What recruiting base is built in for them to dominate? What state can they raid at will?

Regional recruiting is the norm for most schools. They have to battle it out for recruits mainly within their state, somewhat regionally, and a bit nationally. The talent pool is thinned out. However, there are a handful of schools that can dominate recruiting in the states where they are located. The kings of college football are those schools, mostly because they are in the states which are the greatest producers of D1 and NFL talent. Their depth can be supplied by homegrown sources of blue-chippers. The regional and national recruits they get are not the foundation of their success. Notre Dame is not one of those schools. ND needs those recruits, and they have to compete to get them.

USC-California
Texas-Texas
LSU-Louisiana
Bama-Alabama
Florida-Florida
OSU-Ohio

As long as these schools dominate those hotbeds of talent, national recruiting schools like Tennessee and ND will continue to struggle regaining past glories. They can cherry-pick national recruits here and there, but those players can't fill out a roster. ND will continue to be inhibited from gaining talented depth, especially on defense.

Climate has something to do with it as well. States in warmer climates consistently produce defensive front 7’s with power AND quickness. The defensive size and speed of the South has been on display in BCS games over and over. For example, I think the embrace of variants of the spread “offense” by many Big 10 programs is mainly to give them a tremendous edge against the slow defensive front 7’s in their conference. However, there is also the strong possibility that they are embracing spread offenses in the hope that they will be able to mitigate the size/speed advantage of the schools from warmer climes in OOC and Bowl games. The Big 10 will continue to get its arse kicked by the dominant Southern schools otherwise.

quote:
If we arent winning titles then kids outside of the south dont know who we are.

Then, we were winning titles without them. It is another piece of evidence for the assertion that the South has more talent across the spectrum of positions than the North. Bad news for Ole Notre Lame.

This post was edited on 12/10/09 at 2:49 am