Recruiting is a nasty battle that coaches in the industry fight year-round, often against coaching friends from other schools. Unless your USC or Texas, recruiting usually is an uphill battle, where you can work your tail off trying to land a guy only to see him go to your rival.Imagine how bad that must sting.I bring this up because the Big 12 player-of-the-week winners were announced on Monday, and a name familiar to the die-hard Kansas football fans popped up.Michael Crabtree.Crabtree is the best wide receiver in the Big 12 right now. It’s not even close. He’s just a red-shirt freshman, and he’s already put up numbers in three games that’d make a pretty good season for most college football players.In victories over SMU, UTEP and Rice, Crabtree has a combined 38 catches for 538 yards and eight touchdowns. He had 11 catches for 244 yards and three scores against Rice last week, earning [my vote][1] over Kansas State’s Jordy Nelson (15-209).Here’s the KU tie: According to Rivals.com, Crabtree took two official visits when he was a senior at Carter High in Dallas – Texas Tech and Kansas.He had trips scheduled to Illinois, Baylor and Iowa, but Crabtree decided to end his recruting soon after his visit to Lubbock by committing to the Red Raiders. He never gave a hollow commitment to Kansas and by all accounts did his recruiting the right way. Kansas was believed to be a dark horse the entire time.Don’t get me wrong. The Jayhawks are doing fine without Crabtree. Marcus Henry has 355 yards on 19 catches already, and the wide-receiver fleet is deep with Henry, Dexton Fields, Dezmon Briscoe and Derek Fine. Occasionally, some guy named [Aqib Talib][2] parachutes in and leaves us speechless.But the beauty of sports is the ability to wonder what might have been. Crabtree would be an impact receiver in Lawrence, no doubt about it. He’d make an already decent KU fleet deadly.Best of all, he wouldn’t be going against KU’s defense in 2008 and 2009, when Texas Tech returns to the schedule. That’s when the lost recruiting battle will really hit home.**As mentioned, the Big 12 players of the week** were announced Monday morning, with no Jayhawks on the list this week. Aside from Crabtree’s offensive honors, Texas’ Brandon Foster won on defense after winning it on special teams last week. Iowa State’s Bret Culbertson, who booted five field goals against Iowa, won on special teams.I voted for Crabtree and Culbertson and picked Oklahoma’s Curtis Lofton on defense. [1]: http://www2.kusports.com/blogs/sawin_wood/2007/sep/02/sawinwood090207/ [2]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2007/sep/16/kansas_zone/?football