SEATTLE -- When University of Washington athletic director Scott Woodward announced the hiring Chris Petersen as the schools head coach it signaled a change. Under former head coach Steve Sarkisian it was about elite California recruits, other recruits, and then a handful of instate prospects. After his departure and in a few cases while he was at UW it was revealed that Sarkisian and local prep recruits weren't exactly on the same page.

L-R (Morgan Richey, Max Richmond, Budda Baker, Shane Bowman)

In just two months Petersen and his staff flipped Budda Baker from Oregon, Shane Bowman from Oregon State and convinced three-star offensive tackle Morgan Richey and running back/defensive back Max Richmond to walk on. Four players from Bellevue High School bought into Chris Petersen and his style, a trend which Richmond believes will continue.

"It's huge for Bellevue because I know UW wants a pipeline to Bellevue and this just started it," Richmond told Realdawg.com. "Landing four in the first Petersen era is huge. Butch likes this staff a lot I know that for sure as he has has a couple former Bellevue players go to Boise State under this staff in Travis Stanaway (Safety) and Marcus Henry (OL) so we know he likes the staff there a lot."

When Baker, ranked as the No.54 player overall by 247Sports in the 2014 class, decommitted from Washington it made the Bellevue quartet realize where they wanted to sign. In a group text amongst the four Baker revealed his plan and it was shortly after the other three made similar decisions.

"I remember a group text and Budda was letting us know he was going to decommit from Oregon and Shane was like "how do you decommit bro?"," said Richmond of the conversation. Bowman, who was committed to Oregon State for almost six months, did not receive an offer from Sarkisian so the thought never crossed his mind.

Once Bowman and Baker made their decisions it was up to Richey and Richmond to decide where they wanted to go. Both received walk-on offers from Washington and chose to stay home over other options.

"After we knew Shane and Budda were going to go to UW then came me and Morgan who met with the coaching staff and we were like why leave? We all made it pretty clear to each other a week before we were all going to commit there! So in a way it fell into place but it also kinda was planned, I mean it was huge for there to be four of us to go to the Dub."

For Richmond the decision was rather easy with his family history lathered with purple and gold.

"Both of my parents went to the UW and my grandparents went there and it seems to just be the right fit. My best friend is Budda Baker and he has been my best friend since 5th grade and I've always competed with him at an extremely high level. And when he decided he was going to go there along with 2 other Bellevue players Shane Bowman and Morgan Richey, I thought to myself this is a great opportunity and I want to take this route.

"It's a great education there at the University of Washington and I absolutely love the new staff. I had other schools I could of played for such as Idaho, UNLV, Montana, and Nevada but I wanted to compete with the best because I know I can compete with all these PAC12 players."

With all four bound for UW what does the future hold for instate prospects. According to Richmond Petersen will land a lot more instate recruits than under the previous regime.

"Oh way more and not just Bellevue kids, but I believe a lot more in state recruits will be landed," he said. "Every player around the area is attracted to coach Pete and not a lot liked coach Sark from what I heard. Who wouldn't want to play for Petersen?"

Washington has their eye on several 2015 and 2016 instate prospects. While Petersen's approach might drive the fans craving early commitments crazy he makes it worth while in the end.

The state of Washington prep stars are enamored with Petersen and that spells nothing but good news for the first year coach at UW.