Not lately. By my count they have 5 kids from SoCal, averaging less than 1 player a year going back to 2017. And I’m not sure I’d even count Hero Kanu since he’s a German kid who moved to the states like a year and a half ago. They’ve ramped up their recruiting out west in general though.
- 2017 had Wyatt Davis, Haskell Garrett and Tate Martell. Losing Davis would hurt but considering USC got 2 top 60 DTs I’m thinking Garrett still stays at OSU. Who cares about Tate.
- 2018 had Olave and Togiai, but as mentioned throughout Olave was highly underrated and USC had signed 2 top 40 WRs. Maybe they lose Togiai which also would have hurt.
- 2019 had Vimahi was the only out west player hailing from Hawaii. A nice depth player but hasn’t done anything yet.
- 2020 might have been a big one with Stroud and Kourt Williams hailing from SoCal. Gee Scott, Ransom and Jack Miller all also came from out west. Even then though, USC had young QBs with experience in Daniels and Slovis vs. OSU with Fields who was almost definitely leaving after 1 redshirt year for Stroud. I’m not sure it’s a given he goes to USC if the USC of old were still around
2021 was another out west in general vs. SoCal with JT and Emeka coming from Washington, Burke from AZ and Hart from CO.
2022 has Kanu from SoCal (but not really) and then Devin Brown from Utah/Arizona, Graves from AZ, and Fitzpatrick from CO.