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At tonight's reception coach Brandon said he gets a lot of emails from some guy who starts virtually every note ROFO. That stands for "recruit Ohio football only"

Is that you?

If I was GB, I'd be more dubious about the emails that start with NIFOC (naked in front of computer).

A disproportionate number the best players of recent past have come from the South. Off the top of my head: Janssen Patton, Keon Newson, TJ Carswell, Jelani Jordan, Omar Jacobs, Charles Sharon and Daniel Sayles.

I bet there have been more "busts" from Ohio and the North than from the South in our recruiting classes.

Zom wrote:If I was GB, I'd be more dubious about the emails that start with NIFOC (naked in front of computer).

Zom: It concerns me that you came up with that first.

Noted, 87.

Life at IT's fast and frantic leading edge isn't always all it is cracked up to be. I blame celebrities for giving my customers all these ideas about how to use IT for anything but what IT is designed for.

And in case that doesn't put your mind at ease, bear in mind that the motivation behind every good IT man is how he can make a machine do everything so that the IT guy can just hang his feet thus..

Flipper wrote:At tonight's reception coach Brandon said he gets a lot of emails from some guy who starts virtually every note ROFO. That stands for "recruit Ohio football only"

Is that you?

Flip,
Naw, it wasn't me...and if you guys read my original post on this "issue", I simply stated that I was concerned that we were getting away from our Ohio "base" of recruiting, especially in NE Ohio and SW Ohio, where we traditionally have done very well. Do I object to getting Fla. kids over Ohio kids? No...as long as they ARE better.(and I hate to say this, but UT took a kicker from Benedictine, while we went to Fla. for ours last year...nuff said?)..but the HS coaches in Ohio will soon get a message similar to one of my friends who happens to coach at Glenville of all places...his comment? "why doesn't BG recruit Glenville harder?" He claims that there was a kid that he felt would've been a perfect fit for BG....oddly enough, that kid, if I recall correctly, wound up going to Wisconsin. Better fit? We'll see, i guess.

And I had a conversation at halftime of the women's game on Sunday with a "high ranking" Ath.Dept. official, who said that the MAC rosters are LOADED with out of state kids. True enough, but I see that OSU,Miami, Ball St. seemed to get their share of Ohio kids, while we got TWO (Three if you count the NJ kid who went to school in Cincy). Still can't figure that one out.
Someone (Hambb?) made a point that Ohio FB was "Down" this year, and that may be true...but it just seems to me that we've been slowly but surely getting away from our "home base".

I didn't think it was you...the implication was that this guy was kind of a crank. You're a better sport than that

I've been biting my tongue, but I'll say it and then resume the biting.

I can remember years when three quarters or more of our recruits were from Ohio and the balance was two or three from Michigan and one or two from Illinois and Maryland.

I'm thinking back to ten years ago, for example.

To be that Ohio heavy, I thought, implied we were not looking very wide and far for talent. It implied minimal effort. I felt that we could always fill a roster with Ohio kids by default, even if some of those kids turned out to be Division II quality.

Now, don't get me wrong; an all-Ohio class could be MAC-championship quality as well, no question. Ohio kids can play ball. We know what the Buckeyes have done with largely Ohio rosters.

But a lot of programs are picking over this state, and there is just no way to know whether, sticking to Ohio, we ended up with a MAC-title class or a GLIAC-level class.

So, unlike some of you, I like the fact that we appear to be working a pipeline from Florida. It implies more effort.

As has been noted here, we've had some phenomenally talented players from south of the Ohio River.

I'm also under the impression that other programs have improved themselves by building similar pipelines. I believe Kansas State and Minnesota both had serious pipelines running down into Texas.

I also think that it may be slightly easier in some cases to sell a kid from the South on Bowling Green.

First, as we've all discussed, campus visits matter. There is a certain spirit to our alma mater that touches the heart of people, and I do think this sense of friendliness and honesty that permeates our campus culture may help us in the South.

Also, it is possible that Ohio kids harbor more skepticism of the MAC than do these youngsters who only know us from ESPN.

It is possible that Ohio kids have a hard time intuiting that this is Division I-A ball, same as Ohio State -- where as a Florida kid can look at us on TV and not only intuit that but also recognize:

(a) The MAC is better than the local options in the Sun Belt, and a much easier flight home for the holidays than the WAC.
(b) However appealing the local MEAC school may be for historical reasons, it still isn't Division I-A ball.

So, I'm not bothered that we didn't get many Ohio kids this year. Rather, I'm impressed that we were able to recruit this heavily out of state. I'm not sure BGSU has ever done this before in the history of the program, and I'm impressed we were able to do it.

There is plenty to be concerned about right now for Falcon football fans. The hometown of our recruits is not one of them, to me.

Schadenfreude wrote:
I also think that it may be slightly easier in some cases to sell a kid from the South on Bowling Green....

Also, it is possible that Ohio kids harbor more skepticism of the MAC than do these youngsters who only know us from ESPN.

I've cogitated along those very lines. You hear MAC bashing around here regarding certain teams playing bad competition "like some MAC school." One would guess there is very little MAC bashing in the South.

GO BG!

Many good things in that post Schad. I like the way you illustrated the points as well.

Just throwing this out to get people's opinion regarding recruiting Florida so hard.

It is common knowledge that there are a lot of great high school athletes in FL. It seems like we have come to the point that if you want 'speed', you have to get kids from FL. But FL already has, what, 7 Div I schools (UF, FSU, Miami, S FL, FLAU, FLIU, CFU). So you have all those schools recruiting those players. Then you get all the BCS guys like OSU, UM, Tenn, Texas, etc. Seems like that is a lot of schools looking for players in Florida. Can we seriously expect to consistly find good players there when so many schools are looking for athletes there?

The same is true for Ohio...there are 8 division 1A programs and a fairly succesful div 1AA school in Youngstown State.

So, we need to get players where we can get players.

Flipper wrote:The same is true for Ohio...there are 8 division 1A programs and a fairly succesful div 1AA school in Youngstown State.

So, we need to get players where we can get players.

But their is only one major (BCS) school in Ohio. Florida has four plus a Conf USA school. From a recruit's view, you might say that is five schools higher in the pecking order than us. In Ohio there is just one, then all the other MAC schools on the same level.

But if you say OH=FL, why spend the extra dollars recruiting kids down there when you could do just as well here?

(I am not advocating one over the other. Just interested in other's thoughts on this issue)

I'm not saying OH=FL as much as I'm saying that the competition for players is such that we cannot afford to view ourselves as a Ohio only school. (I'm not suggesting that you think that either). We need to go wherever we can find athletes that will help us compete in the MAC.

We lost on a number Ohio kids we wanted. We got a some Florida kids that we wanted. Maybe next yearwe'll get more Ohio kids than Florida kids...

wasnt BG terrible in the mid to late 90's and werent those teams built of almost all ohio players. then when urban came in, he started the pipeline between georgia and florida and turned the ship around because after all, he is a master recruiter. as much as i am all for the south athlete, this class really isnt that impressive and espn agrees since we only have one ranked player it seems. The only two players that stood to me were nate brown and that offensive lineman from florida.