USC reconnects with local calls

Its top-ranked recruiting class has that distinct Southland flavor

- BY RYAN KARTJE

Photographs by CRAIG WESTON For The Times

WIDE RECEIVER Trent Mosley, out of Santa Margarita High, is one of eight players from the powerhouse Trinity League to sign with the Trojans.

When Pete Carroll was at the height of his powers at USC, the legendary coach made it a point to own the California recruiting scene. In turning the Trojans into perennial title contenders, Carroll set out to "put a fence" around the Southland, to keep all of its top prospects at home, in cardinal and gold.

It turned out to be a winning strategy. But recruiting the best players in your own backyard, as Carroll saw it, wasn't really rocket science.

"It seemed like common sense," Carroll told The Times in 2006, after the Trojans had signed back-to-back recruiting classes ranked No. 1 overall.

Yet since Carroll's exit, his successors at USC haven't made it look so simple. Any semblance of USC's local supremacy under Carroll was ceded completely over the past decade as other college football powers, such as Ohio State or Oregon, planted their own flags on the Trojans' home turf. The problem only festered further under Lincoln Riley, as the coach initially cast a wider net nationally, aiming for top prospects in states like Texas and Florida while local stars signed and shined elsewhere.

Riley waited until his fourth season to return to the strategy that worked so well for Carroll.

And it took less than one year after that for USC to return to the top of the recruiting world.

The coronation became official Wednesday, as USC inked the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation on early signing day, marking the first time in almost two decades that the Trojans stood atop the recruiting throne of college football.