7 Schools Who Helped & Hurt Themselves on the Recruiting Trail This Past Weekend

This past weekend was a great one for college football, as we saw many great games with fantastic finishes and story lines. With this weekend being such a neat one, I want to put a recruiting spin on it to show once again how recruiting never stops.

For this read, I would like to give you all seven programs that may have either helped or hurt themselves in recruiting this weekend. Some big visits took place and many top-notch recruits went off to games yesterday.

Here are seven programs that may have helped or hurt their recruiting this past weekend.

Hurt: Arizona State

The Sun Devils were fired up for their Thursday night showdown with Oregon. An omen of things to come may have been when the Ducks' fans painted the giant "A" in Tempe in an Oregon green.

The Ducks gave ASU some nasty tasting medicine as they hung over 40 points on Todd Graham's team. With stud DE/OLB Ebenezer Ogundeko visiting Arizona State this weekend, the Sun Devils picked a poor time to lay an egg.

Helped: Notre Dame

The defense for the Golden Domers is just downright phenomenal and they showed their talent again vs. BYU. This has been an outstanding season for the folks in South Bend and they also are positioning themselves for a top 10 recruiting class.

With prospects like CB Mackensie Alexander, CB Priest Willis, LB Isaac Savaiinaea, CB Chris Hawkins and S/ATH Max Redfield all looking hard at the Irish, another win certainly helps their recruiting pitch. 

Hurt: West Virignia

The Mountaineers got blasted by Texas Tech last week and then on Saturday Kansas State got the best of them. In a dramatic turn of events, WVU has gone from BCS title contender to a school trying to salvage it's season.

With 11 visitors for the game, a loss like that to the Wildcats hurt any recruiting aspirations Dana Holgorsen had for the time being. 

Helped: LSU

Sure, winning a game is always good to impress recruits, but in the world of recruiting this game was about two teams battling for one player: WR/TE Ricky Seals-Jones.

Seals-Jones is down to LSU and Texas A&M, and the two SEC programs got it on Saturday. A&M hung tough, but LSU prevailed in the end. If it's a 50-50 contest between the Aggies and Tigers for the 6'5", 230 pound pass catcher, LSU could have the advantage since they won the head to head, on-field match up.

That could be some serious help.

Helped: Michigan

Thanks to a late FG, the Wolverines bested their in-state rivals of Michigan State 12-10 on Saturday. This victory was historic as it gave Big Blue a record 900 hundred wins in it's rich history.

It also helped mightily on the recruiting front as both RB Derrick Green and S Leon McQuay III were both scheduled visitors to Ann Arbor. This win surely helped the positive feel and good mood on the visit as Michigan tries to close out it's 2013 recruiting class with the two stud prospects.

Hurt: Miami

Miami hosted 5-star OLB and Miami area native Matthew Thomas for their heated rivalry game vs. Florida State this past Saturday. The Canes got beat by FSU 33-20, which won't help them in their pitch to Thomas to join them.

I already think Miami is behind Alabama and Florida State for Thomas, so this is a triple whammy for the Canes. First, they lose a game to a rival, then it's to a school that their top recruiting target is considering, and third, it was at home. 

Helped: Florida

No school helped themselves as much this past weekend than the Florida Gators. With a 44-11 thrashing on South Carolina at The Swamp, right now Florida is the "it" school.

They hosted a complete swarm of prospects and recruits like Vernon Hargreaves III, Laremy Tunsil, Caleb Brantley and Reggie Wilkerson for the weekend. 

With the Gators many top overall uncommitted prospects left in the 2013 class, a big win like this will be a huge help for their recruiting efforts down the stretch.

Edwin Weathersby has worked in scouting/player personnel departments for three professional football teams, including the New York Giants, Cleveland Browns and the Las Vegas Gladiators of the Arena League. He spent a year evaluating prep prospects & writing specific recruiting and scouting content articles for Student Sports Football (now ESPN Rise-HS). A syndicated scout and writer, he's also contributed to WeAreSC.com, GatorBait.net and Diamonds in the Rough Inc., a College Football and NFL Draft magazine.