Cal stands pat at No. 3 in Pac-12 recruiting power rankings

The California Golden Bears football program saw some great success on the recruiting front earlier this offseason, securing five commitments between the months of February and March with two more in the beginning weeks of April. Those seven players who have committed to head coach Justin Wilcox and Co. are good enough to rank the Golden Bears No. 3 in the Pac-12, just behind Oregon and USC, each who have secured over 10 commitments for the class of 2021.

However, as good as those players are, there have been no recent commitments as we’ve gone over a full month and a half since the latest player to pledge his allegiance to Cal. That’s given teams like the UCLA Bruins, Washington State Cougars and, more importantly, the Washington Huskies time to secure their own commitments and climb on Cal in the power rankings.

Sure, the race is far from over for the best class in the conference, but one thing is for certain, there has been a lot of time during the coronavirus pandemic that Cal has been quiet on the recruiting front, while other programs have not been. It also doubles down that Cal has been quiet since, but was making plenty of noise before.

Clay Helton and his staff at USC have secured over eight pledges during the pandemic, Chip Kelly and his team at UCLA has gotten off to a hot streak ever since the recruiting dead period was extended through June.

Wilcox and his staff, well, have not.

Again, there’s plenty of time left before the Early Signing Day Period in December, and a full season to play in between, but that’s just the problem: There’s a season upcoming as well, and a lot of the recruiting groundwork should’ve been done before fall camps do get under way.

Currently, Cal ranks third with 120.23 recruiting points according to 247Sports. It’s been that way since three-star safety Hunter Barth pledged in April. It hasn’t changed in well over six weeks while Washington, UCLA and Washington State have clearly climbed up in the rankings since then.

The third-place ranking is good for now, but if Wilcox and the rest of the Cal staff doesn’t continue to apply pressure and see some new commitments come their way soon, they’ll be passed up by their counterparts, and passed up by the recruits. The latter, of course, being much worse.