College recruiting has always been a chicken or the egg deal.

You need recruits to win, but you usually need a track record of winning to land top recruits.

However the talent is secured, there is no denying its importance when it comes to building a football or basketball powerhouse.

Look at any championship roster in NCAA football or basketball, and you’ll see it filled with former five-star recruits on their way to professional sports.

Coaches are important, and can often make the difference when two top dogs are fighting for a championship.

But it’s the players that get the teams to the precipice of greatness.

Which brings me to Mizzou.

The folks in Columbia were going through a tough time when Athletic Director Mack Rhoades left for Baylor last week after 14 months on the job.

The school is now without a president, chancellor or athletic director.

The latter won’t be filled until a president or chancellor is hired, which likely leaves the Mizzou athletic department in limbo until 2017.

The Tigers have a first-year head football coach in Barry Odom, and an unproven head basketball coach in Kim Anderson, who is entering his third season with little success to date.

But despite the lack of optimism on the horizon from either of Mizzou’s money-making sports, the key to success in Columbia remains the same as ever — recruiting.

More specifically, recruiting well in Missouri.

That hasn’t always been the case for Mizzou football and basketball, which could have benefited from more local kids in the last 15 years.

Coming off an Elite 8 appearance in 2002 and a 20-win season in 2003, Head Basketball Coach Quin Snyder appeared to be in a good spot to parlay the success into better results on the recruiting trail.

Four hours south of Columbia, Poplar Bluff’s Tyler Hansbrough was rising up the national rankings.

The 2005 graduate chose North Carolina instead of the local school, and Snyder was fired during Hansbrough’s freshman season in Chapel Hill.

Losing to a program of North Carolina’s caliber was nothing to be ashamed of, but it was just another missed opportunity for a program that needed a boost.

Hansbrough’s younger brother, Ben, turned down Mizzou for Mississippi State and later became the 2010-11 Big East Player of the Year at Notre Dame.

Mizzou lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament that season.

Having the Big East Player of the Year might have helped, regardless of what system former Head Coach Mike Anderson deployed at the time.

In the last five years, the state of Missouri has produced 12 basketball players ranked in the top 150 of their respective recruiting class on Rivals.com.

One of those players — Class of 2014’s Jakeenan Grant — chose Mizzou.

Grant transferred out of the program this spring.

Programs like Notre Dame, Baylor, Texas, Butler, Indiana and Duke have poached high school players from Missouri.

Most recently, Incoming senior and Columbia native Michael Porter committed to the University of Washington after his father was named an assistant coach.

Porter is ranked No. 2 in the Rivals.com Class of 2017 rankings.

Maybe Anderson didn’t want to offer Porter’s father a job on the staff, which is understandable.

But if Mizzou had been a stable program with a track record of success, maybe Porter would have grown up dreaming to be a Tiger and his father wouldn’t have needed to be hired in the first place.

Kansas City native and former Kansas Jayhawk Brandon Rush, the younger brother of Mizzou standout Kareem Rush, spurned his brother’s school for its arch-rival in 2005.

The younger Rush led Kansas to a 2008 national championship while Mizzou finished 16-16 and missed the postseason.

Football has been no different.

When Mizzou beat No. 1 Oklahoma in 2010, it did so on the back of star quarterback Blaine Gabbert, who threw for 308 yards and a touchdown.

Gabbert was a former No. 1 ranked high school quarterback from St. Louis.

Being fortunate enough to have the nation’s best high school quarterback play in your backyard was a luxury Mizzou might not have for decades.

But it showed what successful in-state recruiting can do for Mizzou.

It’s unclear what the next athletic director will do with the football and basketball programs.

But Odom and Anderson could help their causes by doing whatever they can to lock up the borders, and fast.