Local vs National Recruiting
The Crawford / Corley commits got me thinking about national vs local recruiting. Harbaugh seems to have tilted towards national in a way that Hoke and even RR never did. Maybe someone who followed recruiting back in Carr days could compare.
I went through the current top 10 classes to see how each school did in state vs out of state. First number is commits from within state, second is class size.
1 LSU - 12 /20
2 Michigan - 1 / 24
3 OSU - 8 /18
4 FSU - 8 / 18
5 Georgeia - 12 / 16
6 Florida - 15 / 26
7 Ol Miss - 4 / 20
8 Alabama - 4 / 17
9 ND - 0 / 22
10 Auburn 4 / 17
I think whats apparent is that Michigan has a built in disadvantage of residing in a football poor state.
If I did a bit more work I think if you considered region Michigan would stand out even more. 1 from MI, 1 IL, 1 Wisconsin, 3 from Indiana, everyone else is from out of region. Even ND has more midwest kids.
It seems like the sights view Corley and Crawford as just about even. We don't know who Harbaugh thinks will be better. I'm no scout either. But philosophically speaking, I used to think tie breaker went to the local kid since 1) he'd get our rivalvies 2) it would keep him away from our rivals. My opinion is the opposite now, possibly skewed by watching Hoke reel in local kids and also not developing talent.
This might also just be an aberation, as I think we are targetting plenty of local kids in 2017.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:33 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 8:34 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 8:37 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 9:16 PM ^
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January 9th, 2016 at 9:24 PM ^
Well, obviously I'm speaking generally. Of course there are examples of great players that come from the midwest, some currently on our team as you mention. Not all great players come from the south or west coast but I think a majority of the best players in football come from those areas.
January 9th, 2016 at 10:01 PM ^
January 10th, 2016 at 2:49 AM ^
come from the south and Texas and California because there are lot more football players in those states. That's reflected in the fact that most of the top 50, 100, 300, etc. recruits are from those areas. But your assertion that they outperform their rankings compared to midwest players is almost certainly not true. The services take into account factors like competition.
In fact, many believe there is a bias towards the SE in the rankings and in perception becacuse competition gets weighted too heavily rather than the attributes that actually make an individual player successful at football.
Bruce Feldman investigated this very topic in a cursory tally in 2009 of pro bowlers in the NFL: http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/blog/_/name/feldman_bruce/id/3934034/the…
Comparing the distribution of NFL pro bowlers (admittedly, a smaller sample than should be used. NFL starters would probably be better) in 2009 to the distribution of top 150 recruits in the same year (again not ideal, but let's assume the regional rankings distributions are mostly consistent), indeed there appears to be a bias with more talent to be found in the Midwest than recruiting rankings give credit for, and less in the south and Texas/SW than we are lead to believe, small sample caveats apply.
A more conclusive study would invole multiple years of recruiting rankings and multiple years of NF starters but ain't nobody got time for that (at least, I don't).
Pro Bowlers | ESPN Top 150 recruits | |
South/Southeast | 37% | 48% |
Midwest | 18% | 11% |
West | 16% | 15% |
Southwest | 12% | 16% |
Mid-Atlantic and NE | 16% | 10% |
January 9th, 2016 at 8:35 PM ^
Any kids from Chicagoland in that class? That's almost home for them, otherwise we got probably the best guys in INdiana
January 9th, 2016 at 8:49 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 9:23 PM ^
If they did, then we beat them out for Indiana's best - Ha Ha!
January 10th, 2016 at 11:14 AM ^
Its ok, we have 3 MI guys currently verballed so fair trade. As far as Peters he was offerred but I think he could see the QB writing on the wall plus I believe he is a pro-style?
As far as Evans, never offered and it appears like he might not even end up in your class.
Enis was not offerred.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:36 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 8:57 PM ^
A lot of recruiting is built on relationships at the HS level. Our new staff had a lot fewer local connections than is usual. That's something they're building up quickly.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:36 PM ^
more football players. We have a large enough populaiton(almost 10 milion) and a state that loves football.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:38 PM ^
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January 9th, 2016 at 8:48 PM ^
and ranges from meh to nice the other eight-nine months. Football can be played for the the majority of the year.
January 9th, 2016 at 9:43 PM ^
January 10th, 2016 at 12:42 AM ^
Well what about that hellhole directly south of us? They are pretty okay at developing talent and their population isn't THAT much higher than ours.
January 10th, 2016 at 1:47 AM ^
Ohio is declining as a producer of football talent, witness OSU's in-state numbers above and our lack of Ohio kids in this class.
January 10th, 2016 at 1:47 AM ^
Ohio is declining as a producer of football talent, witness OSU's in-state numbers above and our lack of Ohio kids in this class.
