Ga. Miss,Fla and Alabama with some Ohio thrown in also..These are the states we need to be hitting hard..Ohio has become this big deal with the Stoops and Marrow connections,but are we neglecting these other states?
Recruiting states..
- Thread starter bigbluedon
- Start date
I understand your post, but I think it should be flipped. Kentucky and Ohio should be the biggest concentration, there are just more players that are closer to our campus that we can compete with the Michigan State's and Wisconsin's of the world than going twice as far away and compete with the Georgia's, Auburn's, Alabama's, South Carololina's, Florida State's, Clemson's, Florida, Florida State's and Miami's of the world.
See what Im saying?
Plus are recruiting coordinator and Head Coach are from Ohio with the most connections. This is where the concentration should be most.
Now to your point, there are a few assistant's on this team that are not getting the job done, and specifically in those area's. It is my understanding that problem is being discussed and they are trying to find a solution.
Dave
See what Im saying?
Plus are recruiting coordinator and Head Coach are from Ohio with the most connections. This is where the concentration should be most.
Now to your point, there are a few assistant's on this team that are not getting the job done, and specifically in those area's. It is my understanding that problem is being discussed and they are trying to find a solution.
Dave
Let me add control the home state and stop the leaking of the very best of the in state talent out of state and to UofL. If you only lose 1 or 2 a year to those other schools that is a 5 to 10 player difference over a 5 year period. It is even more important that UK control the home state than most other SEC school because UK has less home state talent than most of the other SEC schools.
We've lost some kids the last weeks. Everyone's panicked. If the class finished where it is now (It won't) we'd have the 5th highest class we've ever signed. Two of the top 4 are Stoops first 2 classes. Another, 2006 was buoyed by 3 4 stars, one who never came and eventually ended up at Alabama (Goode) and home state studs Micah Johnson and Corey Peters. It's been a tough week, no denying it. Recruiting is still better today after that tough week than just about any time in our history ratings wise.
I like the idea of us continuing to do what we are, what's working, instead of going back to what Joker was doing, get your brains beat in in Georgia and Florida and grab up what no P5 school would sign. It would be nice to have a bigger presence in Florida and Georgia considering the staffs ties to the state in FSU and Scott, but what we're doing now is better. By a lot. Keep recruiting Ohio hard, keep keeping the best kids home, keep working and growing the connections in the DMV. Those should be our 3 strongest bases.
I like the idea of us continuing to do what we are, what's working, instead of going back to what Joker was doing, get your brains beat in in Georgia and Florida and grab up what no P5 school would sign. It would be nice to have a bigger presence in Florida and Georgia considering the staffs ties to the state in FSU and Scott, but what we're doing now is better. By a lot. Keep recruiting Ohio hard, keep keeping the best kids home, keep working and growing the connections in the DMV. Those should be our 3 strongest bases.
I can tell ya there are not many more prospects here in Miss than there are in KY. Especially when you throw in three FBS programs, two in the SEC, in the state. I would send my staff elsewhere.
Just too many good programs closer to Georgia and Florida to pull top kids out of there. You may get a few projects that turn out to be good, but most of the "wanted" recruits are going to sign with programs with tradition. I never understood why previous staffs tried to primarily recruit that area. At least ten or twelve schools could probably pull 95% of the recruits in that area before they signed with UK. Most of the recruits in those areas were turning down the likes of Tulsa and Kent St to come here and not Georgia, Florida, Bama, or TN. Pulling out the left overs worked out a few times, but most of the times it left us with second rate talent.
At least if you go north you have something to offer. Closest SEC team for most of them. Fewer top notch programs to compete with. Climate a little bit better. SEC network. Outside of Ohio State and now Michigan, no program up there among the elite of college football. Notre Dame (outside of the NC beat down from Bama year) and Penn State have not been relevant in years.
