2007: THE YEAR THE BCS CHANGED SHAPE?

Rock Chalk. What the… If 2007 was the wildest season in college football history, blame longtime losers who finally crashed the polls

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This man helped shift the axis of BCS powers.

College football has no salary cap, revenue sharing or draft order. Parity, to say the least, is not encouraged. In fact, the sport is practically built to prevent hard-luck teams from turning the corner. Just ask Ole Miss. I followed the Rebels for my book Meat Market during the 2006 recruiting season. Three years ago, Ole Miss hired coach Ed Orgeron, a master recruiter at USC and Miami. The school expected him to put the Rebels on top of the SEC, where they hadn't stood since 1963. I even watched them almost win at LSU and take Florida to the final minutes before a fake punt came up just short.

But the big win never happened, and Orgeron got the ax after just three seasons in Oxford. I wonder, though, if his fate would have been different had that fake punt worked or had the Rebs toppled LSU. Or if he'd landed a franchise player. Or if he'd built a recruiting pipeline to his old stomping grounds in Miami. That's the way sustained success in college football happens, not to mention season-changing upsets. And while every team still needs to get a lucky break, nobody turns the corner by chance. This year's biggest upstarts—the Jayhawks, Wildcats and Illini—each followed this simple-to-grasp-but-tough-to-execute three-step plan:

BUILD A RECRUITING PIPELINE
The first key to turning around a program? Finding the talent that makes talent want to find you. Kansas coach Mark Mangino can't stock his roster with list-toppers like his high-
profile Big 12 rivals can, so he hunts kids off the recruiting superhighway. He starts with talent-rich Texas. Kansas has rebuilt with 27 players from the Lone Star State. Two of them, quarterback Todd Reesing and wide receiver Dexton Fields, hooked up for the game-winning TD at Kansas State on Oct. 6, the first time KU had beaten a ranked team on the road in 12 years. In fact, almost every Jayhawk playmaker is a Texan whose only Big 12 offer was from Mangino: Reesing, Fields, corner Aqib Talib, return man Marcus Herford, offensive tackle Anthony Collins, defensive tackle James McClinton.

Mangino saw what Texas recruits could do when he was an assistant at Oklahoma and Kansas State, which both heavily mined Longhorn country. He assigns five recruiters to the state (four around Dallas) and brags that KU may not get the biggest names but it unearths the toughest players. Now Texas stars hunt down Mangino, who has a verbal from top-50 wideout Daymond Patterson and is closing in on Cyrus Gray, a top-10 running back.

FIND YOUR FRANCHISE PLAYER
Kentucky head coach Rich Brooks was nearly run off last fall. He'd arrived in Lexington in 2002, a year ahead of the biggest recruit he ever landed—QB Andre' Woodson. After going 925 in three seasons, Brooks seemed more likely to turn in his whistle than to help the Cats turn the corner. Then, last season, after UK started 34 and lost 49-0 at LSU, it finished out 51, with wins over Georgia and Clemson. The confidence carried over to this season, when the Woodson-led Cats upset top-ranked LSU in October and landed in the Top 10. How did it happen? Woodson, a 6'5", 230-pound senior, finally decided he wanted to be the man. After seeing a friend recover from a near-fatal car crash, Woodson rededicated himself. His awakening coincided with the 2006 arrival of QB coach Randy Sanders, who worked with Woodson on basics from defensive reads to his demeanor in the huddle. "I did everything the wrong way," says Woodson. "I was resigned to being average."

The suddenly secure Brooks now has the eye, and commitment, of other blue-chippers. Exhibit A: D.J. Stafford, a 270-pounder from Georgia thought to be the nation's No. 2 defensive tackle.

BEAT A TEAM NOBODY THINKS YOU CAN
Winning traditions often start with a single win. Miami was a laughingstock before freshman Jim Kelly led his team to victory at Penn State in 1979. Four years later, the Canes won their first title. Wisconsin had eight straight losing seasons before going 1011 in 1993. But it was a 12-7 win the year before against Ohio State that got the Badgers believing. They've been to 12 bowls since.

So while it's true that Illinois' most impressive win in 2007 was at No. 1 Ohio State on Nov. 10, its most important win came against No. 5 Wisconsin on Oct. 6. The Illini hadn't beaten a Top 20 team in 15 tries since a 102 season in 2001. They'd been so bad that their fifth-year seniors had averaged two wins per year. "We haven't had much success like this," said running back Rashard Mendenhall after gaining 160 yards in the 31-26 win over UW. "Now we know we can play with anybody."

Don't expect these Illini to take a step back. Sophomore QB Juice Williams has his top five rushers and five of his top six receivers returning. And coach Ron Zook, a great recruiter, is capitalizing on the Illini's high profile: 15 of his 25 verbals come from out of state, including six from Florida.
Now, of course, the challenge for Illinois and its fellow upstarts is making sure success breeds success. Second biggest? Making sure a pesky underdog doesn't turn the corner on them in 2008.

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