I hate USC more than anyone, but these sound like weak-*** excuses given by ND fans for years. I'm not buying this at all. You know how easy it is to recruit to USC? Location, weather, women, women, tradition, academics (yes, they sell that, and the education given is great for non-athletes), WINNING, etc. I mean, it's not a hard sell, and Ed O is as good a recruiter as you'll find. And while he'll do anything to get his guys into school (just read Meat Market or The Blind Side), they don't need to pay off recruits to get them there. And Haden won't let them anyways.
What USC is doing is quite simple. They're selling all I wrote, plus the fact that there are only a limited amount of schollies, and if they want one they better jump on it. They're telling them, join now, or risk losing spot. And all of these are elite players. Oh, and several of these guys grew up as huge USC fans, bc when they were young USC was winning at an unprescedented rate. So for them, it was a no-brainer.
I don't know, I guess for me, I'm not going to hate on a guy that's doing really well at something. And like it or not, kiffy-boy and co are really good recruiters, and they are recruiting to an easy school to recruit to. We'll see how they do w a lack of depth (they did horribly 2 yrs ago), and we'll see how they do post-Barkley. I'm not sold on his coaching, but totally sold on his recruiting...