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As noted in the commits thread, I believe, Charles Brown, WR from Maple Hts., has now "de-committed" from BG to N.Carolina...this means, at the present time, only ONE OHIO kid is known to have verballed to us!!! Don't know about the rest of you, but this is quite disturbing to me; the fact that we have so little impact in our home state can be disastrous down the road, when the current Ohio kids graduate and leave the program...best recruiting is many times done by your current players..and I've stated before that I truly believe the best BG teams over the years have had a heavy influx of homegrown talent, especially NE and SW Ohio... it'll be interesting to see the final list in about another week or so....but I'm definitely NOT happy with what I see now.

Class of 61 wrote:As noted in the commits thread, I believe, Charles Brown, WR from Maple Hts., has now "de-committed" from BG to N.Carolina...this means, at the present time, only ONE OHIO kid is known to have verballed to us!!! Don't know about the rest of you, but this is quite disturbing to me; the fact that we have so little impact in our home state can be disastrous down the road, when the current Ohio kids graduate and leave the program...best recruiting is many times done by your current players..and I've stated before that I truly believe the best BG teams over the years have had a heavy influx of homegrown talent, especially NE and SW Ohio... it'll be interesting to see the final list in about another week or so....but I'm definitely NOT happy with what I see now.

I'm not happy either. This just goes to show that we are getting drilled in recruiting by the other schools in the state.

But look at all those Florida kids!

Well yeah...we didn't offer scholarships to any Ohio kids at all...

Doesn't matter if they're from Ohio, Florida, or Mars if we continue to fail in developing the talent.

All the coaching and player departures after a dismal season must have a negative effect on recruiting. Hopefully the Sebo is offsetting that to a degree. Don't know if having fewer Ohio kids is necessarily a terrible thing. Maybe we thought the players we had a shot at from other states were just better this year. Who knows?

Warthog wrote:But look at all those Florida kids!

Wart:

I'm not knocking the Fla. kids...and I like the fact that we've "expanded" our recruiting areas....but the fact still remains that OHIO is where we're at and should be accounting for at least 50% of our recruits each year. Granted, there are exceptions to this, but when you lose your "home base" for recruiting, I don't think it's healthy.

Class of 61 wrote:

Warthog wrote:But look at all those Florida kids!

Wart:

I'm not knocking the Fla. kids...and I like the fact that we've "expanded" our recruiting areas....but the fact still remains that OHIO is where we're at and should be accounting for at least 50% of our recruits each year. Granted, there are exceptions to this, but when you lose your "home base" for recruiting, I don't think it's healthy.

'61,

I agree with you totally. I should have put the after my last comments. It is disappointing that we are not doing a better job of landing the kids right in our own backyard.

If it helps, I know a certain 13 year old that will accept a football scholarship offer right now, if one was forthcoming. And he is from right here in Bowling Green.

bgsufalcon24 wrote:This just goes to show that we are getting drilled in recruiting by the other schools in the state.

Don't know that it's an "if-then" statement. What if the kids we're recruiting from out of state are better than the ones other Ohio schools are recruiting in state?

That said, I agree with Den's underlying premise, which is that we need to be able to recruit Ohio talent.

I don't doubt that we offered plenty of players from Ohio. The question is why are we losing out on them?

Recruiting players from your home state/area is largely a function of the relationships that the coaching staff builds with the HS coaching staffs. You must build those relationships to the point where the kids' HS coaches are pushing them towards BG. Clearly there is a ton of competition with so many other D1A schools competing for the MAC level kids in the state, but if we are to become one of the dominant teams in the MAC, I do think we must hold our own instate. Ohio is too strong of a HS football state to let all those kids go.

I have no answers as to WHY we aren't recruiting Ohio well, but I would be a lot happier if we were. It certainly doesn't hurt fan support to have some homegrown kids on the roster.

The "image" of our football program is pretty poor right now. It only makes sense that the local kids are more aware of that than outsiders. Combine that with a major staff shake-up, and you have a bad local recruiting year.

Just for the heck of it, and anything can change in the next week (but I don't see it being too likely), here are numbers of other MAC schools with total commits and Ohio kids committed. This is from Rivals.

School Total Commits Ohio commits


Akron 20 6

Kent 18 4(not a usual strong O.presence)

Miami 19 9

OU 13 5

Toledo 13 6

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and: Ball St. 12 6##

E.Mich 9 4##

This is what I was referring to when I said we seem to have "lost our presence" in state. EMU traditionally has gone after Ohio kids and it's a deal for them because of the Ohio=Mich. tuition deal they offer. But Ball St. with SIX?

The florida kids don't seem to last four years in the program though...

Ohio has some of the best talent in HS football too, probably right below Florida, Texas and California, but not far behind. HS Football is big time in this state. We should really be pursuing the talent in our back yard.

Everyone knows that I'm not a huge ohio hs football fan, but I do agree to build a fan base you need 3 things. A good and exciting team, a coach that the people like, and homegrown players that people have watched grow up.

It is not hard to believe that so many players are going to ball st. It is a program on the rise with and in my opinion behind Central, was the best young team in the mac last year.

As long as the team on the field is a heck of a lot better this year than the one we watched last year, I could really care less where we're getting our kids. Having said that, if I don't see a lot of improvement, then it will be impossible for me to justify giving Brandon another shot.