Southern states have a built-in advantage

[Eric the Red]

Southern states have a built-in advantage

 

Thursday, February 08, 2007

ROB OLLER

National Signing Day

Backing away: Running backs who left OSU

Slide show: Profiles of 2007 OSU football recruits

Position of attrition

Small but versatile 2007 class pleases Tressel

Notebook: Two cornerback recruits plan to enroll for spring quarter

Rob Oller commentary: Southern states have a built-in advantage

Big Ten, Ohio, local signings

Local signees

 

 

 

 

Empty playgrounds and icy conditions reveal the inherent difficulties and disadvantages faced by Northern colleges in snagging the nation’s best high school football recruits.

 

Ohio State knows this already, but the point was driven home again yesterday morning when something as simple as signing a national letter of intent became an ice cream headache — pain accompanying pleasure.

 

Cincinnati Colerain recruit Eugene Clifford had hoped to become the first player to sign with the Buckeyes, but heavy snow closed his high school, so the defensive back had to wait until his prep coach arrived by four-wheel-drive truck at his home before eventually signing.

 

Turns out that Ohio State got caught in a big chill of its own, getting frozen out of the national lists of top 10 recruiting classes. Michigan also did not make the top 10, collecting just five of its 20 commitments from instate. None of the top six high school players in Michigan, according to rivals.com, signed with the Wolverines.

 

Schools such as OSU and Michigan aren’t hurting for talent — you don’t reach the national championship game and play in the Rose Bowl by signing stiffs — but they do face a recruiting future that, if current trends hold, will become increasingly challenging.

 

Proximity to home ranks high among factors high school seniors cite in choosing colleges, which explains why the Southeastern Conference landed six schools among the top 10-rated recruiting classes. High school talent runs rich and deep in the South, where quality is matched only by quantity. Florida placed 308 high school players on Division I signing lists in 2005. Ohio was fifth overall with 140, behind California, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania.

 

The good news for places like Ohio State and Michigan is that schools like Florida and Texas can’t possibly horde all of their in-state talent. So a Florida native, such as newly signed OSU linebacker Brian Rolle, occasionally opts to come north.

 

The bad news is that as Northerners continue to move south, the football talent escapes with them. Even if Ohio’s talent base holds steady, it cannot compete long term with talent from the southern states.

 

A recent drive through desolate Columbus parks and playgrounds helps explain why. On Tuesday, when many central Ohio schools were out of session because of the cold, I failed to find even one kid playing a sport outdoors.

 

At Westgate Park, the only signs of activity were scampering squirrels, mallards preening themselves near a bubbling fountain and a robin that looked more out of place than a Floridian vacationing in Ohio during winter. Otherwise, the place was as dead as the dried brown leaves that dangle from the towering oaks. The open green space sat unused, potential football fields in hibernation.

 

At nearby Rhodes Park, the only noise came from cars speeding past on I-70. Livingston Park sat empty. Franklin Park. Empty. Ditto Wolfe Park and Krumm Park, except for a gaggle of geese. Across town, a man walked his dog in Northam Park. Otherwise, it sat motionless as a painting.

 

The lack of athletic activity is not an indictment of northern culture — it was 18 degrees, after all — but an indication of why the South is rising in recruiting. Given a day off from school in Florida, many students would be running around outside instead of holed up with an Xbox or PlayStation. When you can play outside 12 months a year, your skills and athleticism can only improve.

 

Combine that Southern talent with the propensity for recruits to remain near home and it becomes clear why Jim Tressel and his staff have their hands full, again, with Florida. The Gators, who had just one Ohioan on their 2006 roster, landed what most experts consider to be the nation’s top recruiting class.

 

Just another sunny day in Gainesville. Just another pothole that Northern schools must try to overcome.

 

Rob Oller is a sports reporter for The Dispatch.

 

roller@dispatch.com