So if the Pac-10 ends up adding the six teams from the Big-12 it is going to ruin Arizona’s recruiting, right? Well, not if you listen to Mike Stoops. While Stoops has yet to endorse the Pac-16, he did make an interesting claim about recruiting.

Stoops appeared earlier in the week on ESPN radio’s Scott Van Pelt show. While he did not say whether or not he liked the idea of adding the six Big 12 teams, he did say it could be a boost in recruiting.

He told host Ryen Russillo that he thought the move would help the Wildcats in the state of Texas. His reasoning is that the Wildcats lose players to Missouri and Kansas because they want to play in the Lone Star State 2-3 times a year. Now that the Tigers and Jayhawks will be in another league, and possibly a lesser league, the Cats can claim more and more of those players.

I would go so far as to say that the Cats may be able to steal a few players from Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. If you are still playing 2-4 games a year in Texas and Oklahoma every year, it is not that farfetched to believe that players from those two states would rather live in Tucson than Stillwater and Lubbock.

That being said, I do not believe those recruiting gains will be enough to catch up to Texas and Oklahoma. The Cats will rarely be able to steal players away from those schools, and getting a handful of players that would have gone to the likes of Missouri and Kansas, will hardly push the Wildcats over the top.

In addition, the Cats will also take a step back in the state of California, especially Southern California. The past two recruiting classes have seen the Cats take 13 Californians and 12 Texans. The chance to play just two games in Southern California in a four-year span, cannot be a great selling point.

More expansion stories: What does Colorado’s inclusion means for the Cats? Javier Morales remembers an old rivalry that could be rekindled. Anthony Gimino analyzes Colorado and  tells us to embrace the change.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 1:19 am and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: Arizona football, Arizona Wildcats, football recruiting, Mike Stoops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.