Wasn’t sure where to put this, but figured it would best go here.
The narrative is that Oregon is crushing it in recruiting like no one else on the west coast. They run it now and are the new USC. As has been hashed out plenty of times, UW has been right with them but suck at marketing so no one even knows. Plus Pete quit and the team sucked while Oregon won the Rose Bowel. So UW gets what they deserve.
With that out of the way:
Per Alger, the Ducks have 84 scholarship players — 37 on offense, 44 on defense and three specialists — and 38 who were rated four- or five-stars as recruits. That’s a blue-chip ratio of 45.2 percent. Their non-specialist blue-chip ratio is 38-of-81, or 46.9 percent.
Meanwhile, 43 of the 85 scholarship players listed on Washington’s roster were blue-chip recruits, which yields a ratio of 50.6 percent; the non-specialist blue-chip ratio is 43 of 81, or 53.0 percent. So the Huskies’ team-wide ratio is indeed higher than Oregon’s, at least for the time being.
Adhering strictly to Elliott’s methodology — blue-chip signees in the four most recent recruiting classes, not counting walk-ons or non-juco transfers — actually puts the Huskies further ahead. Best I can tell, UW’s blue-chip ratio among signees from 2017-20 is 44 of 83, or 53 percent, compared to Oregon’s 39 of 96, or 40.6 percent. Of course, when you sign larger classes, as the Ducks have, maintaining a high blue-chip ratio becomes less likely, even as you reel in considerable top-end talent. But it’s interesting that even in the past two classes, when Oregon’s recruiting really as taken off, the Huskies still have signed a greater raw number of blue-chip prospects (25 to 22) as well as a higher overall ratio (55.6 to 45.8).