Musings from Arledge: Luke Wafle is a huge commitment and deserving of No. 55

If, despite having the top-ranked recruiting class, you were still wondering whether the USC Trojans can compete with college football’s elite programs for elite recruits, here’s your answer:

Yep.

Landing Luke Wafle was enormous—not just because he’s a great prospect, but because of the message it sends.

It’s not easy to get in late for a defensive recruit and beat Penn State in its own backyard, especially when the recruit’s brother plays for Penn State. 

Coming in late to beat Ohio State for a defensive line recruit when that means (1) taking on the defending national champion, (2) beating one of the greatest defensive line coaches in college football history, and (3) winning a bidding war against one of the college football’s biggest spending programs? Huge challenge. 

Doing it by overcoming a huge deficit during the recruit’s official visit, losing him to Ohio State a day before his announcement, and then getting him back at the last second? Crazy degree of difficulty. The producers of Mission Impossible nixed the idea of having Ethan Hunt try such a thing because it was too unrealistic. 

So, yes, USC is now recruiting at a Pete Carroll level. I don’t know how long that will last, but let’s enjoy it. And understand that bringing in a class like this will, in the next couple of years, erase the talent gap that has existed between USC and the top programs ever since Paul Dee and Clay Helton treated the program like it was Pete Townsend’s guitar.

For those concerned about engaging in bidding wars for top recruits, would you rather just give up and go 7-5 every year? Because that’s the alternative. College football is a professional sport, and you lure the best players to your program by offering them a lot of money. You can enjoy amateur football if you want, but you can’t enjoy amateur football and USC football. Those are two different things, and if we’re honest, they’ve been different things for a while. The players may have only started to become millionaires, but Nick Saban, Kirk Herbstreit, and a bunch of other people started pulling that off many years ago.

Besides, I asked Ohio State fans if they hated last year’s national championship just because they bought their roster. They said no. Dodgers and Yankees fans were also generally positive about such things.

Luke Wafle is a fantastic prospect and worth the trouble. I see him as Anthony Lucas’s replacement in 2026. This is a guy who could grow into a defensive tackle, but I don’t think that’s what will happen. He’s strong enough and disciplined enough to hold the edge and quick enough to rush the passer. And he plays angry. He is exactly the type of player that you need to win a national championship. 

USC is building an unbelievable defensive line room, and Wafle will be a very important piece. I don’t know what some booster had to pay to land him, but thank you sir for your contribution, and I’m thrilled to death that he’ll be on the roster.

And while we’re at it, offer him 55. I wouldn’t force it on him, but he’s the kind of guy who should get the proposal.  

I know some people consider 55 a linebacker’s number. It’s not, not really. Seau and McGinest were edge players in college. (Seau moved to ILB in the NFL.) Rivers was an outside linebacker who also played the edge a fair amount. So giving it to an edge is consistent with tradition.

I know some people want a player to earn the number before taking it on. But that doesn’t happen. Nobody yet has switched his number to take 55 after establishing himself as a star. All of the great 55’s, from Seau to McGinnis, Claiborne to Rivers, got the number as true freshman. 

It doesn’t always work out; I know that. We can all name a couple of guys who couldn’t live up to the standard. But putting 55 on some guys who don’t live up to it doesn’t hurt the tradition. You can survive that. Not putting it on anybody for many, many years … that hurts the tradition. The tradition is now on life support because it has been semi-retired. That’s a mistake. 

Offer it to Luke Wafle. If you do, I bet he’ll grow into it.