It's no secret that recruiting rankings fluctuate wildly from year-to-year. Even the best teams can have "down" years in recruiting, as needs of the team shift from one season to the next.
That said, this might be one of the most insane swings we have seen in recruiting recently.
Rivals recently analyzed which team improved the least from the 2016 recruiting class to the 2017 one, it really wasn't close; the Cal Bears ranked at the "top" here, dropping from 22nd in the 2016 recruiting rankings all the way down to 75th.
Yeah, a drop of over 50 spots doesn't really qualify in those expected changes from year-to-year.
What caused the change for Cal? Well, their 2016 class was rather large with 26 recruits joining the school, including five-star wide receiver Demetris Robertson. After the firing of head coach Sonny Dykes, Cal stalled in this year's recruiting cycle, signing only 14 recruits for the 2017 class. That lack of class size, combined with zero four-star recruits per the 247Sports Composite, led to the insane drop for the Bears.
While recruiting isn't everything, Cal will have a lot of work to do after finishing last in the Pac-12 in recruiting, especially with USC, Stanford, and Washington on the rise at the national level.
