It’s hard to fault anyone who doesn’t know what the major college football conferences will look like next year.
Texas and Oklahoma are moving to the SEC. The Big Ten is gaining Washington, UCLA, USC and Oregon. The Big 12 is welcoming Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. The Pac-12 technically exists, kind of, we’re not sure. There’s a lot of moving pieces.
But you’d think the list of people who must know how the conferences are realigning includes the head coaches of teams who are switching leagues.
In the case of Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch, you would be wrong. Because while trying to explain how the two preeminent Southern California schools moving the to Big Ten actually helps the Wildcats recruit from their neighboring state, he inadvertently made clear how much realignment is going to hurt them instead.
During an interview on The Athletic‘s college football podcast Until Saturday that aired Thursday, Fisch was asked how heavily Arizona will recruit Southern California now that the Wildcats are in the Big 12.
Here is his answer in full:
“I would assume that we are going to remain 80 percent Southern California. I see it as a huge advantage that those other programs have to travel all the way to the East Coast to play football games, play games in the cold, go to Rutgers and to Penn State and go to Champaign, Illinois. I mean, who’s our main competition in recruiting? The two programs on the West Coast in California that now have to convince kids that it’s worth their while to go play at Iowa, to go play at Illinois. Where I can tell these kids, ‘hey, you guys all think as California kids you’re better football players than Texas high school football kids? We’ll let’s see it.'”
This is quite a strange comment! Broadly because those “other programs” will be able to use the exact same logic against Arizona when they inevitably attempt to recruit the same high schoolers. And more specifically because he’ll have to convince kids that it’s worth their while to go play at Iowa State when Arizona travels there in 2025.
Everything Fisch is calling a negative for his rivals on the recruiting trails is a problem his own program will have to confront.
You think convincing kids to play at Rutgers will be hard? What about when Arizona has to travel to West Virginia in late November? Or Kansas State in the middle of a blizzard? Or UCF during tropical storm season?
You think you’re going to win recruits over by challenging them to face the top Texas recruits? How is that going to work when high schools from the Lone Star State are getting courted by the SEC?
Maybe Fisch is right and having familiar foes like Utah, Colorado and Arizona State in the Big 12 with the Wildcats will make things easier.
But he wasn’t fooling anyone with a recruiting pitch that clearly still needs some work.
Does Jedd Fisch know he will also be playing in Iowa
— Jimmy Slims (@jim_the_slim) December 21, 2023
If nothing else, realignment is immensely funny. https://t.co/FlaxZ6oJjZ pic.twitter.com/G3SwZauJgK
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) December 21, 2023
Did Arizona’s head coach forget he also now has to play in Iowa? https://t.co/5WbHbGryRK
— Chris Becker (@bhris_cecker316) December 21, 2023
Nobody tell Jedd Fisch where the NFL MVP grew up, who was recruiting him, and where he went to school https://t.co/wwkEwBa8Rm
— Cyclone Larry (@CycloneLarry69) December 21, 2023
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