Should we be concerned?

Class of 61 · Post by **Class of 61** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:54 am

While looking thru many of the MAC commits, especially UT,Miami,Akron etc., the one thing that jumped out at me about BG's list (which only shows 14 on OCSN) is the lack of Ohio players.... Even counting Pronty into the mix, I believe we've only got 5-6 kids from in state...of course, I don't know names of kids that haven't been formally announced, but it would disturb me to see other MAC schools getting 12-14 kids from Ohio and us losing out on local kids.... Guess I'll have to wait and see for Feb. 1 to come around.

dduncan · Post by **dduncan** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:05 pm

I'm taking a guess here, but it seems as though Ohio kind of had a down year. Maybe I'm wrong.

To be honest, the least you have to worry about is the state of Ohio. If you were NIU and started losing out on Chicago players, then you'd worry. But Ohio has so much talent that having an off year isn't going to hurt BG. The university will always be able to sell kids from Ohio to stay in state or closer to home.

hammb · Post by **hammb** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:15 pm

dduncan wrote:I'm taking a guess here, but it seems as though Ohio kind of had a down year. Maybe I'm wrong.

I don't know about the depth of this year's Ohio class, but it was VERY good at the top. At one time there were like 14-15 of scout.com's top 100 from Ohio.

Of course those guys don't even consider MAC schools, so that's pretty irrelevant. I'm not sure how Ohio stacked up as far as depth goes.

Personally I don't worry too much about losing local kids, because BG isn't the local team to most of them. Yes they might be from Ohio, but this part of Ohio is not well known for it's football hotbed. The City League produces some talent annually, but not a ton of D1 talent. Most of the D1 players come from Cincy, Columbus, or Cleveland. OU, Miami, Akron, and Kent are all Ohio schools with more regional ties to those 3 cities than we have.

rocketfootball · Post by **rocketfootball** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 12:16 pm

That's the first time I have heard someone say the state of Ohio is having a down year. I know that is just you're guess.

Despite what some here may think of me, I don't say things because of a bias. Therefore I can tell you that BG has one of the top recruiting classes in the MAC, right there with Toledo, Miami, and BG. Akron has lost some guys and may lose that QB commit. Ball State isn't doing too bad either.

Bowling Green has been getting kids from elsewhere and they are really quality kids. I'm not sure how good you guys will be next year, but I think the overall future looks bright for you guys. You have some really nice recruits coming in from states other than Ohio and Michigan.

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 1:11 pm

From what I've gathered, this is a great year for talent in Ohio, particularly at QB. I think we've expanded our efforts in Florida and GA to address a lack of speed on defense. You can be small onD if you're fast. Last year we looked small and slow on too many occasions.

I'm becoming a bit of a junkie so far as recruiting info goes. From the looks of things, Akron got off to a good start and hasn't built on it. Miami got off to a good start and basically filled a smaller class pretty quickly. NIU has been doing a great job in Illinois and that has made it very tough on schools trying to make an inroad there (BGSU included). UT is doing very well in Ohio and they continue to build a presence in other states like Florida. BGSU is doing well also. We've begun to get the type of "High End" kids that Marshall and (this is for you RF) UT used to land exclusively in the MAC.

As far as I can tell...BG, UT Miami and NIU continue to get the most quality kids, but programs like Akron, OU, and Ball State are beginning to get enough of them to make life interesting.

NWLB · Post by **NWLB** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 2:19 pm

I think seeding the other states isn't a bad thing for BG. It fosters attention from local papers in areas we won't otherwise get press in.

Ohio fuels the backbone of eight 1A programs, one of the top 1AA, and dominates D2, D3, and at times as low as the NAIA for cripes sake. Not that the lower divisions factor into BGSU's existence. I wouldn't blame a coach from side-stepping Ohio to expand their roots a bit.

In the end, exactly why should we care where the talent comes from, so long as it goes to BGSU.

BourbonFalcon · Post by **BourbonFalcon** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 2:47 pm

Why does it matter where we're getting kids as long as they're quality players. Yes, I would like to have a strong presence in Ohio, but if other schools recruit better here than what we do it doesn't mean that Ohio's talent is down. We might just not be as much of a pull to Ohio recruits as other Ohio teams. I don't know, but I think I'm going to have to agree with RF on this one. He's a quality poster and has some very good things to say about MAC football. BG has some talented players coming in from other states, but other MAC teams are not settling for sub par instate talent just because we didn't recruit as many from Ohio as they did.

