re: Bias toward New Orleans recruits?

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Compare that to all of the top recruits from other places that just fizzle out with no improvement from their highschool days. .....thats why recruiters keep going to New Orleans to invest their time.

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I was actually replying to the original post by saying that there is no bias. If there were, the top player in the state would be from south east Louisiana every year.

The only Monroe kids I wish we had offered that we didn't were Chuckie Hunter (over Mickey Johnson who never contributed) and Kevontae Turpin (over a different Monroe kid, Brandon Martin, that never stepped on campus).

Neither of those are hindsight, I felt that way during their recruitments. If I were going on hindsight, I wouldn't mention Hunter and his subsequent arrest.

Those are very minor quibbles though given how well we've recruited over the years. But I really never understood taking Johnson, who was old for his grade and was physically maxed out, over Hunter who played better competition in high school and was like 17 when he stepped on a college campus.

No, because they stopped coming around at all. Austin has been a Godsend.

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JJ27 being at the top of the list, were painfully aware of how little attention N La schools/kids got then, especially compared to the competitio


because they didnt offer a few fringe West Monroe kids?

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Nah, I'm not referring to offers (me personally, I remember JJ27 having issues there, e.g. Turpin) nor do I want to get into that. I do get hitting the NOLA area schools 'first' or 'heavy' and you will see spots fill up first because of that which means N La, and many other kids, will miss out. Just the nature of the beast.

I brought up JJ27 only in reference to there was a noticeable lack of coverage or effort in N La in comparison to other schools. More of a reputation or, in Les Miles speak, a lack of a want in N La. I think it was a personnel problem, not something the program as a whole intended. And other programs were going the extra mile up there. So by comparison LSU looked bad. It's not near as bad as it was, but some damage was done.

It doesn't matter really if LSU finds replacements/alternates elsewhere, which is what was happening.

The kids/prospects should be promoting themselves initially and then have the coach speak up for them.

And the list of great OLmen from NOLA is what?

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I absolutely hate coaches like this. I fight battles on a monthly basis against these power hungry control freaks, but I can only do so much. This type of behavior in a state like Florida would get a coach fired in a heartbeat.

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these are the mindsets that got us the split

Don't know about great but solid linemen that I can think of are Clapp and PJ Lonergan from back in the JJ/Lee days. I'd venture to say that Oline may be one of the areas we get a high percentage of out of state players, 8/18 this year. Not sure how that compares to other units. 3 total OL from NOLA area.