At least if you go north you have something to offer. Closest SEC team for most of them. Fewer top notch programs to compete with. Climate a little bit better. SEC network. Outside of Ohio State and now Michigan, no program up there among the elite of college football. Notre Dame (outside of the NC beat down from Bama year) and Penn State have not been relevant in years.
Recruiting focus has to be somewhere, and Stoops' focus makes sense. Stoops and Marrow are from Ohio. Stoops and Eliot coached at Florida State. In Stoops' 3 classes, Ohio, Florida, and Georgia are the focus. Biggest difference in focus between Stoops' recruiting and JP's is that Stoops places big emphasis on Ohio and the DC area whereas Joker tried unsuccessfully to break into Tennessee. Alabama not being overlooked, MacGinnis, Stallings, Stenberg. Kentucky not a big enough state to fill the roster of an SEC program, but Stoops has recruited better in Kentucky than his predecessors.
Thanks for the nice replies to the thread. It's nice to see civil answers and a nice discussion instead of the name calling and nonsense that goes on at this site so often. Good points were made and I appreciate the different views presented. Don
I don't think we are neglecting them, but whomever has those states as their responsibility needs to pick it up. My father (RIP) always told me that UK would never win big in football because we didn't have enough Div 1 prospects. I think Stoops is looking at Kentucky/Ohio as one "state" and they are going to try and get a lot of players from this area. I call it the state of "Kentuckhio" . We are six plus hours from Cleveland and 90 minutes from Cinn. He's calling that area our backyard. (IMO). For example it's six hours from Dallas to Lubbock Texas. It's 5 hours from Miami to Gainesville. If we can get a lot of good players from Kentucky/Ohio and do a better job with Georgia and Florida then I think we will be on our way.
Ohio is locked down, and will be until Meyer and Harbaugh are gone...
The Big 10 is back, that story may have seemed overblown and not mean a whole lot to us, but it means something in Ohio.
Urban Meyer is tied with Saban as the best coach in the country. The Buckeyes will be a perennial top 5 program playing for titles for the next little bit.
Harbaugh, also one of the better football coaches at any level, will have Michigan right up there nipping at Urban's heels. That rivalry will be back to its glory days, and that means a lot to the conference and recruiting territories up there. Kids have been raised on the lore of Michigan v Ohio St, and they want to play in that game.
After those two programs you have MSU, Wisconsin who are both top 8-12 programs. Penn State is coming back and will take their fair share of kids who want to play in the Big 10.
Then after the conference big boys have their pick you have Notre Dame as well as Cincinnati. The Bearcats are going to win 9 games a year in the AAC, some years more, and can pitch an easy road to a nice bowl game to the kids who may want to stay in state and not wait or compete for playing time at the big boys.
I know Stoops and Marrow have ties to the state, but they are coming in to homes after all those other schools, from a lower tier program with not a lot of street cred yet. "SEC" doesn't pull a lot of weight, especially north of the river and when you're program hasn't won more than 3-4 conference games in the last coon's age.
The talent that UK needs to go after has been and always will be in the south. There is more quality talent and depth in the southern pipelines.
Now more than ever that talent is up for grabs because of some uncertainty with a few programs.
South Carolina has peaked under Spurrier is nearing a transition phase as he gets closer to retiring. UGA has hit a stall under Richt and bulldog nation always seems to question his future. Florida has been in a rut, will be for another year or two, and no one down there knows who McElwain is. LSU and Auburn had off years. Some think the Mad Hatters reign is nearing its end. Miami is down, still feeling the sting of their sanctions, and not recruiting at the level that it once did.
Staff needs to get what they can from Ohio. But also understand that every second and resource they spend up there is a second and resource they don't spend in the south.
I'd much rather take scraps leftover from Tennessee (Randall Cobb, Avery Williamson) Georgia (Braxton Kelley, Wesley Woodyard, Dupree), South Carolina (Rafael Little), Florida (Danny Trevethan) etc...
