Recruiting in the South... a different animal....
by OrangeNutz on Jan 28, 2012 12:30 AM EST
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PrintI'm living down here in Atlanta for the winter (sorry, I just can't stand winter) and I've been listening to a lot of local sports-talk radio. First thing I noticed is that they actually know what they are talking about , compared to the dribble we get in CNY. Secondly, local college recruiting has taken over ALL the news down here the last few weeks... they could care less about basketball, or any other sport. especially this time of the year. The recruiting wars are in full bloom right now, and there are some bizarre stories about ALL the big name programs, their coaches and their tactics to steal 4-5 star recruits from each other. One story involved this 4 star receiver who committed to GT this summer. He planned on taking a last minute trip to Miami to "check it out". The coach at GT (Johnson?) reminded him of his "rule": if you take another visit after you've made a verbal commitment, your scholarship is in jeopardy... we'll bring in some other recruits and, if we like any of them, we may offer them your scholarship!! WOW... and here we are begging 2-3 star recruits to stick with us!
Another interesting story was about how Alabama Coach Saban will tell a player who has not performed well that they will offer him a "medical hardship"... this means the player stays at school, free, and is almost certainly guaranteed a nice job afterwords. All he has to do is claim he has an injury. Then they offer his scholarship to a more potentially beneficial recruit. Alabama has done this to 28 players in the last 3 years, compared to the rest of the SEC which has, on the average, done it one time each in the same time period!! Add to this that almost all their recruits are 4 or 5 star athletes, and there is no question how these teams just keep reloading every year. How can a team like Syracuse, or the rest of the "have-nots", even hope to compete against programs like this??
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G-T has all of two 4 star recruits in their current list of commits according to Rivals
Its mostly a 3 star class with some 2’s mixed in. So my guess is that they too are begging some 2 and 3 stars to stay committed.
youre right though. it is night and day the importance of college football. i think that syracuse really just needs one nasty athlete a la donovan mcnabb to propel them back into the national spot light. right now its sad that recruits are equating su with wake forest vandy and florida international.
i also think we need to be more creative. exploring canada. offering one scholarhsip per year to kids from the city of syracuse buffalo and rochester and saying look theres one scholarship available. you want it – by the end of the year prove youre the best thlete.
its also one of those things where its shcoking how many more great fball players there are in the south than the NE a lot more competition, especially now with uconn, and rutgers whereas before it was just bc, penn state and pitt
Syracuse can't
and WVU can’t (although to lesser extent than SU because we’re closer to Dixie). The South and the West are where mass population shifts are occurring in the US. Young, successful Syracuse, Penn St, WVU, Maryland, Ohio State alum are moving South and have been doing so at a rapid rate since the mid 90’s. These folks are having kids who are in their mid-late teens and living in the ATLs, Charlottes, and Raleigh (among other towns) suburbs. Couple this with the large African-American population of the South and you have a recipe for the most coveted athletes being from the South.
It’s truly impossible to recruit w/ the likes of the southern schools, Florida and Texas schools because of geographic proximity. I have told many over and over again that Michigan will never be the Michigan of old. They certainly can be good again but not a national powerhouse year in and year out. Ohio State can because of the shear monstrosity of the state in terms of population, football culture, etc.
Programs like Cuse, WVU, etc. will need to be like the Minnesota Twins. Fit recruits to your style of play as opposed to getting the absolute best talent (ie. Yankees), have contingency plans for coaching that goes greater than 1 deep (Ie. have your eye on 2 possible candidates AT ALL TIMES in event your coach leaves), develop facilities as well as they can be developed, etc.
Finally,
a WVU fan with a sense of reason. ; )
SEC coaches are in "The catbird seat"
regarding FB recruits. They always have the pick of the litter because they are the premier FB conference.
Bubba Army
by AdirondackOrange on Jan 28, 2012 12:59 PM EST reply actions
forget college football for anything but a fun distraction
I mean, I will watch and root for Syracuse but unlike hoops where a ton of teams from bunch of leagues can dream of post season glory, that ain’t happening in football. If you are not top tier SEC or Big 12, or Ohio St. then just forget about it. Watch for the fun because you ain’t making a championship run.
Even if you have a really great team, unless you start out ranked high and being talked about as in the mix from the get go you don’t stand a chance.
So it doesn’t matter. Watch football for something to do on a fall Sat. and leave the championship to the leagues that will cheat more, pay more, build taj mahal facilities, and honestly have more home grown talent in their region ( but the payolla and the rest of the cheating doesn’t hurt either).
Ya know you are actually right. Hard to admit but it really is pretty tough for most schools to even dream of a championship.
Like a lot of things it goes in cycles but it is usually the same suspects. As a big SU football fan I think what I hope for is an entertaining style of play or at least masterful execution of “pro style” football. So a conference championship and some national recognition(does not mean legit championship shot) are a realistic goal to hope for. Very good points NoXCUSE99!!!
This is exactly how I see it
There was a good thread on here recently about how tough it would be to get SU’s facilities on par with big time programs and the conclusion by everyone is that it’s just not going to happen.
The spectacle of a college football game is very cool and I have been to SU games home and away, but it’s hard to view SU football the same way that I do SU basketball. The horrible bowl system and the lack of parity in college football makes it far less interesting to me than college basketball. I would have liked to have seen Boise State go undefeated this year and not make the championship to further highlight the absurdity of the whole system.
That's how I see it, too....
I just enjoy it for the entertainment value… I don’t get freaked about who’s coaching, how they’re coaching or what recruits we get. I’ve accepted the fact that the NE, and SU in particular, will always be a second tier team, at best. So What? It’s still fun to watch the kids play each game and root for your home team, regardless of the disparity in the talent available from here compared to the rest of the country. GO SU!!
Reduce the number of scholarships....
Wouldn’t that help getting more parity across the nation? Why is there an absurd amount of schollys for football? 85? Really? You only have 22 starters. Why wouldn’t this number be more like 50 instead, which would spread the talent out more? Sure, teams like Cuse still wouldn’t get the 5 stars, as they’d all go to the SEC anyway, but we’d get a few four stars, and our team would be full of 3 star players. The different between 3 and 4 stars and 5 stars is minimal….
It’ll never happen, but I wish it would…..
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