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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 1653372, member: 837"] This is always an interesting discussion and I tend to fall sort of in the middle. I agree with the original OP to this extent -- there are still, even in a new age of technology and communication, significant advantages to recruiting kids who are "local" (6-hour-ish radius). I don't really care where they're ranked because if they are close enough you can actually scout them more thoroughly. You may have relationships with their high school coaches. You may be able to sneak out and actually see their game(s). You may have some sort of name recognition that you don't have for a kid who grew up 15 hours away and barely knows what the ACC is. You can bring them on campus to camps (really the most important one) or included them on activities they can attend on their own dime. They could, also, ultimately cost less to recruit and be more likely to honor their commitment for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is maybe being 'underrated' nationally by virtue of not being a traditionally strong football area. So again, I think you have incentive to recruit the core area -- if you want to recruit it as such. Having said that, it's important to point out to points that run contrary to original posts main point. 1) It's not [I]more[/I] important to recruit the states in your region. And ... 2) Things aren't -- and never will be -- the way they were even 20 years ago. So, to expand on point 1, I've argued this forever when people talk about recruiting -- states and locations don't matter. You can sign a 5-star recruit from a football rich area (johnny morant) or a complete afterthought, maybe even added after signing day and the results are really tough to project. Derrell Smith and Jay Bromley can be really, really good players and go on to the next level (in bromley's case) and Morant or a guy like Lobdell and can prove to be marginal contributors at best. The bottom line is that you need to get the talent. If they have a coach who kills it in NJ or FL, that's great. if they have more ties to midwest states as a result of their work at BG, that's fine. If it's PA and the mid-atlantic, awesome. Bottom line is that they need to sign talent and it doesn't matter where it's from, particularly with all the ratings sites and info that is out there on players who are outside your traditional recruiting boundaries. As for point 2, I think this is the biggest thing and I'm surprised there are almost 60 posts in this thread and no one's mentioned it. The talent drain we've had in traditional states has a lot to do with stuff outside of Syracuse's control. Look the mid-to-late-90s, which most of us probably view as our peak in the past 20 years. When we were landing all those NE kids we were all mentioning, our competition was a complete mess. [LIST] [*][B]BC Then[/B]: was brutal from '87-'91, had the gambling scandal and took a massive hit because of it, and didn't recover until O'Brien got them to a bowl in '99. That's pretty bad football from '87-'99 save for two strong years under Coughlin and an OK year the first season under Henning. [B]BC Now:[/B] Brutal season this year but BC came into this season going to bowl every single year from '99-'10 and this season came after two bowls under Addazzio. [*][B]UConn Then:[/B] Didn't exist (for all intents and purposes). [B]UConn now:[/B] They won at least six games in seven of nine seasons from 02-'10. Does that make them a regional power? No, but obviously that has an impact on regional recruits, many of whom are young enough at this point that they don't remember Syracuse as a better football program than UConn. [*][B]Rutgers Then:[/B] Essentially zero sustained success in the history of the program and in the midst of the infamous Terry Shea era (11-44). [B]Rutgers now:[/B] While Rutgers still only has had marginal success they have clearly hammered the Cuse in Jersey, particularly in the Schiano era and again, you'd trade our past 10 seasons for their past 10 seasons in a cocaine heartbeat. [*][B]Penn State Then:[/B] Huge obstacle in recruiting always but people forget that JoePa was under some huge pressure late 90s and early '00 after three of four seasons were under .500 and the talent looked atrocious. [B]Penn State now:[/B] Well, they're know as Ped St. after the pedophile scandal, so I suppose that's good for us, and they haven't won a ton of games. But somehow we'll still lose most major recruits to them. [*][B]Temple Then:[/B] From '91-'08 the Fab Four (Jeremy Berndt/Ron Dickerson/bobby Wallace/Al Golden (ok, Golden looks like Bowden compared to the rest, but still ...) failed to reach .500, many years struggling to win 3 or 4 games. [B]Temple now:[/B] not a super power by any stretch but Temple went toe-to-toe with ND (people hate ND, but the Irish were a couple plays from knocking off Clemson), won 10 games and finished in the top 25. They are at least not the joke they were. [/LIST] So what does that all mean? Basically that SU isn't going to simply dominate the local recruiting scene by default. Now, add in the fact that we lost advantages like being open to dual threat QBs (remember we land McNabb b/c we are the only school willing to let him play QB and throw -- Nebraska is running wishbone; By the time CJ Leak comes along everyone and their brother is all over him.), and you can see why the recruiting has struggled. What the answer is, I'm not sure, but I do agree that simply concentrating on core states isn't likely to dramatically change the results. [/QUOTE]

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