UK can go into the southern homes and even though we're a lower tier program, "SEC" means a little bit to families. You can sell kids, especially the diamonds in the rough and guys who aren't highly rated or recruited on the chance to play for a SEC program on the rise.
You can tell them they will have a chance to see the field a bit sooner and more often and in a lot of cases get a chance to play. Also, in a lot of cases you can sell a kid on the fact that he will be able to play against high school friends and teammates, as well as come back home and play in front of friend, family, and neighbors when UK plays a big state school on the road.
This post was edited on 1/31 1:45 PM by truebluewildcat
The Big 10 is back, that story may have seemed overblown and not mean a whole lot to us, but it means something in Ohio.
Urban Meyer is tied with Saban as the best coach in the country. The Buckeyes will be a perennial top 5 program playing for titles for the next little bit.
Harbaugh, also one of the better football coaches at any level, will have Michigan right up there nipping at Urban's heels. That rivalry will be back to its glory days, and that means a lot to the conference and recruiting territories up there. Kids have been raised on the lore of Michigan v Ohio St, and they want to play in that game.
After those two programs you have MSU, Wisconsin who are both top 8-12 programs. Penn State is coming back and will take their fair share of kids who want to play in the Big 10.
Then after the conference big boys have their pick you have Notre Dame as well as Cincinnati. The Bearcats are going to win 9 games a year in the AAC, some years more, and can pitch an easy road to a nice bowl game to the kids who may want to stay in state and not wait or compete for playing time at the big boys.
I know Stoops and Marrow have ties to the state, but they are coming in to homes after all those other schools, from a lower tier program with not a lot of street cred yet. "SEC" doesn't pull a lot of weight, especially north of the river and when you're program hasn't won more than 3-4 conference games in the last coon's age.
The talent that UK needs to go after has been and always will be in the south. There is more quality talent and depth in the southern pipelines.
Now more than ever that talent is up for grabs because of some uncertainty with a few programs.
South Carolina has peaked under Spurrier is nearing a transition phase as he gets closer to retiring. UGA has hit a stall under Richt and bulldog nation always seems to question his future. Florida has been in a rut, will be for another year or two, and no one down there knows who McElwain is. LSU and Auburn had off years. Some think the Mad Hatters reign is nearing its end. Miami is down, still feeling the sting of their sanctions, and not recruiting at the level that it once did.
Staff needs to get what they can from Ohio. But also understand that every second and resource they spend up there is a second and resource they don't spend in the south.
I'd much rather take scraps leftover from Tennessee (Randall Cobb, Avery Williamson) Georgia (Braxton Kelley, Wesley Woodyard, Dupree), South Carolina (Rafael Little), Florida (Danny Trevethan) etc...
UK can go into the southern homes and even though we're a lower tier program, "SEC" means a little bit to families. You can sell kids, especially the diamonds in the rough and guys who aren't highly rated or recruited on the chance to play for a SEC program on the rise.
You can tell them they will have a chance to see the field a bit sooner and more often and in a lot of cases get a chance to play. Also, in a lot of cases you can sell a kid on the fact that he will be able to play against high school friends and teammates, as well as come back home and play in front of friend, family, and neighbors when UK plays a big state school on the road.
