I bet if you looked at OU's roster they would have at least 50 from Texas on their roster.Oregon has kids from 25 different states on their roster...56 kids from Cali on the roster.CA and Oregon may technically be border states, but in terms of actual distance, I guess I don't see a dramatic difference between Oregon pulling kids out of Los Angeles and us recruiting Texas or Ohio.You bring up good points! Real fast though, Catholic High Schools do not only admit Catholic kids...far from it. But there is still a huge draw to ND from a lot of those schools.I agree that we have to travel to recruit. But it's funny that the author doesn't mention anything about long distance recruiting for a team like Oregon, ranked #9 on this list. They haven't handed out an instate scholarship since 2013. Zero instate Oregon recruits for 2014 LINK or the current 2015 class. LINK They actually travel more for recruits than we do. He does mention the recruiting factor for Notre Dame though. But he ties ND to Catholic high schools. Does Neuter Dame only recruit Catholics?I'm still not sure how it made strategic sense to the long-range future of the program.
Ultimately recruiting is the lifeblood of any program and there aren't enough players in Nebraska to be dominant. I counted 23 different states represented on this year's Nebraska roster. That has to be a record for any team on this list. You can win a national championship at Miami or USC without having to get on an airplane.
You have to live on an airplane to win nine games at Nebraska.
For Oregon, it seems like they get a lot of kids from Cali.
Oregon is a great example of what an infusion of a lot of money can do for a program. Okie St. is in the same boat. Lots of money buys lots of nice things and good coaches, which then can cause an upturn in a program that is not traditionally a power.