Five star Offensive Tackle recruit and USC football target Josh Conerly Jr. has officially signed with Oregon football (all recruiting ratings and rankings in article are as of 247Sports).
#BREAKING: 5⭐️ OT Josh Conerly Jr. has committed to Dan Lanning and the @oregonfootball Ducks ?@joshuaconerlyjr is the No. 1 OT in the 2022 Top247 ?@DuckTerritory pic.twitter.com/Dt3w6Tnpyx
— 247Sports (@247Sports) April 9, 2022
Conerly was originally expected to go to Michigan, but after all the Jim Harbaugh shenanigans with him interviewing for the Minnesota Vikings job and Offensive Coordinator Josh Gattis leaving for Miami, Conerly pushed his decision all the way back to Friday, April 8th.
There began to be more and more chatter about Conerly taking interest in USC, but it turned out to be all smoke and mirrors. USC has had trouble keeping offensive linemen away from Oregon in the past few years, as Mario Cristobal's expertise on offensive linemen had the few elite O-Linemen on the west coast wanting to play for him.
Cristobal's new program was one of the six schools Conerly chose from today (Miami), but Conerly still chose Oregon. It was a major blow to USC, who had less of an excuse to lose him to an unproven head coach who is now there in Dan Lanning. Not to mention he's a defensive guy.
USC Twitter was completely fooled by this decision.
Lincoln Riley has already made significant upgrades all up and down this roster, but if he truly wants to go all out with restoring USC football to greatness, he'll have to nail the trenches. Securing a signing of the No. 2 Offensive Tackle in the nation for the 2022 class would put him on the fast-track to doing so. Instead, SC let Conerly slip out of their hands.
Five-star OT and No. 15 overall recruit Josh Conerly Jr. has spurned USC to sign with Oregon.
— Ryan Kartje (@Ryan_Kartje) April 9, 2022
Brutal loss on the recrutiing trail for USC, which had been considered the favorite for Conerly.
Conerly is the No. 15 player in this year's class, and was going to have the chance to play for SC right away. At 6'5", 283 lb, the Rainier Beach (Seattle, WA) product is a rare breed out here on the west coast. They usually don't make linemen as good out here on the west, and therefore SC needs to have an 100% success rate at the position. Instead, UO punked the Trojans again in offensive line recruiting:
For the fifth recruiting class in a row, #USC misses out on its top offensive line target, including multiple times losing that target to #Oregon: https://t.co/i6EBZJdWmM
— Shotgun Spratling (@ShotgunSpr) April 9, 2022
Conerly does need to bulk up, but he has the length to make a major impact on an offensive line. His athleticism is top tier, as playing on the defensive side of the ball in high school as well certainly helped him stay at the top athletically. Playing high school basketball helped out too. SC's had MANY major roster victories since Riley's been at the helm, but today's loss was crushing.
Top 2022 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ OT Josh Conerly just picked Oregon over #USC.
— USC Psycho ?? (@uscpsycho) April 9, 2022
Getting that ✌️ from LFR would have been nice today.
Many people in general were surprised by this. After all, this was almost not even a possibility:
Oregon lands 5-star offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr.
— Andrew Nemec (@AndrewNemec) April 9, 2022
The Ducks were nearly eliminated in January, but he elected to name a top 6 instead of a top 5.
What a finish by Lanning and his staff! https://t.co/kowtCLSqYm
But after all, college football is certainly different from where it was in the past, especially as far as recruiting goes. In this NIL world, the Ducks have a lot of leverage that other programs don't have. With Phil Knight always being the resource for UO that he is, NIL opportunities are going to be insane for Oregon recruits:
And here's the thing -- we're in a whole new world now. Good chance Conerly picked Oregon because NIL money was better at UO than at #USC, Miami, Oklahoma, Michigan or Washington. If you complained about "Uncle Phil" before, that was nothing compared to how it will be now...??
— USC Psycho ?? (@uscpsycho) April 9, 2022
Conerly heads to a program that has never won any championships in their entire history despite having that resource. It's perplexing as to why he would choose Oregon over one of the most storied programs in college football history in USC who now has the head coach who runs the best offensive system in America, but everybody makes mistakes.