent me a happy Fathers Day – little stuff like that.”

Two weeks ago, after four-star Wilsonville (Ore.) defensive end Draco Bynum had already signed, sealed and delivered his National Letter of Intent to UW during the early signing period in December, Petersen and defensive line coach Ikaika Malloe made another in-home visit and one they didn’t have to make.

But that’s who Chris Petersen is, and that formula helped the Huskies beat out the Ducks for Bynum, the No. 5 recruit from the state of Oregon in 2018. Just as it did for UW to sign four-star linebacker Camilo Eifler of Bishop O’Dowd (Oakland, California) in 2016 and others who have held offers from both but elected to sign with the Huskies.

“It just shows how much they truly care,” Bynum said. “I know how valuable their time is especially this time of year. That they would take this time for me off the recruiting trail to sit down with my family, even after I’m fully locked in, really means the world to me and my family.”

Washington Has Turned The Tide on the Field. Can the Huskies finish above Oregon in 2018?

By 8 a.m. Wednesday morning the Huskies received their final two NLI’s for the 2018 class, adding four-star Anaheim (Calif.) Servite safety Julius Irvin and four-star defensive tackle Tuli Letuligasenoa to finish with 21 signees.

The class began NSD ranked No. 9 by Rivals, but has since fallen to No. 14 with a flurry of movement as other programs around the country solidify their respective hauls. The Ducks are one spot below, sitting at No. 15 with an equal amount of recruits with one less four-star as of 2 p.m. Pacific.

If the rankings hold to form it will mark the first time in his five-year tenure that Chris Petersen has finished with a higher ranked class on Rivals than Oregon. In each class since Petersen took over UW has maintained or increased the number of four-star recruits signed.

His first two classes netted a combined seven four-star prospects (three in 2014, four in 2015). Petersen matched his first two classes in year three and four, signing seven four-star players in both 2016 and 2017.

UW finished 2018 with 11 four-star signees: three wide receivers; Austin Osborne (Mission Viejo, California/Mission Viejo), Marquis Spiker (Murrieta, California/ Murrieta Valley), and Trey Lowe (Portland, Oregon/Jesuit); two quarterbacks; Jacob Sirmon (Bothell, Washington/Bothell) and Colson Yankoff (Coeur d’Alene, Idaho/ Coeur d’Alene/); three defensive linemen; Sam Taimani (Salt Lake City, Utah/East), Bynum and Letuligasenoa; two defensive backs; Kyler Gordon, cornerback, (Everett, Washington/Archbishop Murphy) and Irvin; and one linebacker; Ale Kaho (Reno, Nevada/Reno).

With this latest recruiting class ranked as the best in the history of the UW football program, and UW having won the last two meetings between the two North powers by a combined 108-24, the competition on the field and on the recruiting trail isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon.

“Each year you can tell by the wins and losses that they’ve been getting better, and better and better, and I don’t think they’re going to be falling off anytime soon,” Molden said of UW, expressing optimism for his alma mater with Mario Cristobal firmly in control of the Oregon program.

However, with Petersen having a few extra years under his belt as a head coach, the former UO All-American and first-round pick said at the end of the day it comes down to establishing a culture first.

“I think it’s going to be, with what Washington has been able to do I think since coach Petersen has taken over how each year they’ve bought in and he’s changed the culture,” Molden added.

“The biggest thing when we play at different levels of football is you got to establish culture.

You got to have an attitude where everybody has got to buy in. Of course you have to have athletes, and you got to have smart athletes especially at the key position which is at quarterback.”