Keyshawn Johnson explains how Big Ten move could positively impact USC, UCLA recruiting

Keyshawn Johnson believes moving to the Big Ten will do wonders for USC and UCLA recruiting wise.

Over recent seasons, the two gigantic brands have lost out on California-based star recruits to other schools, like quarterbacks Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud to Alabama and Ohio State, respectively. During his radio show Keyshawn, JWill and Max, Johnson spoke about how moving to the Big Ten will do wonders for both programs.

“It’s been a concern because we’ve lost, and USC has lost,” stated Johnson, regarding losing highly-touted recruits to other programs. “Not necessarily the conference, but USC has lost several quarterbacks over the last couple of years, most notably Bryce Young, which is from a high school that is a feeder school to USC in Mater Dei High. That’s basically a feeder school, and he decided to take his talents to Alabama.

“Then, you got DJU [D.J. Uiagalelei] from St. John Bosco, which was somewhat of a feeder school to USC. He decided to go to Clemson. CJ Stroud from the Inland Empire decided to go to Ohio State. That’s bad recruiting. That’s all that was. It wasn’t that these kids wouldn’t have gone to USC, it’s just the bad recruiting of the last regime.”

Continuing, Johnson added that he’s not concerned with recruits believing they have a better shot at the NFL by going to other schools, as USC is an tremendous program in their own right when they’re rolling.

“No, not at all. USC is a feeder program to the National Football League. When you think about it, kids in Southern California would rather stay at home. If you’re not recruiting them the way that they need to be and you’re not winning, then they go on the road,” Johnson stated. “The problem that USC had in the past is that they were lazy recruiting the star players. They just figured we’re USC, we can get them, they’re going to do this. UCLA has a different level of academic standards in terms of getting kids into UCLA. So, Chip Kelly softened it a little bit, but they’re still going to be tough to get kids in. But both of these institutions academically are on par with the highest institutions in America.

“We talk about the Big Ten conference, Big Ten schools academically are pretty strong. You start talking about Indiana, you start talking about Michigan, Northwestern — those schools academically are pretty strong, so USC and UCLA, when they made this particular jump and looked at this conference, there’s a lot of things that they have to factor in here. They can’t weaken their academic standards just to go make money from a football standpoint, or a basketball standpoint. People would lose their mind.”

As you can see, Keyshawn Johnson has big dreams for USC as they prepare to join the Big Ten. Gone are the days of California-based recruits taking their talents elsewhere — the Trojans will be a force on the recruiting trail according to Johnson.