This post was edited on 1/31 1:45 PM by truebluewildcat
Florida has always been hit pretty hard by teams all over the nation, this year with UF's class being so down right now more top kids have left than normal. Texas has really come in hard this year. But with 5 D1 schools instate, plus the Alabama schools hitting it hard, Clemson and SC do to, UGA goes into Florida for 2-3 kids a year. Up until the last 2-3 years, it was mostly SEC schools hitting Georgia alone with Clemson and FSU hard, but that's changed. The top guy left on our board is down to Michigan, UCLA, neither who have ever recruited Georgia hard, and UGA. And no idea where we stand with him, but the last 3-5 years, Oregon, OU, PSU and a few others have really made Georgia a target to recruit hard. Not only that, we have to do our best to keep our neighbors, many who are much closer to a kid's home than Athens from flipping our commits. In fact we are really concerned about 2 of them now at a position of huge need flipping between now and signing day. But if we hold on to everyone and get lucky enough to land the top guy left it would give us 8 of the top 10 in state kids, 2 OT have EE, one to Clemson and one to SoCal. 3 years ago we signed 1 of the top 10, a disaster for us, and that 1 is no longer in the program. Recruiting is tough, no matter where you stand, all kids are looking to get on the field early, establish themself as a difference maker and to the league in 3 years, so they look at depth charts, they look at who is putting certain positions into the NFL, they look at the social life.
But I will tell you one thing that is getting used against UK, because the same thing is getting used against UGA. That is we suspend players for breaking rules, they miss games. Meanwhile other programs in the SEC suspend them after spring practice indefinitely, which means until summer workouts start. When you try to run a good program, and really punish kids for breaking rules, the others use it against you. Bama just signed a kid we dismissed for choking and hitting his GF with his fist, she pushed him, he is 6'5" 335, I am sure she put him on his back. This was after he tried to cash his stipend check twice and was put on probation by Richt. Bama said he needed a 2nd chance.
But I will tell you one thing that is getting used against UK, because the same thing is getting used against UGA. That is we suspend players for breaking rules, they miss games. Meanwhile other programs in the SEC suspend them after spring practice indefinitely, which means until summer workouts start. When you try to run a good program, and really punish kids for breaking rules, the others use it against you. Bama just signed a kid we dismissed for choking and hitting his GF with his fist, she pushed him, he is 6'5" 335, I am sure she put him on his back. This was after he tried to cash his stipend check twice and was put on probation by Richt. Bama said he needed a 2nd chance.
In the past we have tried to field our teams recruiting in the backyard of SEC team and remained near the bottom. There are a few examples named above that had success, but how many have not made an impact? You can't win consistently with inferior talent. Our SEC opponents have tradition, better climate, more nationally televised games, etc...Outside of the Mississippi schools and Vanderbilt, I don't know if there is a school in the SEC that 95% of the recruits in the south would pick Kentucky over if offered by one of the others (at least if they are a high priority recruit).
I think we should of always had a presence in Ohio. Ohio State is going to get the pick of the state and we know that. Michigan will pull more kids out, but I still look for Harbaugh to recruit more on a national scale with his west coast ties. Franklin at Penn State is a great recruiter. Michigan State is decent, but they play in a horrible climate for late season football. If Kentucky can get to a few bowl games and become competitive in the SEC, I don't look for anyone outside of Michigan and Ohio State giving us many problems in Ohio. We have a lot more going for us with the northern kids than we do in the south. Just too many schools with more tradition closer to these kids homes down south.
I think we should of always had a presence in Ohio. Ohio State is going to get the pick of the state and we know that. Michigan will pull more kids out, but I still look for Harbaugh to recruit more on a national scale with his west coast ties. Franklin at Penn State is a great recruiter. Michigan State is decent, but they play in a horrible climate for late season football. If Kentucky can get to a few bowl games and become competitive in the SEC, I don't look for anyone outside of Michigan and Ohio State giving us many problems in Ohio. We have a lot more going for us with the northern kids than we do in the south. Just too many schools with more tradition closer to these kids homes down south.
Another thing about putting so much emphasis on recruiting the rust belt is the dwindling population. One big reason for the decline of the Big 10 is the major population shift going on in the country. With so many prospects in Florida, Georgia and even Bama you have to maintain a recruiting presence there no matter how many schools are recruiting the area. And with kids transferring into the areas, there isn't the natural allegiance to the big area schools. Whereas in places like Mississippi where the majority of the few major prospects end up at either State or Ole Miss, and if they leave the area---the kids in the northern portion of the state go to Alabama or Auburn if they're good enough, while the ones in the southern area go to LSU.
