Washington's Jimmy Lake takes Oregon to task on academic prowess

Oregon-Washington week has begun, with the rivalry expanding to more than just on the field. Except in the recruiting world according to Husky head coach Jimmy Lake.

During his Monday press conference, Lake was asked if their Pac-12 neighbors to the south were a recruiting rival. He responded by saying Washington is trying to compete with other schools — mainly ones with high “academic prowess.”

“That is way more pumped up than it is,” Lake said talking about the Oregon-Washington rivalry from a recruiting standpoint. “Our battles are, really, the schools that we go against, have academic prowess, like the University of Washington, Notre Dame, Stanford, USC. We go with a lot of battles, toe to toe, all the way to the end, with those schools.”

According to Lake, members of the media have built up any kind of recruiting rivalry between the Ducks and Huskies. He also again, doubled down on wanting to fight for the same kids as the aforementioned “academically prowess” programs.

“I think that’s made up and pumped up in [the media’s] world. In our world, we battle more academically prowess teams.”

According to the On3 Consensus team rankings, Oregon has the No. 12 class in the country with one five-star and 16 four-stars.

Oregon’s head coach Mario Cristobal has become one of the best recruiters in the country. Some of his top prospects come from well outside the Pacific Northwest or even the state of California. He even landed a four-star offensive lineman, Dave Iuli, from the state of Washington.

Washington, on the other hand, is ranked No. 33 and only has three four-star prospects.

The schools Lake mentions as the Huskies’ main off-the-field recruiting rivals (Notre Dame, Stanford, and USC) have the No. 7, No. 19, and No. 15 classes respectively.

Still plenty behind their biggest rivals.

Dan Mullen comments on recruiting

Lake was not the only Power Five head coach to make comments about recruiting on Monday.

Florida’s Dan Mullen was asked about his recruiting class just over a month before the early signing period. His answer was awkward, possibly causing concern for Gators fans.

“We’re in the season now,” Mullen said during his press conference. “We’ll do recruiting after the season — when it gets to recruiting time we can talk about recruiting.”

From watching the video version of his response, you can see the change of mood on Mullen’s face when asked about the topic. He was not too pleased.

From there, the Monday press conference ended and Florida canceled the rest of media availability for the rest of the week.