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ASU Football: Good Recruiting Won’t Equal a Better Team

By Hunter Robinson

Nov 19, 2016; Seattle, WA, USA; Arizona State Sun Devils head coach Todd Graham calls a timeout against the Washington Huskies during the fourth quarter at Husky Stadium. Washington won 44-18. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 19, 2016; Seattle, WA, USA; Arizona State Sun Devils head coach Todd Graham calls a timeout against the Washington Huskies during the fourth quarter at Husky Stadium. Washington won 44-18. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports /
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While the recruiting season is ramping up for the ASU football program, a good 2017 recruiting class doesn’t necessarily mean a better on-field product come September.

After receiving a commitment from 4-star running back Eno Benjamin this past weekend, the Sun Devils now have the 56th best recruiting class in the nation according to rivals.com. Even if ASU were to land five 5-star recruits before the recruitment season is up, they still won’t have the recruits to drastically improve the team.

Recruits are meant to better your team, which they will, but they aren’t meant to be the saving grace of a team that is on the decline. For ASU, the 2017 recruiting class will better the team, but they won’t make the team that much better.

Right now the 2017 recruiting class features four 4-star recruits, at this time during the 2016 recruiting season they had four 4-star recruits and one 5-star recruits. While there is still a lot of time left for ASU football, don’t expect a huge wave a high-level recruits choosing Arizona State.

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The unfortunate fact for ASU is that they will never be a recruiting power, something that head coach Todd Graham and company have realized. Realizing this, they have focused on just dominating recruiting in the state of Arizona and to pick up recruits from other states when they can.

ASU also relies heavily on junior college transfers. Because they don’t have the recruiting power to compete with some of the other schools in the Pac-12, such as USC, UCLA and Stanford, they target kids who have proven themselves in junior college who would still like the chance to play for a division 1 program.

When you combine a recruiting class that, at best, will be average with a junior college transfer list that tends to be one of the better lists in the nation, you end up with a decent recruiting season.

While a decent recruiting season will give you decent players who will be able to contribute, you aren’t bringing in a recruiting class that is going to change a dynamic of a team. While a change isn’t needed on the offensive side of the ball for ASU, on the defensive side a change is needed ASAP.

Next: ASU WBB: Arizona State Destroys Colorado

The 2017 recruiting class isn’t going to be an amazing recruiting class and it isn’t going to instantly improve the ASU program to vault them into Pac-12 title contention, and unfortunately for coach Graham, that might be what he needs to keep his job.

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