Cougars and Ducks often battle for same recruits

PROVO — While BYU's meeting with Oregon in Thursday's Las Vegas Bowl marks the first time the Cougars and Ducks have played each other since 1990, the two schools occasionally engage in some battles off the field — in the recruiting arena.

Given that Oregon offensive coordinator Gary Crowton is LDS and has extensive ties to the Beehive State, it's only natural that he would recruit some of the same players in the Cougars' pool of prospects.

Crowton, an Orem native who coached at Snow Junior College and later served as BYU's head coach from 2001-04, now sells his Oregon program to LDS players and players from Utah.

Crowton has also re-recruited some of his former Cougar players who are serving missions, like star wide receiver Austin Collie, who was the 2004 Mountain West Conference freshman of the year.

NCAA rules allow schools to recruit players who have previously signed a national letter-of-intent elsewhere and then go on a mission — after they've reached the 18-month mark of their missionary service.

Collie returns home Jan. 5 from his mission to Argentina.

"A number of schools tried to re-recruit Austin," said his father, Scott, who was a Cougar receiver from 1979-82. Among the schools that offered Austin a scholarship during his mission are Oregon, Stanford, UCLA and Oklahoma State.

As part of the recruiting process, some coaches compared the statistics of their receivers to BYU's receivers, Scott Collie said.

Despite those recruiting efforts by Crowton and others, Austin will be returning to Provo to resume his career, his father said.

"Gary's got a good thing going at Oregon," Collie said, "but our family is blue, through and through. Austin's excited with the way the program is going (at BYU)."

Crowton was on the other side of things in 2002, when BYU and Oregon fought for the services of former Highland High star Haloti Ngata. Ngata gave Crowton a soft verbal commitment, then backed off and committed to Oregon instead. Ngata eventually signed with the Ducks. After a stellar career in Eugene, he now plays for the Baltimore Ravens.

Oregon has one Utah player on its roster, former Highland High standout Victor Filipe, a junior who is redshirting this season due to an injury. Filipe signed with BYU out of high school, then went on a mission and transferred to Oregon.