UCLA Football News: Bruins Disappointing Performance in Big 10 Recruiting Rankings

Even a USC columnist is concered about UCLA's Big 10 recruiting rank

Your UCLA Bruins are on the verge of their last season under the Pac-12 conference. The Bruins spent 95 seasons in the Pac-12, and starting in 2024, they will be heading to the Big 10 Conference. 

The athletic department, team, and fans are excited about the move, but they have much work to do to compete at a high level. 

At the moment, UCLA is ranked 59 nationally on the recruiting ranks and number nine among the Pac-12. Not exactly where you want to be if you want to compete in the conference. Unfortunately, it doesn't get any better when you put UCLA among the Big 10 teams for 2024. 

For the class of 2024, UCLA is ranked 15 out of 16 in the Big 10 recruit rankings, and even the people over at Trojans Wire are worried and think they still have some work to do. 

On the morning of July 4, UCLA is (per 247Sports) No. 15 out of the 16 schools which will compete in Big Ten football in 2024. The only school the Bruins lead is Indiana. That’s the only one out of the 15 schools UCLA will compete against in the Big Ten. It’s hard to avoid noticing at this point. We will see how the landscape changes in the coming months.

As of July 6, the Bruins have nine commits, eight of them are three-stars, and one is a four-star recruit. 

This is not a good sign for the team who wants to compete for a Big 10 championship in a conference with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and USC. A ton has to do with their head coach Chip Kelly and his lack of urgency when it comes to recruiting big high school talent. 

That must all change if Kelly wants to keep his job and be a formidable team in his new conference. 

We'll see if anything changes on that front, with plenty of time for UCLA to go big fish hunting.