Jokers staff tried to get into South Carolina and the DC area, but never really succeeded. It's been great seeing the current staff have success in the DC area, because the mid Atlantic area is another region that is experiencing population growths. And with the decline of programs like Penn State and Va Tech more kids are looking around.
The only other area I would like to see us step up our efforts in is the JR. College areas like Kansas and California. Kansas State or really Bill Snyder has had much success mining JUCOS for talent. During Brooks run we were able to supplement the roster using Ortmeyers connection to the west coast JUCOS. JUCO recruiting is crucial at a school like UK where major prospects in your backyard are few and far between compared to conference brethren. Jones has used jucos successfully at UT, where they have to depend on supplementing prospects like UK.
Jokers staff tried to get into South Carolina and the DC area, but never really succeeded. It's been great seeing the current staff have success in the DC area, because the mid Atlantic area is another region that is experiencing population growths. And with the decline of programs like Penn State and Va Tech more kids are looking around.
The only other area I would like to see us step up our efforts in is the JR. College areas like Kansas and California. Kansas State or really Bill Snyder has had much success mining JUCOS for talent. During Brooks run we were able to supplement the roster using Ortmeyers connection to the west coast JUCOS. JUCO recruiting is crucial at a school like UK where major prospects in your backyard are few and far between compared to conference brethren. Jones has used jucos successfully at UT, where they have to depend on supplementing prospects like UK.
As mentioned by the above poster, population and shifts are key...
The state of Florida just passed New York in total population. Something like 800-1000 people are rolling into Florida every day from the, mainly coming from the north east.
Georgia's population just jumped past 10 million, and is growing steadily.
I know the southern schools and big boys have their pick of the crop down here as well, but the talent pool is so rich and deep that there is plenty to feed schools from all across the nation, and that even the 2 star and 3 star players in a lot of cases can go on to be very good players and even make it to the pros.
Rich Brooks built the best squads UK has seen in a while and got to 4 consecutive bowl games with 2 and 3 star talent from Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida...
He and Joker were both largely criticized because of their recruiting...but look at the guys they hauled in and what hey were able to do for about a 5 year stretch...all the UK players in the pros right now are Brooks and Joker recruits...and all considered some of the best and most beloved to ever play here...
Imagine what Stoops, Marrow, and much more ambitious and capable recruiting staff can do if they really hit it hard down here...
Look what Charlie Strong was able to do...if he can get players to Louisville Kentucky, to play for big east/aac team...Stoops and UK can get kids to roll in...
Stoops may have ohio roots, but he has quite a bit of experience in florida...South Florida, Miami, and FSU...he knows where the talent is at down there...
The state of Florida just passed New York in total population. Something like 800-1000 people are rolling into Florida every day from the, mainly coming from the north east.
Georgia's population just jumped past 10 million, and is growing steadily.
I know the southern schools and big boys have their pick of the crop down here as well, but the talent pool is so rich and deep that there is plenty to feed schools from all across the nation, and that even the 2 star and 3 star players in a lot of cases can go on to be very good players and even make it to the pros.
Rich Brooks built the best squads UK has seen in a while and got to 4 consecutive bowl games with 2 and 3 star talent from Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida...
He and Joker were both largely criticized because of their recruiting...but look at the guys they hauled in and what hey were able to do for about a 5 year stretch...all the UK players in the pros right now are Brooks and Joker recruits...and all considered some of the best and most beloved to ever play here...
Imagine what Stoops, Marrow, and much more ambitious and capable recruiting staff can do if they really hit it hard down here...
Look what Charlie Strong was able to do...if he can get players to Louisville Kentucky, to play for big east/aac team...Stoops and UK can get kids to roll in...
Stoops may have ohio roots, but he has quite a bit of experience in florida...South Florida, Miami, and FSU...he knows where the talent is at down there...
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