When the Arizona football team has competed against programs like Southern California, Oregon and California the past few years, the Wildcats have not displayed the talent to legitimately compete with these schools for a conference championship.

When the Wildcats went up against those powerhouses in recruiting, Arizona officially closed the gap in the Pacific 10 Conference yesterday when it signed arguably the best class in Arizona football history.

Despite coming off consecutive 3-8 seasons in his first two years on the job, Arizona head coach Mike Stoops and his staff recruited like the Wildcats are already a national powerhouse, hauling in the No. 18 class, according to recruiting service www.scout.com, second in the conference to powerhouse USC.

While Stoops has not done much in the win column thus far in his tenure, he has done much to change the national perception of Arizona football, most importantly with recruits.

When he arrived, Arizona was a barren wasteland with little talent on the roster.

Two years into the job, he's brought in three quality recruiting classes that have rejuvenated the program and its fan base, including last year's No. 15 class.

In signing two five-star (on a five-star scale) prospects, seven four-stars, 13 three-stars and just a pair of two-star prospects, Stoops and his troops have gone toe-to-toe with the heavyweights of college football.

Stoops was not afraid of Pete Carroll and his dynasty at USC, fighting the Trojans for the same recruits and often winning, as he did with five-star junior college defensive end Louis Holmes, the No. 1 junior college player in the country, and four-star cornerback Devin Ross, ranked No. 4 at his position.

If they both qualify for school, along with five-star junior college defensive tackle Gabe Long, Arizona will have one of the top defenses in not just the conference but the country.

More importantly, Stoops is laying the foundation for future Arizona success both next year and beyond.

"When you're really putting your program into solid ground, most of the time you'll redshirt the majority of your incoming class," Arizona defensive coordinator Mark Stoops said earlier this year.

While will-be sophomore quarterback Willie Tuitama and will-be sophomore receiver Mike Thomas had fantastic years, the team redshirted running back Xavier Smith and offensive linemen Eben Britton, Blake Kerley and Daniel Borg. These players have been integrated into the system and have set the building blocks for future Arizona success.

Along with this year's recruiting class, Arizona has vastly improved the quality of its depth, especially on the lines.

"We're starting to build competition across the board," Mike Stoops said. "That competition is what kids need to get better."

This class represents the next step in rebuilding a program destroyed by poor recruiting under former Arizona head coach John Mackovic, in which five-star prospects were only a dream.

The Wildcats have bona fide five-star prospects in Holmes and Long, but it remains to be seen whether they will ever hit the field.

Scottsdale Community College athletic director Art Becker said in an e-mail in late December that he believed Holmes would enroll at Arizona in mid January.

But a check at the UA Registrar's Office this week showed that neither Holmes nor Long have enrolled in school.

Arizona associate athletic director Bill Morgan confirmed that neither player had enrolled at Arizona yet but would not elaborate.

This could mean that come fall, the Wildcats could lose their top two prospects.

This is eerily reminiscent of the debacle of B.J. Vickers, who a year ago was supposed to be Arizona's go-to wide receiver but never played a down because of academic issues.

While most true freshmen (Tuitama and Thomas excluded) take some time to develop, quality transfers like Holmes and Long can help right away in a position the Wildcats are sorely lacking in.

With redshirt senior Marcus Smith returning from his medical redshirt, the Wildcats could dominate the trenches on defense to complement the best secondary in the conference, one that only gets better once Ross enrolls. These units, combined with what should be a productive linebacker unit if they stay relatively healthy (unlike last year), could make the Arizona defense a formidable test for any offensive unit.

In any case, Arizona has dramatically improved its talent level on both sides of the ball.

Stoops has proven he can recruit with the best of them despite consecutive losing seasons, which makes you wonder what the guy can do once he's coming off a bowl game.

With the development of Stoops' first two classes, last year's 3-8 felt nothing like 2004's 3-8, as the team lost a number of heartbreakers rather than getting blown out a number of times, as the Wildcats did throughout the middle of 2004.

And there's always the flicker of hope called the UCLA game, a contest in which Arizona showed a glimpse of what it can do in the future.

The hard part is done. Arizona coaches have convinced these top preps that they will win in Tucson.

Now it's up to the coaching staff to get the best out of this raw talent on Saturdays.

Once these recruits develop, Arizona saying "Pac-10 champs" every day after practice may be more than a dream.

Michael Schwartz is a journalism sophomore. He can be reached at sports@wildcat.arizona.edu.