At Washington, an uncommon but confident recruiting approach

SEATTLE — Chris Petersen's recruiting blueprint hasn't changed since his early days at Boise State, both in his preferred geographic footprint — up and down the West Coast, a little slice of Texas — and his approach to identifying, evaluating and offering potential prospects.

Yet the world of recruiting has changed. Scholarships are extended earlier, often en masse; players give verbal commitments earlier each cycle, at certain positions in particular; high-profile prospects are made stars before they first step on campus, their every move and statement parsed for deeper meaning by programs and fan bases angling for their signing-day signature.

Petersen has taken note of these developments, even as he and his coaching staff — now preparing for their second season at Washington — remain committed to a particular brand of recruiting more and more uncommon across the power-conference landscape.

"The whole recruiting thing is going down a really bad path," Petersen told USA TODAY Sports. "Recruiting's becoming such a bunch of hype and a bunch of stuff that makes it harder on everybody to do an honest, good job and find the best fit for both sides. And that's what it's all about."

Largely apart from the crowd, with few exceptions, the Washington staff preaches a different approach: slow and steady, they say, and let's get to know each other a little bit before we walk down the aisle. Compared to the majority of the Football Bowl Subdivision — and in particular, those schools competing for national championships — Washington's recruiting style isn't merely methodical; it's done at a snail's pace.

"When a kid wants to commit we're like, hey, do you know what this means? You are committed," said Petersen, who has the best winning percentage of any active FBS coach with three or more seasons at the helm. "You just changed our recruiting. We're going to cut loose other guys. It's a little bit of a slower process, a little bit more of a methodical process."

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The greatest difference between Washington and the rest of its peers might come in the staff's approach to extending scholarship offers. The Huskies won't extend an offer based on a prospect's highlight reel alone, though that's part of the process. Nor is the staff influenced by a recruit's offer list, or whether a potential rival has recently offered a prospect on the Huskies' wish list — "copycat" recruiting, said Petersen.

"The whole recruiting process right now is so bizarre, is so absurd, that offering a scholarship to a kid at most places is like sending a letter to him five years ago," he said. "(Schools) don't care. They'll just get out of it. Or if a guy does commit, they'll say, 'Oh, you've got to come to our camp now.' And then if they don't like him, they just kind of, you know … and we're just not into that."

Washington's process aims to remove the guesswork out of the inexact science of recruiting, where four-star recruits fail and signees of the two-star variety far exceed expectations, all with a most basic goal: To find not only great players, those with enough talent to lift the Huskies back into Rose Bowl contention, but players willing to buy into the message.

"It's easy to put the tape on and see a good player. But the reason we did so well at Boise and had so many of those guys get drafted and be NFL players was because we got the right guys who bought into our message. We were able to develop them. Plus, we liked coaching them, they liked being coached by us."

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The Huskies' get-to-know-you recruiting style does come with a drawback, Petersen admitted, even if it's one somewhat outside of the program's control: As more and more schools flood the country with offer after offer, Washington's meticulous approach can leave the Huskies behind the curve with a much-wanted prospect — and in some cases, rub the player the wrong way.

"It makes it harder on us the way the nature of recruiting is going, because everyone is rushing and offering guys that they don't know anything about," said Petersen. "Now it's like a kid has 20 offers and he's like, 'Well, where have you been? You haven't been here.' Well, sometimes it takes a minute or two to figure these things out.

"Our way maybe hurts us in some ways because we're so late on certain kids. I don't have a problem offering early. But we need to know something more than just seeing the kid on tape. That's easy. Anyone can figure that out. But there's a lot more to it."

Early returns suggest two facts: one, Petersen and his staff can recruit to Washington, even if using an unorthodox tack; and two, this will never be a program — as run by the current administration — that loads up on verbal commitments early in a recruiting cycle. Nor, however, will Washington be prone to late-in-the-game changes of heart; those who do commit stay committed.

The class signed in February, Petersen's first full group since arriving on campus, was ranked in the top 30 nationally by Rivals.com. The in-progress class set to sign next February counts only four members, but there's value in the small numbers: Washington's current verbal commitments count one of top running backs on the West Coast (Sean McGrew of St. John Bosco in Bellflower, Calif.), one of the region's top offensive tackles (Luke Wattenberg of Serra Catholic in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.), and two of the top six recruits in its home state (defensive back Taylor Rapp and athlete Brandon Wellington), per the recruiting site.

Those figures aren't necessarily unique; how Petersen and Washington go about achieving them, however, stands out.

"We're still going to stick to our guns and do it our way," he said. "No one else is going to pay attention to what we're doing. They might pay attention to who were offering. I think people know that we can be pretty methodical. We feel that. Everyone can do whatever they want to do. We're going to try to do our homework the best we can."

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