January 10th, 2016 at 8:48 AM ^
Therfore, it doesn't get funded like in other states. Also, MHSAA sucks
January 9th, 2016 at 11:12 PM ^
i'm sure they are running around playing football in central florida in mid-summer
January 9th, 2016 at 11:16 PM ^
Having lived in Ohio only 45 miles from the Kentucky border, Ohio has essentially the same weather issues as Michigan does. And yet Ohio is one of the better states for football talent in the country.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:39 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 8:49 PM ^
Michigan is not a small state.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:53 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 9:35 PM ^
Add to that the proximity of msu & osu, and UM has about as difficult a recruiting situation as any of what would be considered "traditional powers" of college football.
I'm not including occasional, periodic risers (such as Wiscy, Stanford or Oregon in recent times). I'm talking teams that have had multiple Top 15 type seasons in multiple decades.
As a point of interest, can anyone think of others that remain pretty much perpetually strong with similar recruiting handicaps? I'd go with ND, but the whole point is they don't really operate "regionally".
January 9th, 2016 at 9:43 PM ^
Nebraska (I know they're not strong now)
January 9th, 2016 at 11:07 PM ^
Others?
January 9th, 2016 at 11:16 PM ^
i believe the state of OK is similar to Mi. both fight over in-state talent while trying to pull guys out of talent-rich TX away from the longhorns; much like UM and MSU try to get players out of OH away from OSU.
January 9th, 2016 at 11:08 PM ^
Definitely:
Florida
Texas
California
Alabama
Louisiana
Ohio
Probably:
New Jersey
Georgia
Pennsylvania
North Carolina
South Carolina
Maybe:
Maryland
Virginia
I don't know if my list is accurate, but that's 13 states ahead of us, and some years we might be ahead of many of those states. Not saying our talent is proportional to our population, but saying "absolutely not" for top 15 is just false. That's not to say we have no hill to climb for recruiting with a fellow in state power and a monster not far south.
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January 9th, 2016 at 11:32 PM ^
January 10th, 2016 at 12:18 AM ^
OK, gotcha - you are competing for Mgoblog poster of the year:
Take a bunch of time to parse a post, debate it in detail, then agree it's probably correct in substance.
But you see, until you provide actual facts about how many All-Conference, All-American, and draft material type players come from each state, then my opinion is as valid as yours.
And since you already agreed that we do face enormous recruiting hurdles in a relatively medium talent-rich state, I can't see why you'd bother. But the Oklahoma Sooner call was strong. Very comparable. In fact, I'd say they'd exceeded our accomplishments over the past 50 or so years with similar hurdles. Of course, they've been dirty as Hell doing it, but that wasn't the question I posted, was it?
January 10th, 2016 at 12:41 PM ^
January 10th, 2016 at 12:44 AM ^
We are in the Top 10.
#10 exactly.
Until recently Michigan had been top 8. Within the last 2-3 years Georgia and North Carolina have surpassed us due to our very slow (and/or negative) growth and their very large growth rates.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:39 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 8:47 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 8:57 PM ^
I personally chose baseball over football my sophomore year of high school -- just as many of my friends did. The diversification of sports is really a non-factor when it comes to why Michigan is weaker than other states in high school football.
January 9th, 2016 at 9:14 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 9:19 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 10:44 PM ^
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January 9th, 2016 at 11:24 PM ^
Is that true for African-Americans though? There aren't a lot of black MLB players and I think most of them aren't even American. I don't watch college baseball, but from bits I've seen on ESPN and what not, I don't recall seeing a lot of black players. Basketball among African-Americans in the South doesn't seem particularly popular, at least in comparison to the Midwest, Northeast, and CA.
And I think it's safe to say soccer is more popular in CA than the South. Same for probably any other sport.
EDIT: I just searched Texas Longhorns and Ole Miss baseball team photos and they're pretty damn white.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:51 PM ^
January 9th, 2016 at 9:19 PM ^
A population of ten million is not much out of a national population of 315 nillion. It is 3+ percent. Of the three staes you listed their populations are FL. twenty million, CA 42 million and TX somewhere between 30 and 35 million. A lot more kids and a lot more schools. In fact AZ will popbubly pass MI in the next census. Hell even OR where I live is now over 4 million and we are considered a small rural state. The warm weather states offer the folks a lot more diversity of activity just because they are warm and people can practice whatever and participate all year long. I was born and raised in Michigan, but as a state the topdog Miichigan I remember from my youth is no more.
January 9th, 2016 at 8:55 PM ^
Nah, Michigan is a little cold for football (colder than NE Ohio even) and we love hockey (#2 behind Minnesota in that department). We like football, but it ain't what football is in Texas or Ohio. It makes sense.
January 9th, 2016 at 9:30 PM ^
At all levels football outdraws hockey by a fair margin. Hockey is popular among a certain segment of the population, but that's a limited segment. Football is enjoined by a larger and more diverse segment of the population.