BGSUfalcons · Post by **BGSUfalcons** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:09 pm

dduncan wrote:I'm taking a guess here, but it seems as though Ohio kind of had a down year. Maybe I'm wrong.

To be honest, the least you have to worry about is the state of Ohio. If you were NIU and started losing out on Chicago players, then you'd worry. But Ohio has so much talent that having an off year isn't going to hurt BG. The university will always be able to sell kids from Ohio to stay in state or closer to home.

Quite the contrary. This is a very strong year for Ohio talent. One thing that struck me was that according to Rivals preseason rankings, there were only 30 something preseason 3 star players (this can't be confirmed now, since when you click on a player it shows their updated ranking), now there are 45. And, Ohio's 60th ranked player is a 2 star, 5.3 ranked player. Compare this to Pennsylvania. Penn has 42 3 star players and their 50th player is only a 5.2. Ohio is not only strong at the top, but very deep.

Edit: I should add that, as a general rule, I'd like to see more Ohio kids get signed. Still, BG did land two of the top 50 in the state.

Class of 61 · Post by **Class of 61** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:33 pm

The reason I posted this thread to begin with, is that it seems that BG's heavy recruiting base "back in my day" was NE Ohio. The number of Cleve. area kids on our teams was VERY large.... I too, have no problem with recuiting out of state talent, especially Fla. and Ga. where we've done well in recent years.... It's just that it seems to me that Miami and UT have taken quite a chunk out of BG's "base" if you will.

And Hambb, even though Kent and Akron are in closer proximity, i.e. NE Ohio, I don't see them taking the quality kids that Miami and UT have been able to get recently. Akron, in fact, has gone rather heavily out of state this year, according to the OCSN site that I looked at. And Kent? Well, they're still Kent....a few good kids, even NFL types down the road, but little else usually. I don't even consider NW Ohio in the mix for talent as to me there are lot of good small HS type players, but fewer D1 types. And Miami in particular has hurt us there (see Ryne Robinson etc.)

Oh well, at least this got us thinking, right?

orangeandbrown · Post by **orangeandbrown** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:37 pm

I personally worry when we recruit too much from Ohio. Our best recruiting classes have included significant out of state players.

Jacobs4Heisman · Post by **Jacobs4Heisman** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:39 pm

Florida is where it's at. UM's presence down there and Omar's future NFL presence only helps us down there. Keep recruiting that southern speed coaches. As long as we continue to get 5-10ish quality prospects from Ohio, including a big corn-fed lineman every year, we'll maintain our in-state base.

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:49 pm

I understand 61's pov on this....Ohio has a ton of talented players. And it does seem like BGSU isn't getting as many Ohio kids as in the past.

I, personally, don't care what state a kid is from...Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Georgia or even Alaska.

As long as he wants to be a Falcon....

There are millions of kids that play HS football but only 2500 or so get 1-A schollies every year.

BGSUfalcons · Post by **BGSUfalcons** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:14 pm

Jacobs4Heisman wrote:Florida is where it's at. UM's presence down there and Omar's future NFL presence only helps us down there. Keep recruiting that southern speed coaches. As long as we continue to get 5-10ish quality prospects from Ohio, including a big corn-fed lineman every year, we'll maintain our in-state base.

Obviously, there are more D-1A players in Florida than in Ohio. But, being located in, at worst, the 4th or 5th best state for high school football, BGSU should be able to get a lot of talent from its own backyard (including plenty of speed players).

BGSUfalcons · Post by **BGSUfalcons** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:17 pm

orangeandbrown wrote:I personally worry when we recruit too much from Ohio. Our best recruiting classes have included significant out of state players.

Yeah, but that is only because BG has missed out on too many of the great, but second-tier players that are in Ohio and not because the great in-state players weren't there to be had. I don't think too many of us would mind if BG consistently got the Mahone's and Brown's and Turner's and Pope's and.....

DrDesert · Post by **DrDesert** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:52 pm

NWLB wrote:I think seeding the other states isn't a bad thing for BG. It fosters attention from local papers in areas we won't otherwise get press in.

Ohio fuels the backbone of eight 1A programs, one of the top 1AA, and dominates D2, D3, and at times as low as the NAIA for cripes sake. Not that the lower divisions factor into BGSU's existence. I wouldn't blame a coach from side-stepping Ohio to expand their roots a bit.

In the end, exactly why should we care where the talent comes from, so long as it goes to BGSU.

Not sure what you mean by Ohio dominating D2 football. Last I looked, Grand Valley State (Mich.) and North Dakota were dominating that division. I think Ohio only has a couple of D2 schools in Findlay and Ashland.