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Inside The Huskies

How Recruiting Rankings Changed After Russell's UW Commit

The Colorado offensive lineman's decision had a profound effect on the Top 25.
Dan Raley|
Reis Russell, a UW offensive-line commit, shares a moment with line coaches Michael Switzer and Michael Brewster.
Reis Russell, a UW offensive-line commit, shares a moment with line coaches Michael Switzer and Michael Brewster. | UW

College football recruiting rankings are like an ocean tide.

Every time there's a flurry of commitments, the waters recede to show something new sitting on the beach.

In this case, the University of Washington football team, following 4-star offensive lineman Reis Russell's Monday morning pledge to the Huskies, shot up to No. 10 in the latest 247Sports national recruiting rankings.

Two weeks ago, Rivals had the UW at No. 15 after sort of a lull in incoming Montlake commitments.

Yet a week before that, 247Sports put the Huskies all the way up to No. 5 following 4-star quarterback Blake Roskopf's promise to play for Fisch's staff.

So the addition of Russell from Valor Christian High School and Littleton, Colorado, to the UW football program roughly was worth a Top 10 ranking, as was Roskopf's.

If the ocean analogy doesn't work, these recruiting rankings are not unlike the stock market, where one pronouncement, a policy shift or a personnel change can send investors into a tizzy trying to read behind the lines.

In the case of Russell, the son of a former NFL executive and elite college football player himself, the 6-foot-3, 295-pound carries considerable weight because not only did the Huskies want him for their roster, but so did Georgia, Miami and USC, not to mention more than 30 others.

So reputations and rankings are based on how much attention you can generate, going up and down with each commitment gained or lost.

Typically, the Huskies have been a Top 25 program in recruiting when times are good in Montlake, with the blue bloods usually pulling in all of the 5-star players and holding onto the top rungs of the recruiting rankings.

Russell, however, appears to be the type of player who can change the whole perception of where Jedd Fisch's UW team is headed in the future.

Not long ago, the UW brought in four 4-star offensive linemen for a collective Junior Day visit, including Russell, and posed them altogether for a group photo so maybe they could all momentarily picture themselves playing together some day.

If the Huskies could land just one or two more of those big boys, it might assure a final Top 10 ranking when all of the recruiting give and take is done, though they currently have 13 commits and are far from done.

Yet Russell, perception-wise, gave the Huskies a significant boost for now, no doubt worth as many as five slots.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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