The collegiate scouting service Rivals.com released its 'Rivals at 10: Top 25 recruiting teams', which breaks down the best recruiting schools in college football over the past 10 recruiting classes (2002-11), and atop the list was the University of Southern California.
Rivals' top-25 list was created by adding together the recruiting rankings for each school over the course of the past 10 years (meaning the lower the amount of points, the better), and with the low tally of 38 points, the USC Trojans claimed the top spot, edging out the second base Georgia Bulldogs by a good 23 points.
It's easy to see how the Trojans came up on top as the best recruiter, given that the school has had the top-ranked recruiting class on four different occasions over that time periods, the best among all schools taken into consideration, and have on only one occasion slipped outside the top-10 in recruiting (13th, 2002).
Of the other college football programs, only Alabama, Florida, LSU and Texas have had the top recruiting class in a given year, with the Crimson Tide pulling in the top class on three occasions and the Gators, Tigers and Longhorns each holding a single top recruiting class during that time period.
Looking at the Pacific-10 (now Pacific-12) in general, the conference holds strong with four schools, USC, UCLA, Oregon and Cal, making Rivals' top-25.
What is interesting to note is that the Trojans' cross-town rivals, the Bruins, bested both the Ducks and the Bears, with UCLA coming in tied with Nebraska for 17th on the list, followed by Oregon at 19th and California holding down the 20th position.
Despite having the 17th-best ranking over the past 10 years, the Bruins have managed an on-field winning percentage of just 51.3 percent during that time period, while the Ducks and Bears have winning percentages of 68.4 and 63.2, respectively.
And for the record, the recruiting-best Trojans held down a winning percentage of 84.6 (and two national championships) during those 10 years.
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